Image editor

Who remember the good old days?

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Basic drawing tools comes with r97 - 50 releases later

I already wrote above, that I consider Construct 2 an integrated environment and also one that could be used by kids to learn programming (via game creation). Having to learn yet another program to paint and to switch between the two apps via the OS facilities (e.g. ALT+TAB) is extra burden. That's why I suggested at least having a button to open the file in an external tool you define (like Paint.net or Gimp [or Photoshop etc.] for example) and to use shell notifications to monitor the file for changes.

Just a 'run external tool' option would fix that, would be very simple (like many requests are). Then assign a toolbar button and bingo.

I find it a bit annoying now that for creating a new sprite

1) I double click on the layout

2) I select Sprite

3) I click with the crosshair somewhere on the layout (again? couldn't it have used the position from step 1?)

4) The image editor shows but isn't of much use and I have to load an image file from it (but I want to draw a new sprite)

At step [4] it would be nice if I could press a button to open an external editor with a temporary .png file created by construct 2 and passed to it as a command-line parameter, so that then I would just need to press save at the external editor (using shell notifications construct 2 would update the image in its image editor upon save). I wouldn't need to close the external painting program if I wished so, but I could even close it since I know I can quickly go to it

I don't expect kids to use ALT+TAB and mess around with multiple applications, neither to go find a painter program and launch it, save somewhere, then find the file from inside construct 2 every time they just want to quickly make a new sprite to try some game idea they have

...and it's not just for kids, it's for prototyping too, I want to quickly do some prototype (that's why I find the existence of only a rectangle tool and no ellipse too limiting) without having to use file dialogs (too many steps/distractions)

codah regarding a more general "run external tool" this is a separate thing, would be nice to be able to launch such taking as params asset filenames, but don't remember if there is a pane with the "file" assets in Construct 2 to be able to select an item from there and right-click to launch a specific external tool from a context menu

the only place I see assets is the image editor that's why I'd expect a button there to launch an external image editor with the asset's image file passed as parameter and monitor for file changes so that it updates in construct 2 upon save in the external editor. Maybe there are other places one can do similar for external asset editors (like for audio assets - to be able to launch say Audacity or other audio editor), but haven't used Construct 2 enough to suggest something for that

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the idea. I have a spate of features like this I'd love to see. I guess it's a matter of priorities and how many people are clamouring for the feature.

I wonder, would it be possible to link some programs with some uses ? (Exemple, the image editor would have a button "Edit in another program", which would let you edit the picture in a program you would have chosen beforehand?).

Aphrodite indeed, that's what I'm suggesting (apart from adding an ellipse tool that should be easy to implement), to add an "Open in external editor" button to the Image Editor to open the currently selected frame in another program (passed as a parameter to a command you define in construct's settings, say "c:\program files\paintnet\paintnet.exe %file" or something like that). Probably this model could be used at other places in Construct 2, to open audio in Audacity etc.

Speaking of the image editor, another usability issue I just noticed is that when I double-click at the Object pane on a tiled background object that I'm looking at in the currently visible layout in Construct 2, I get the image editor where I can edit the tile, but I have to close the editor to see my changes in the layout.

If it had some Apply button apart from the [X] to close it, then I would be able to edit the tile and press apply to see it at the layout I had already open.

Being able to also set that you want continuous "apply" would be nice, since you'd see the tileset change in the layout while you work in the image editor. Or else it should detect that the image is from a Tileset and show me somewhere a preview of how it will look while I'm working on it (just looking at one tile isn't helpful). To do that it could draw some extra tiles around the tile I'm editing, faded out a bit to make apparent the area I'm editing. In fact it could draw faded tiles around the edited tile and another set of even more faded tiles around those (2 "rings" of extra tiles that is)

birbilis you could get a temp workaround for one of your issues by setting up a macro with a global hot-key to run your graphics tool of choice (or anything else). Far from ideal, but it should work.