Oh boy, using the Dictionary plugin is very useful for your case with a level editor!! I'll answer in great detail as I am also working on level editor stuff and it's enjoyable to make and think about! Grab a glass of water and regret ever asking for help!
Dictionary
Think of it like: Dictionary is very similar to Instance Variables. Dictionary is a list of "Keys" (Keys are like an Instance Variable's name) and a value that you choose what data you want to save, strings and numbers can be used. So yeah it's just like Instance Variables but with extra power, and keeps all this data in one place.
So for example, in your project, lets use a Dictionary to store all the bits and pieces of data about the level such as the "Level_Name" and other data maybe like "Version" or "CreatedBy" depending on what you need.
To store data in a Dictionary:
- Add a Dictionary, rename it to what you want like "DictMapData".
- Go to Event Sheet and Add new event.
- In the new event, add condition as a test like "On SPACE key pressed".
- Add action DictMapData>Add Key, then key name to "NameOfLevel", value to "TestMapLol"
Can then add a Text object as a test, then add one more event to like "On G key pressed", then Set Text to DictMapData.Get("NameOfLevel")
Now run the game, press SPACE, and yeah, text gets set to "TestMapLol" so we know the Dictionary has stored the name of the level, woo!
Other Dictionary notes
You can download this dictionary the same way as you have done for the Array, load the same way. It downloads all that data as 1 file, nice and tidy!
Add hundreds of keys if you wish, it performs excellently! Could add keys like "Version", "CreatedBy", add more events to set/get data from TextInputs that the player types into and such.
Could add other cool stuff, for example, with Date plugin added to your project, you could do action for Dictionary: Add key "DateOfLevelCreation" with value Date.Now.
You can then set a Text object at any time to Date.ToDateString(Dictionary.Get("DateOfLevelCreation")) and this will display the creation date of the map to your players.
Image files can technically be stored in the dictionary if you ever need that sorta thing (Maybe you use images for an icon of the map, or custom sprites/backgrounds) but I'd say it's preferable to keep images separate, because: In order to store the image, you need to convert the image into a value that can be stored in Dictionary which is either a string or number. There's a way to convert image into a string, known as Base64, by using the Cryptography plugin. But problem is, those strings are HUGE and don't wanna slow down Save/Load and player sees the game lag, or worse, there's so much image data that when you load it in all at once, it crashes the game. Maybe 1 or 2 small images are fine. To be fair, haven't tested it much, maybe its fine to add images to Dictionary, it is probably a good method for a Website-based game if that's what you're goal is.
Saving big lists of items with an Array
In a level editor, you'd have things that the player can endlessly spawn. Maybe it's ingame objects, coins, spikes. Maybe your TileMaps if there are more than 1. This is where things get more tricky as you have to deal with Arrays, but overall it will make a lot of sense once you use them long enough.
Array is more or less a grid of data. 1D being a list, 2D being a grid, 3D being a...3D grid.
When using the actions in an Array object, it can be a little confusing, like "Push" and such to add values - You can use these if you wish, but I will use an alternative method as I feel it's more "readable", using "Set Size Of Array" and "Set Value At".
1D
Basic list of data, an Array with size of 5x1x1 is essentially "A list of 5 bits of data I want to store". As Array's work with index numbers you write data to the Array at X=0, X=1, 2, 3, and 4. Maybe you write a shopping list with this: Set Array X=0 to "Bread", set Array X=1 to "Lemon", etc. Very basic type of Array.
You might be able to use this for your TileMap objects if it's literally just the TileMap JSON data needed and no other data:
- Add new test event like "On A pressed".
- Add action Array>Set size to 0x1x1 (this empties the list so we can start adding)
- Subevent under "On A Pressed".
- On subevent, add "For Each - TileMap".
- On subevent, add action Array>SetSize to X= Self.Width+1 , Y=Self.Height, Z=SelfWidth
- Add another action Array>Set Value At X, X=Self.Width-1 , to value TileMap.AsJSON
Done, so say you had 6 TileMap objects, and you press the A key, the result will be the Array reaching size of 6x1x1 , and each list item is the TileMap's JSON string.
You can then load by making an event: Array>For Each X, then action: Create Object TileMap. Another action: TileMap>Load From JSON and type Array.At(Array.CurX) as CurX gets the Current "For each" index. This loop will check X=0, see the TileMap data, load it in, then the next part of the loop checks X=1, see the TileMap data, load it in, etc.
2D
Lets go to 2D Arrays, lets say size is 5x10x1, this can be thought of in two ways: Either "This is a list of 5 "groups" of data with 10 properties", or "This is an X and Y coordinate grid". In the case of saving a list of objects and data, we will think of it like "A list of 5 groups of data with 10 properties".
A 2D Array is a good path to take. Lets assume we want to store 5 pieces of data per object. Your Array would start at size 0x5x1, as we have no object data stored yet (0), and we have 5 pieces of data we wanna store about the object (5).
In your mind, or write this down, but you want to "map" each number. As we want to store 5 pieces of data, we need to decide what we want for each index from 0 to 4 (Seems strange it goes to "4" but think of it like index number 0 is actually storing data, so we still have 5 properties, but it just starts at index 0 and ends at index 4). So as a random example, I will plan that Y0 will be for the "NameOfObject", Y1 will be the XPosition, Y2 is YPosition, Y3 is Object's colour, etc.
Follow similar events to the "1D" example as written above, but instead of "Set at X", you can use "Set at XY", then the X remains as "Self.Width-1", and the Y can manually be typed, lets say 0 because we want to write in the "NameOfObject" data, then set value to "TestObject" or "TileMap" or whatever. CopyPaste this "Set value at XY" action, edit, change the Y to 1, we planned earlier that 1 will mean "XPosition", so we can then set this value to TileMap.X. etc etc etc.
The loading part is similar to 1D, too, we still only need to do a "For Each X" for the Array, but we can do extra stuff now in this creation event, so could edit the "Create Object TileMap" action to update the position correctly and set the X position to Array.At(Array.CurX,1) and Y position to Array.At(Array.CurX,2). Tada, this makes the TileMap load to it's correct position!
I will skip 3D Arrays.
Use both Array and Dictionary for readable and expandable level editor data
Once you are VERY familiar with all of this, the ultimate wombo combo you could do is a combination of a 2D array AND Dictionary. Will go light on detail:
You can add many Dictionarys, maybe you add them for each Level Editor object and use them as an alternative to Instance Variables, so each Enemy object gets it's own Dictionary and stores Health, Ammo, Type, Colour, and other customisable pieces of data.
The benefit of this is: You could have your 2D Array be 0x2x1, and we will plan the Y=0 to be "TypeOfObject" and Y=1 to "DictionaryAsJSON". Then follow the example written in the 2D section above, but simply load this dictionary in for each level editor object with 1 action, and now you have an easy-to-use Dictionary and can get data from Key Names rather than "memorising/reading notes about the Array to remember what each Y index is supposed to mean", or else you may be like "Was index 12 the colour of the object? Was index 33 the angle of the object?"
Download/Save/Load stuff
I notice you use "Download" for the Array (and you would then use Download for the Dictionary), which is good for a game that's going to be uploaded onto a website or for Mobile devices. For desktop/EXE/Steam games, the "preferable" way would be using the FileSystem/NWJS/WebView plugin, letting you have a "Save to" window popup and such if needed, and also being able to write files directly to the player's computer without any popups (With "Download" the Dictionary data always goes to the player's C:/Downloads folder, but with these plugins for desktop games, the player can choose the location to save, or you can design you game to automatically save in any location on their computer).
Hope this helps and good luck!