Hi, I've had this idea bubbling away in my head for years and I'm finally starting to work on it. I'm non-tech, new to programming and all my ideas are at about Phd level.

This one is very basic though. As a proof-of-concept, I want to integrate this thingy (see: 'retrieving video comments'): developers.google.com/youtube/2.0/developers_guide_java

into an interface which I'll build in Construct2.

I want each comment to be a separate entity - just like it is on the page - so I can do different stuff with each one - as opposed to a lump of homogeneous text.

Another 2 approaches are here:

jsoup.org/cookbook/input/parse-body-fragment

blog.outwit.com

I don't understand any of it really, but I get the gist of what's going on. I just want to add the code to my Construct app so I can get a prototype up and running. It can't be rocket-science to someone who knows what they're doing.

I'd appreciate good-natured volunteer help, but I might be able to pay you as well. A development partner would be even nicer, as there are a lot of things to discuss.

It's up to you; and whether we work well together of course.

To see how my mind works and where I'm heading:

ayasdi.com/product

I'm a writer and musician, so my approach has a lot to do with linguistics and finding 'the real question.' I'm very fond of Design Thinking as well - same thing really.

The original idea I had about a decade ago was 'El Goog - the engine that searches you.' In recent months I've refined the concept significantly.

I'm mainly focussed on the big picture, so I need others to help me with the details. There's no pressure or expectations, but it would be nice to get a prototype up and running after all these years. The main point is to test my hypotheses and get feedback at this stage.

"This is a technical manual for javascript programmers."

Says it all really.

Re: prototyping - well, yes technically, and Twitter and Facebook are also examples of modern literature.

There are non-tech people who will use Construct to prototype - like me. Make it easy for them and they will come in droves, make it hard (see above) and you undermine the basic premise of making it easier. It's up to the developers really.

That's what i mean by prototyping - accessible prototyping, not something I can do with a degree in programming in another programming environment anyway.

I just assumed that was implicit.

Excellent list.

Perhaps include a section on integrating foreign bits of code, for beginners. For instance this:

jsoup.org

There's probably lots of people like me who want to jump ahead and then come back to the simple stuff when they've got a prototype working.

Maybe even a specific topic for prototyping - as that's really the strong selling point of Construct2.

This may or may not be related to my latest bug post - it seems oddly similar.

Perhaps have a look at that and see if it points you in the right direction. It could be an inherent bug in Construct. That's all I can suggest I'm afraid.

scirra.com/forum/topic85048_post497680.html

Perhaps I'll post them in the general forum in future. The steps are exact. That's why I went to the trouble of reproducing it twice. It's the best I can do, I'm afraid.

It happens every time.

You can close it if you like, it's still happening but it's not the end of the world.

Thanks, but... I just switched from about 15 years of using Mozilla. I'm sure Chrome has come a long way, but the day I'm pleasantly surprised by a Google product....

FWIW I've used several other education-oriented packages to teach myself, as a mature-age whatsit. These include Sanbox Gamemaker and Alice - both specifically designed for students, by teachers and I've found Construct2 to be superior in every way.

The main issues I have with the interface is, while it's good and makes every effort...., well that's the thing - it shows that it was written by a programmer 'making the effort'. So the logic of the layout makes sense to a programmer like yourself, but I can't inherently understand why behaviours are over there and actions are over here.

In effect, it slows down the learning. When I was a kid, and still now, I wanted to jump ahead - I'd grasp the concept and want to start applying it. It's how humans are built. While the manual and tooltips are good, the program and manual don't combine to 'mentor' people to jump ahead and use their initiative. This is very limiting to its education potential.

I've just done a really easy (and dare I say, patronising) course in Design at Udacity and it was actually really great for ramming home these concepts of Good Design. The users need to shape the interface and even the manual. That's the message I got from that course. And, I'm tinkering with a way to make this happen in a manner that doesn't interfere - in fact streamlines your workflow.

Think of it like a startup - again I got this from a good Udacity course - Steve Blank says: 'No business survives first contact with it's customers' - the message being, you keep adapting. Apply this to interface design and you'd maybe try to implement a modular layout.

2 precedents: Foobar and Scrivener. Both let you interact and reshape the UI. Scrivener is especially nice because it allows you to work in fragments - this would be excellent if applied to Construct2. I guess you can have multiple layouts - so it's similar.

If users could manipulate the workspace and then save and share those manipulations as templates it does 2 things:

1. improves the app

2. reduces your workload

2b. increases goodwill... and so forth.

A collaborative Sourceforge style workspace could be created where people could share these templates. You could also get people from art communities involved - where they specialise in UI design.

I have a plan to monetise and make this self-supporting, so please get in touch to register your interest, because I think most of the work could be profitably outsourced in a responsible and community-oriented way. I'm having chats with Crowdtilt about it, and we'll see.

And I just discovered another issue - the actual reason I missed the intro bit: the CleanPages plugin in Opera reacts weirdly to your tutorial format, re-inserting page 1 between sequential pages - in a continuous scroll manner.

Update:

drive.google.com/file/d/0B0MWE8QALlw7RXRCOTlxZTBuRGc/edit

drive.google.com/file/d/0B0MWE8QALlw7U3Yzc3BTQWEtQWc/edit

I've managed to reproduce the before and after - imperfectly. You can see one of the problems - the planet/platform issue, but not the other main problem (with the asteroid). It's the best I can do.

Each project is clearly labelled and also contains the original layout of the offending project for comparison.

It happens every time and naturally goes on to delete the entire form. I was as quick as I could be this time - I prepared my link in advance and everything and it still did the time-out. Really, really worth fixing this.

Incidentally, I'm having a chat with Crowdtilt about designing a better bug resolution system for all, feel free to register interest via PM.

That's good news - where did they say this? I'm surprised they didn't reply in the thread.

Link to .capx file (required! If link is blocked remove the http and www parts):

drive.google.com/file/d/0B0MWE8QALlw7VmNvSmpxSXpvMHM/edit

Steps to reproduce:

1. Follow Platformer tutorial

2. Apply cropping to both animations - as per tutorial

Observed result:

The Asteroid's centre-point has moved outside it's bounding box and it skips around.

The Planet/Platform it no longer aligned to grid/itself.

Expected result:

No change.

Unfortunately the backup setting was set to 1 (default) so there aren't any proofs that I'm not mental.

And the Undo only goes back 20 steps - which for animations is useless.

Browsers affected:

Opera

Operating system & service pack:

Win7 SP1

Construct 2 version:

158.2/32bit