Can we have a clipboard object which interfaces with Binary Object at some point? Twould be groovy.

It would be nice if you could define a kind of 'Safe house' Layout, which comes up for certain errors.

Maybe if you gave construct a set of name constants, like:

$_DX_NOT_INSTALLED

$_MISC_ERROR

Where you name a layout with one of those names, and the layout becomes an error screen. It woudl have no special features, just sprites, enabling you to use your game's own graphical format to alert for errors.

Cleartype fonts would be the main thing I think.

Might it be possible to alter the HTML Control so it renders with transparency? That'd be awesome, so that the background could be semitransparent. I dunno how it'd work exactly, however, because you'd really need for it to be blendable. So alpha PNGs blend with the transparent background, and cleartype fonts too.

SQLITE 3 would rock <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_smile.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile" />

Only languages I know:

PHP, HTML, and Portuguese. None of which I imagine will be that useful <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_wink.gif" alt=";)" title="Wink" />

Coitado de mim <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_sad.gif" alt=":(" title="Sad" />

Copy/Paste of alpha channels should be added if it aint already <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_smile.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile" />

Also, how about a little feature to sense what's on the clipboard and seek an appropriate object to import it?

So if I select some HTML text in IE, and paste it into the Layout Editor, Construct will think "Oo! HTML text!" and place an HTML Control floating at the mouse position, containing the HTML text we pasted. You then click and the object gets placed there.

Similarly if the clipboard data is an image, Construct could insert a sprite containing that image.

ASCII text would paste as a string object, RTF text would paste as an RTF object.

Also, in the event sheet editor, t'would be lovely if we could drag a 'Set variable' action into the conditions space, thereby creating a 'Variable is equal to...' condition. Just to speed stuff up really.

I'm a little concerned that one or the other will be neglected, but we'll see what happens. I know that's not the plan, but often when you have two entirely different ways of coding something, one way takes precedence.

But I really do welcome the whole modularity thing.

Yeah, it could be cool to deliberately store sprites externally once the game is built to an EXE. I'd love it if people could mod my games easily!!

It worked for halflife <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_smile.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile" />

In the meantime, there are ways to cut down on the processing.

You can test how close enemies are. For instance, if you have 100 enemies in the level, but only 10 are on screen, only run an LOS test on those 10.

Also, when doing an LOS test, you may use several detectors, but only do ONE test. So on each loop, you need to arrange the events so it moves all the detectors at once.

That'll cut it down a lot.

I don't think directs are a problem.

You would handle it this way:

Always

• Shoot bullet at player

if the bullet hits the player, he can be seen. If it hits a wall, then there's no line of sight.

I think it uses 360 degrees, with decimal precision, so it'll hit its target.

You can also layer the loops, so fire a detector to test if the player can be seen, then resize it to the size of the enemy and fire again - this time to test if the enemy will actually fit.

You can then set these as states:

CAN SEE PLAYER = YES

CAN WALK TO PLAYER = NO

-Then stay where you are and shoot

CAN SEE PLAYER = YES

CAN WALK TO PLAYER = YES

-Then run towards him and shoot

CAN SEE PLAYER = NO

-Wander aimlessly

One idea may be that for the project panel, you could simply have folders like this:

Layouts

• Jungle Madness 1

• Jungle Madness 2

• Street Rage 1

• Street Rage 2

• Create New...

Event Sheets

• Loader

• Player Movements

• AI - Monkey

• Create New...

Objects

• Player - Default

• Player - Cool

• Player - CyberSuit

• MY MONSTERS

-- Bullfrog

-- Lizardman

-- Chinese Person

-- Polish Martian

• BACKGROUNDS

-- NORMAL

--- Grass

--- Sky

--- Tree 1

-- SNOW

--- Grass

--- Sky

--- Tree 1

• Create New...

Subfolders, etc, would be created by the designer. So it'd be up to the designer to determine how things are organised internally. But perhaps subfolders could be changed at runtime? So an event to find all textures in 'Backgrounds\Normal' and change the active path to 'Backgrounds\Snow' would instantly load the snowy equivalent?

This idea's only rough, but at least it'd help organise stuff. At the moment, I think it's too heavily centralised on the Layouts.