Hi. I'm doing a web app and really appreciate the full-screen letterbox ability, introduced in r91, but would like the ability to change the colour, or even do a rudimentary customization of the background--adding in some form of texture, or tiledBackground instead of pure black.

How difficult would this be to add?

Also, I'm wondering on the wait-time for per-layout-loading.

Thanks guys.

What is actually wrong with this?

When you press 'P', the side-scroll bar appears?

This only happens, for me, when I shrink my window down. I think it's appending several breaks (<br />) under the canvas. I think it's because the button itself messes with the formatting of the page.

Try it, but instead of using a Button, try just a simple sprite or text, and see if it does the same thing.

Edit: I removed the button, and it didn't have the problem after that.

Rather than it being a 'layers bug', it's more an unintended behaviour of the Button plugin, that only shows itself when it's visible. Still, if that unintended behaviour is able to be cleaned up by Ashley, that'd be awesome.

Have you tried simply pinning objects onto the main space-ship?

You can also use things like, Is Moving, and Object Between Angles to find out whether the player is moving a particular direction etc.

This is a serious question: how much do these animations matter?

I would recommend forgetting about them, working on other stuff, and coming back to it when you're fresh.

I'll try and look in a little closer and see what's wrong with it, in a little bit.

In regards to the collision detection; the CustomMovement doesn't collide with Solid objects. I would recommend utilizing either an 8'directional movement, or car behaviour, for it to collide. Edit it within events to get it feeling very 'astronaut'.

Now, to get the character to hold an object, you're going to have to make a boolean instance variable called IsHoldingObject, and by default set it to FALSE. Also set a PIN behaviour to the boxes, and add in an image-point in the astronaut's animations, where he would normally 'hold' the objects.

Now, when the astronaut collides with a box, it checks if the astronaut [not]IsHoldingObject, and then sets the position of the collided box to the image-point (that I mentioned earlier) of the astronaut. Then, pin the box to the astronaut, and set IsHoldingObject to TRUE.

You can have a particular button which will drop the crates, such as the space-bar. When that key is pressed, make it check if IsHoldingObject = true, and if so, unpin the NEAREST (to the astronaut's image-point) crate.

Also, the crates should all have physics, with no gravity, on them. That's how they'll bounce realistically.

In regards to number 3: I have a decently fast computer, and I don't have any problem with lag when pressing keys.

It has to loop through until sprite's opacity is zero. Make the mouseclick turn on some variable, and then have that variable be a condition for the sprite to lose its opacity.

I know it's not a direct answer of the question, but you can just use instance variables 'goToLevel' on each, and have it:

Touch | On touched subLevelBoard

subLevelBoard | if goToLevel = 0 -> System | Go to Level01a

subLevelBoard | if goToLevel = 1 -> System | Go to Level01

subLevelBoard | if goToLevel = 2 -> System | Go to Level02

etc

I'm not sure there should be other people working for Scirra. Here is an excerpt from the Tao of Programming:

A manager went to the master programmer and showed him the requirements document for a new application. The manager asked the master: "How long will it take to design this system if I assign five programmers to it?"

"It will take one year," said the master promptly.

"But we need this system immediately or even sooner! How long will it take if I assign ten programmers to it?"

The master programmer frowned. "In that case, it will take two years."

"And what if I assign a hundred programmers to it?"

The master programmer shrugged. "Then the design will never be completed," he said.

It's actually really simple:

System | For each enemy

enemy | is on-screen

System | Every [random (2, 5)] seconds -> enemy | spawn bullet on layer 1

"What about way to group objects in folder so I can move them, rotate together as one"

This is what Families or the Pick All function are for.

However, I would really love to be able to have families of families, or families that have different objects in them (like sprite + particles + texts), only to change the base values of each of the objects (set visible, set opacity, set position etc).

Yes. Use the Pick nth Instance under the Systems option.

So, it'd be:

System | Pick Rotator instance 0

Pin rotatingBallThings to Rotator

System | Pick Rotator instance 1

Pin otherRotatingBallThings to Rotator