This might be an overkill, but while waiting for a "hide effects in editor" you may try this quick'n'dirty effect I wrote for you, named Switch.

It is intended as a switch to hide all previous effects in the chain, so Switch needs to be the last one. Also, it is not intensively tested, it might not work in all situations.

Switch has one parameter called "Status". The default value is 0, which means that Switch isn't hiding anything. Set this value to anything else than 0 to hide the previous effects.

Of course you should add an "Start of layout"-event with System->Layers->Enable or disable layer effect->layer x disable "Switch".

This way the settings don't affect the game when running...

Download: Switch.fx

Great news! Finally, Construct will communicate. I'd still prefer a plugin, but with all your work so far you've pointed to an alternative that's worth to try.

I thought I should point to this link about port numbers as early as possible that helps avoiding conflicts with multiple port use.

What keeps you from using the built-in "Load from file"/"Save to file" actions of arrays/ hash tables?

I thought, it was about having only one collision mask while maintaining more than one frame?

Wow, wow, wow...

One word to describe what I can see: smoothness. Everywhere, in every detail, it's fantastic. Last time I got that excited about a 2D-game was when the original prince of persia came out for Macintosh...long time ago...

The bad news: It seems, that this game is coming out for Xbox Live Arcade only ...

Totally off topic but...

I too tried experimenting with what deadeye said, but I too have no idea what "overlapping at offset" means. Now I'm curious, 'cuz that could come in handy in the future.

It's a view to the future... no really, instead of checking for a current collision, you ask if there would be a collision, if you would move the object to that offset. You get the answer before really doing it, so you can decide to move the object or not.

Some time ago, I created a grid movement alternative, involving events and functions instead of behavior, and of course movement not teleport.

Have a look at

Maybe it helps.

So there's an object covering the screen which is completely hidden EXCEPT in areas that are covered by the particles (or overlapped, whatever). So the tiledbackground image is effectively a background behind each particle because it only shows in spots where the particles (or sprites) are, but still covers a much larger area even though you can't see it.

But that is exactly what the cap does, unless I miss an important info...just get rid of the text layer, and the tb is only shown where the particles are and nowhere else while covering a greater area...You should give it another try

I was wondering if there's a way to have a large colored sprite (or tiled background) or something behind the particles that will only be shown in the spots where the particles are. I'm not sure how to do this or if it would look right, but I really don't want a lack of color to ruin my special effect. Does anyone know how to make this whole thing work?

My example is probably not exactly what you are looking for, but basically it is possible. Maybe the cap gives you a starting point for it. It was created to demonstrate something else, I'm not sure if I cleared it completely from the rest.

Here is a picture of what it does:

And here is the link (cap saved under 0.99.62):

http://www.mediafire.com/file/mki2kbqtgtj/examplecoloredparticles.cap

Or outsourcing. Example: If I have an event sheet full of not object related functions, I would like to export them, so I can import them in another project as needed. Would speedup the workflow as well as letting you build up a library.

What it is:

Exactly what the name implies. A classic zoomed blur.

The cap shows a simple example of a layer zoom pepped up with a dynamic zoomed blur.

How to use it:

Blur - defines the amount of blur to be applied in percent (although I found, values around 2% to 20% are most suitable).

Horizontal Center - the horizontal position of the center in percent.

Vertical Center - the vertical position of the center in percent.

Installation:

Download "ZoomBlur.fx" and place it inside the effects folder.

Downloads:

ZoomBlur.fx

zoom blur.cap

Hope it is of use