C2 gui enhancement ideas (@Ashley)

Hi Ashley,

I'm working now for some time with C2 and I like it very much!

Working on larger projects I had some ideas for enhancements with the gui and maybe you are interested implementing it...

-> working with sprites (copy & paste) the layers are very useful to group different types of elements.

It would be nice (optional) to paste sprites on the same layer the copied sprite comes from (unattached the actual selected layer)

Even when selected & copied several sprites from several layers (each should pasted to the depending source(copiesource) layer.

(e.g. wall-sprite copied from layer1 but current layer is layer4. when paste the wallsprite is placed in layer1)

-> zooming (with ctrl+mouse wheel): it would be nice, if the zooming center would be the mouse position (known from Adobe PS).

yours, mercuryus

If I am understanding this correctly, wouldn't this be solved by creating another sprite with the same image(s) and giving it the same behaviors and variables and putting it on a different layer?

Are you asking for a way to have multiple sprites of the same type on multiple layers?

Sorry you missunderstood.

It's a question about organizing instances of objects in layers (one object = same layer, unattached the active layer while pasting these instance/s).

The benefit is to hide all instances of objects with hiding the layer (they are all placed).

Actual if you copy an instance and want to paste it on the same layer you first have to change the active layer if an other layers is the active (and all instances are spread over many layers if you forget to change the layer).

bump

i dont think this is something they willl spend time on as it makes no sense to . just make sure to check the active layer or if you want all of that sprite on one layer once you place them all select the sprite in the objects window that will selct all of that object on the layout right click one of them and click move to layer select layer you want them on

volkiller730: looks like you also don't understand my 'problem'.

Actual working with C2 using multiple layers in huge levels (reusing complete sectors spread on different layers) sucks.

Its a good idea. Whether it will ever get implemented is another matter. A zoom in to the mouse pointer has been asked for ages and still no sign of that.

This is exactly the problem I am dealing with also. I have to create many platform levels which have a number of layers. It it would be perfect if I could copy a collection of objects from different layers and then paste them into a different6 layout with the objects pasting back into their assigned layers. That way I could easily copy and paste many maps together from small map segments.

Layers & the layout editor as a whole need some work. Starting to piss me off how every single request the past year has been completely ignored.

Layers & the layout editor as a whole need some work. Starting to piss me off how every single request the past year has been completely ignored.

I presume every single one of 'your' requests as I have seen a number of big requests being rolled out over the last year.

Really? Like what? There have been dozens of requests by many people to improve the way layers, tilemaps, default instances, layout properties, etc. work and none of it has been addressed. I'm just tired of seeing the same things over and over while all that gets worked on is broken exporters and broken features for them. The editor itself needs more attention.

Really? Like what? There have been dozens of requests by many people to improve the way layers, tilemaps, default instances, layout properties, etc. work and none of it has been addressed. I'm just tired of seeing the same things over and over while all that gets worked on is broken exporters and broken features for them. The editor itself needs more attention.

TBH I'm glad that multiplayer plugin rolled out first than the editor environment improvement (I once requested same thing like a you are before). I'm sure you are here long before me, but then what Ashley prioritized to be developed/improved first are for reasons, the software itself is still young, give it a break, first thing first.

I can relate this in game development as well, I always try to get mechanics/gameplay to be perfect first, then polish, I think this should be the same for C2, which I think editor improvement is similar to game polishing stage. Just my 2 cent.

Tokinsom : Look at the beta releases, their are lots of tweaks and improvements that have been made in many areas, including usability. The animation importing workflow has been improved recently for example, with the "reimport all animations from disk" feature.

With a team of 2 devs, you can't expect them to content everyone. I'd love to see existing tools and workflows being polished up just as you do. But other users would rather want new and exciting features, right? It must be a tough balancing act for the devs.

The problem is that many components of the editor were designed as 'minimum viable product' just to get things rolling early on, but were never really polished / finalized. Instead we got more and more new stuff, lots of which is hardly used afaic, and they were forgotten about. I get that Ashley is more or less the sole developer..what I don't get is why that's the case when C2 has a much larger user base than many other engines. C2 should have a decent staff by now. I suppose thats another topic though. Anyway...yes, we finally got proper re-importing for sounds, shader toggle in layout, and animation paths, so hopefully we'll see the rest soon enough.

To be honest there has not been much work on making the IDE easier to use. e.g., Why is it still not possible to search for keywords throughout the project? At the moment I use an external program to search the event XML sheets. It would improve productivity significantly if c2 had a decent search function that highlighted the search result - at the moment you have to hunt through large sections of code to find a single item.

While C2 has received a great deal of new features I believe the actual working environment is pretty primitive. As a developer myself I know how easy it is to concentrate on the exciting new functions and forget about usability and the user . However, a great IDE is what will make more of a difference than being able to export to squiglybox or whatever the new toy on the block is.