[SUGGESTION LIST]

Ashley,

This list is no way supposed to be taken as a whinge or wanting to be a pain. I have been using C2 full time now for a number of months on a large commercial project. Our project has over 30 layouts and accompanying event sheets and we have found C2 to be incredibly flexible and all round super product. However, we have also found many instances where it could be vastly improved. I have mentioned most of these things a number of times but they appear to be being ignored. I am sure I am not the only one who would love to see C2 usability improved so I felt I would put all my findings in one thread and hopefully be able to tick them off as they are solved :)

Colour Coding

This was a massive improvement. It makes editing so much easier. But why stop there, why not apply to the entire event sheet?

Keyboard Shortcuts

ctrl-home jump to top of event sheet

ctrl-end - jump to bottom of sheet

ctrl-shift-1 set bookmark 1 (where one is one to to nine)

ctrl-1 jump to bookmark

Bookmarks are such a basic feature I am really surprised they aren't already available.

Code Analytics and search functions

Search: Could we please get a function so that we can easily figure out which layout a sprite is used?

Warnings: Analysis of sprites and objects not used in any event sheet.

Warnings: Which functions are called and not actually defined? Also unused functions.

Search: meta-search that spans all layouts

Replacing sprite

When an existing sprite is loaded with a new image can we have the option to retain current size? At the moment if I replace a 600x600 image with 512x512 image all instances seem to jump to 512x512.

Audio

Audio support is very primitive. It is unclear what the best practice is. i.e, should we make everything a wave file first and then import. If we made the wave why would we want to keep it in the capx? Why not have it as an option to retain the wave within the capx? Personally when I found out that waves weren't required I removed them all as the back up to dropbox was starting to get quite tedious due to size of the capx.

When selecting "audio" | "play" (action) the list of sounds is not in any particular order. When this list gets quite long it is very annoying. Why aren't they simply in alphabetical order?

Also can we please get a replace sound with another sound function? At the moment if I have changed the wave file externally in Sound Forge and I need to reimport it I need to delete the current file within C2 losing all events and actions using that sound. This is a major hassle, especially if that sound is used in multiple layouts.

Please provide a preview function within C2. It is currently not possible to just have a listen to a sound to remind you what it sounds like.

Please remember I am asking for changes and improvements because I want to see this good product get even better. I have kept my list to things that I felt should be pretty straight forward to implement. Some of them would be pretty basic I am sure. I hope you give them proper consideration.

I've seen these mentioned before (as you've said), and whilst I do like most of the suggestions, I do believe Ashley adds everything to his todo list. He just codes things that have a higher priority (I'm guessing it's things that are wanted by many people, rather than small niche things).

Also, whilst I'm not totally sure, we may be underestimating how time-consuming it is for Ashley to produce certain things, even seemingly simple things like "bookmarks" and stuff in a quick amount of time, therefore, things need to be prioritised and less niche things are developed first.

If it was easy to make all the features that people request for Construct 2, then Ashley would have added everything within days, and we'd see MANY game-creating software similar to Construct 2 out there. <img src="smileys/smiley16.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Jase00 I am not underestimating Ashely's job. I have been developing software for 20 years so I know how much time goes into developing a good product. However, these suggestions are not trivial from a usability point of view and to make C2 attractive requires more than nice features. Using C2 on a large project really highlights the short comings of the C2 IDE.

Whether or not Ashley adds ideas to a to do list I cannot comment on. On the whole we get very little insight of where things are or where they are going. The recent request for user input was great but it would be nice if scirra published a rough roadmap. Anyway, these are my 2c worth and I figure the only way Ashley and crew now about what issues we grapple with is if we post about them.

Colour Coding

It's already done and is coming in the next build.

b]Code Analytics and search functions

These are pretty significant features that will take a while to implement. They've been on the todo list for while already. Your other suggestions (bookmarks, other keyboard shortcuts etc.) are also all already on the todo list; we're aware of them, it's just we have about 100 other things on the todo list (literally) and lots of other users just like yourself pressing us for the features they want to see. Unfortunately we can only work at a certain speed!

arnings: Which functions are called and not actually defined?

The Function object already warns this, as well as some other mistakes, in the browser console.

b]Replacing sprite

When an existing sprite is loaded with a new image can we have the option to retain current size?

A possible workaround is to overwrite the file directly in the project folder while Construct 2 is closed.

udio support is very primitive.

I disagree! We have good audio support which includes advanced features. It works well where the Web Audio API is supported; the main problem is which platforms support the Web Audio API.

t is unclear what the best practice is. i.e, should we make everything a wave file first and then import.

That is indeed the best practice, which is documented in the manual.

f we made the wave why would we want to keep it in the capx?

In case you wanted to re-encode it to a different quality later. I wanted to add an option to re-encode all your .wavs to a different quality on export so you didn't have to decide right away what quality to use, but I never got round to the feature. It might also be useful for you as a backup, since re-encoding .ogg or .m4a is lossy and further degrades the quality. You can delete them if you like.

lso can we please get a replace sound with another sound function?

Just overwrite it in the project folder.

lease provide a preview function within C2.

Right-click -> Open will play it with the default associated program.

Good to hear ASHLEY. I am fully aware that you have time restrictions and varying priorities. Thanks for replying.

[quote:z1ob1vqy]Also can we please get a replace sound with another sound function?

Just overwrite it in the project folder.

Ashley

I realize I'm resurrecting a rather old thread, but I'm having the same issue czar was having with the Audio, even after following Ashley's advice (unless of course I'm doing something wrong). That is, the only way I can update the audio in a project is to delete the current audio file (and unfortunately all the associated events with it) and then reimport the modified audio file.

I tried just overwriting the audio file in the folder, but it still played the old version. I tried importing the file again, but instead of replacing the files already in the project, it created new files (each with the 2 suffix tacked on the end). Now, I am using the free version of Construct2. Could that be the reason why? If not, is there some other way to reimport modified audio files?

Replacing the audio file directly in the project folder (in Windows Explorer) should work fine. Post a bug report if it does not.