A few suggestions to improve usabilty

Hi guys, I have been using C2 now since it was first released and am extremely happy in the direction that you are taking it, the future looks very promising and it is nice to be along for the ride.

Both the program and website are very well maintained, you both do a great job and it`s to nice feel the passion that you obviously have for product. Thanks for making such a nice tool.

Anyway, I have a few small suggestions that I think would improve usability, hopefully you do not mind taking a moment to read them.

1. Would it be possible to have a visual display of the grid in the layout editor? Also, even though the window size of your project is shown in the upper left of the layout would it be possible to make this extend\tile across the whole of the layout view? That way you could place things where you knew screen boundaries were going to be, for example you could place a door leading to the next room. At the moment you just have to guess or use the co-ords in the status bar.

2. Can effects be made to show in the layout view, additive for example, or is this not possible? Being able to view parallax in layout is really nice, it would be great to have visual previews of all things in the layout. Also is it possible that we could have a multiply effect as additive, normal and multiply are the most common blend modes. Have I missed it somewhere?

3. The save asterix reminder that appears next to your project cannot be seen if you are in the layers tab, can it also be added to the title bar too?

4. Is there a way to re-open the start page after it has closed? If not could this be added.

5. When entering animation names into the event editor it would be nice to have a list of the animation that have been created for an object to appear in a list so that we could easily choose one. Maybe this is planned to be added when the art editor is updated? Also, if you change an animations name that was already previously placed in the event editor it doesn`t get updated to reflect the new name.

6. When loading in another persons project into your C2 their browser preference is used above yours.

7. Clear background seems to have no effect for me. It seems to clear when on or off in multiple different browser. When off shouldn`t a trail of images be left behind? Maybe I misunderstand?

8. Recently, after trying to create a tilemap I had real problems. Do you plan to update this part of the program? Even some simple controls for using tile maps would be most welcome as currently having to change the starting frame of the animation strip (consisting of tiles) is quite annoying especially if you have lots of tiles. Also having to click to place each one is a chore on big maps. Is it simply a case that tiles are no longer relevant with todays technology or are they still likely to be included at a future point in time? The ability to continuously paint tiles quickly would be a huge help as would a simple tile pallet to choose from. GameMakers editor is pretty simple but it speeds up work flow which must be a good thing.

Thanks for reading.

With regards to point seven, I have just reread the manual description and I still do not understand the process that takes place. Can C2 be made to leave a trail of images behind the player by not clearing the screen?

I have no real use for this but would just like to know although I have seen games in the past where a trail of the players previous attempts at a level have been left via this method.

Another request I forgot to mention is the possibility to add a preview of the layer zooming\scale rate to the layout view in the same way as the parallax preview enables you to see each layers scroll rate. Being able to set a rotation amount for each layer in a similar way would also be a nice addition.

4. There is a way to bring the Start Page back; click the file menu (where you load / save, etc..) and from the bottom of the menu that pops up select Preferences. It's under the 'General' Tab. :)

Sorry, I meant if you close it during your project but later wish to reopen it without restarting C2. Kind of like pressing home in your browser to return to your home page.

There is also a small visual glitch (stray pixels) just above-left the plus symbol when you choose to add a instance variable\behaviour etc...

The program is just so professional looking that I thought I`d mention it as it always catches my eye. Sorry for being picky! I`m sure that you are aware of it.

Thanks for the suggestions - many are already on our todo list, but I've added the ones that were not.

Great, thanks for reading :) Keep up the fine job that you are doing.