desktop version you say?

I have a mac.

How do you apply for a refund?

I had this problem with C2.

I suggested a fix. https://www.scirra.com/forum/has-anyone-actually-used-this-seriously_t109509?&hilit=stuatk

It was fixed. A quick button to reload your images.

Now it seems 10 times WORSE.

C3 - Please tell me Im wrong!

The only way to update the images for an animation is to do the following:

click on your animation (lets say its a 6 frame walk).

you CANT select multiple frames!?! - so you have to delete each frame one by one.

right click - import frames from strip.

Navigate file system to find update image file.

click load.

NOW REPEAT FOR ALL YOUR CHARACTERS ANIMATIONS!!!!!! .. maybe 20 times!!!!

EVERY TIME YOU MAKE A CHANGE?????

I can't be right. Please tell me.

Construct does soooooo many thing so well and intuitively... then one of THE most FUNDAMENTAL things is totally disregarded ?????

I upgraded yesterday because I was loving it, I didn't check these simple things because I assumed they must be in place considering how nice it is (was) to use.... heart broken

So. Make sure your animations are 100% finished first time you import them, because updating them will make you want to weep.

dare I ask how updating other things work? - sounds for instance? Dare I look.

Tell me I missed something simple - please!

ok! Ashley has responded to the re-importing sounds and sprites problem in another thread... so hopefully soon we will all be saving a load of time and pain...

Its very impressive that Ashley is so active in the forums and listens to our problems... credit to him.

Ashley - Thank you for the quick response.

Yes - those 2 points are what I believe we need, it would be excellent if there was an option to either "reload from source" on just the current selected animation or for all the animations for the sprite. Reloading all the animations is what people would probably need most of the time, and if the system can't find a file bring up a file requester so the user can either cancel the whole operation or go find the file again...

And maybe just right clicking on a wav and having a re-import option... or bring up the file requester if the files are missing...

I hope these ideas can be implemented without too much pain, and again, thanks for responding.

Thanks to everyone for their input -

zendorf - brilliant ideas all around, it's great to have intelligent input from a developer who comes from a different background. I'm sure Scirra is considering some of the options you've mentioned - well I hope they are... I too have tried all the alternatives (gamesalad, stencyl etc) and despite constructs problems - I think it's by far the nicest to use, and is a brilliant fast creative way to work - it has immense potential.

maybe a short term fix for lack of external asset referencing: save some data along with the sprite that contains the path and file name pointing to the original file imported. Then have a "reload from source" button, if the asset has been moved report the missing path to the user and allow them to edit it if they want. I remember the 3dsMax used this method if it couldn't find your textures.. (same for sounds) just an idea.

Thanks for joining in but kind of proves my point that you can't possibly have gone through a whole project with an artist working beside you... or he would tell you pretty quickly why it's so tedious and time wasting trying to update animations.

I've worked in the industry for 25 years, from adventure games on the Amiga, Tomb Raider 1 and 2, pc, xbox, ios titles... I used to design our in house tools with the lead programmer on Tomb Raider.. the only reason I'm saying this is just to give you some perspective on how well I know how these things should work..

Once the animations are stored in separate folders the artist has no choice but to perform an export from his art package for every single one of these folders... so if your character has 12 animations - 12 separate exports, 12 times double clicking on folders 12 times selecting yes - overwrite files... 12 times changing the frame range (say the jump anim is frame 6 to 12 ) then back again..... 12 times ... every time you tweak your sprite - you get the idea.

where if all the files were in one folder, all the animations for the character were named hero01.png, hero02.png...//...hero32.png you can export the entire animation in one command, the entire range of frames for all the animations! Then construct just knows that the run animation is from hero12.png to hero20.png for example.

Then pop back to construct (in your reply you say just overwrite the files, but then, officially are you not suppose to go and find the sprite and choose "reload from disk"?) and refresh your sprite. Job done.

I've tried using sprite sheets, that's worse. There is no way of just updating the sheet the sprite refers to, because it too stores them as individual frames in individual folders, if I could just overwrite a single sprite sheet image I would. The only way you can update a sprite that uses a sheet is to reload the sheet for each animation and redefine the range for each animation.... very painful.

You say just overwrite sound files... yes but what about generating the .ogg and m4a files? So I have to generate them myself then overwrite them manually. That would work. But the manual says nothing about updating your sounds... because really there is no way, just a bodge, overwrite and generate the other formats yourself. Maybe should mention that in the manual. Which by the way I think is excellent, well written and well laid out - I mean that.

Construct is so nice and a joy to use in places... I just feel that it has not been tested thoroughly, it seems as though using a community for testing and improving is the way tool developers (and game developers) do it these days. But I'm not paid to test and debug it am I? Why should I take up my time testing and debugging something that I've bought? Wasn't that suppose to of been done already? - I understand there has to be a little flexibility with this... but it shouldn't be relied on as the main way of testing.

And the other oversights and problems? - I've got to get on with some work, I've spend enough time on this already...

and I thought updating a sprite was really bad...... then I dared to do something really complex like..... update a sound -

so there's no "reload file from disk"..... so I thought ok, just re-import it, a bit crap but hey, and... as most of you know it rename the sound!!!!!!!!

Importing and managing assets must be improved before adding new features like lighting!!!!!!!!!

Problem Description

I have a sprite which has 5 animations.

when I copy over the files inside each separate folder for each animation - and return to Construct and open said sprite in the sprite editor, all the frames have been updated (interestingly I don't need to select "reload files from disk" for the updates to happen) the bug is this: all the frames of each animation have been updated except for the very first frame in the first animation (just for info, this animation is only one frame).

So there is no point attaching a capx, or filling out the rest of the form. Just try it with any sprite.

The fact that all the animations are split over multiple folders makes updating sprites so time wasting and tedious I believe it to be a very serious issue. Updating assets must be improved before any new features are added!

Attach a Capx

____ Upload a Capx to this post ____

Description of Capx

____ Concise description of what this CapX does ____

Steps to Reproduce Bug

• Step 1
• Step 2
• Step 3 etc.

Observed Result

____ What happens? ____

Expected Result

____ What do you expect to happen? ____

Affected Browsers

• Chrome: (YES/NO)
• FireFox: (YES/NO)
• Internet Explorer: (YES/NO)

Operating System and Service Pack

____ Your operating system and service pack ____

Construct 2 Version ID

____ Exact version ID of Construct 2 you're using ____

Thanks for your thoughts, glad to hear its not just me suffering when trying to update files..

As far as this problem being on the "to do" list - it should of been discovered immediately, there should have been an artist along side Ashley, who after a few hours of trying to update his sprite would have turned around and told him how time consuming and tedious it is. That's what makes me think there was no artist/designer doing any testing.... and like all the game engines out there, the creators focus on putting new features in (like lights) to create headlines in the hope of finding new customers... while allowing fundamental issues untouched.

Having said this, I know Ashley is really active with the community and does his best to fix bugs... but its becoming obvious its too big now for one person to code.

I keep finding so many oversights and problems (that I'm pretty sure could be fixed without too much stress) that it feels to me that construct hasn't actually been tested/pushed very much.

A super simple example: update animations of a sprite - output from a third party art package (pro-motion)

After you have created all your animations - stand, run, jump, walk, punch... etc all the image files are moved into separate folders, so back in my package of choice I have all my character's animations in one long animation (standard practice). In order to update the animation in Construct (using "reload files from disk") I have to individually save each frame from my source animation into each folder that has been created for each animation by the system. It takes far too much time to do this - and it should of been thought of from the beginning - and I can't believe it hasn't been brought up before and has not already been addressed.

meta data should be saved that stores where these files were loaded from the very first time - so I only need to replace my original images - and a function needs to be added - "refresh files from original"... this is how it is done properly!! i.e Unity, unreal etc.

The most frustrating thing is, a fundamental work flow issue like this should have been discovered during TESTING, never mind by the community after release.

And on a lighter note: it's so bloody frustrating because Construct is so close to being brilliant. It needs more investment - more programmers and testers!

thanks farflamex, I was thinking about setting my own values at run-time like you suggest, I think that would be the clearest and simplest way...

I think I'm finding some stuff very confusing because I've spent so long using the Unity engine... but I really like the idea of using Construct for bashing out some fun little html5 games.. but with Unity soon supporting webGL I'm not sure it's worth getting to know Construct too intimately.

cant get it to work - before I spend anymore time trying to track it down could anyone let me know...