idea for deleting objects/variables

has anyone experienced the fear of deleting an object or variable you no longer use but might have events somewhere using it? Maybe this applies more to larger projects...? but its a huge problem for me.

However I thought of an idea: when you delete an object/variable from the Projects panel and it prompts you saying it will delete events; it would be great to see a list --similar to the Find list.

thoughts?

Can't you just use search before deleting it to see where it's used?

The editor pops up a warning message if you try to delete an object or variable which has events. If there are no events associated with it then it will delete them without warning.

The 'Find all references' is specifically designed to show you a complete list of everywhere something is used in your project. One of its uses is to review all usages of something before you delete it.

It's just a quality of life thing. technically its not needed. anyone can make due with search.

Its just the fact that Construct is deleting events that I don't actually see is the troubling part - it just feels bad. If I say delete an object or a variable and I forget that I used it somewhere..or I'm thinking some thing was put somewhere by accident or unused - I often find out later when something breaks. Again this applies to large projects.

And yes, that's how I currently use Find, but if you name it similar to other objects and if it has a long name you don't remember and only type a partial, you can get more results of something making it hard to see.

Very rarely do I spell my object names out fully when searching and lots of them share the first 10-15 characters. I never remember exactly how they are spelled.

Opposed to just clicking a thing and hitting the delete key - and it telling me what events/actions its going to delete as a result of that object/variable being deleted...that's much faster and friendly.

As Ashley mentioned, you can find references of any specific object. In the project's object list - rightclick the object and select "Find all references"

And yes, that's how I currently use Find, but if you name it similar to other objects and if it has a long name you don't remember and only type a partial, you can get more results of something making it hard to see.

You're talking about a text search. 'Find all references' is better than that. It gives you exact results regardless of the name of the object,, because it looks at the project structure rather than the names of things. It can tell the difference between Sprite2 and Sprite20 for example.

Frankly speaking, now that it has been mentioned, I wouldn't be averse to a little "there are 12 events using this object/variable" additional warning text there so that we can go wut? I thought this wasn't used just in case.

Frankly speaking, now that it has been mentioned, I wouldn't be averse to a little "there are 12 events using this object/variable" additional warning text there so that we can go wut? I thought this wasn't used just in case.

I like that idea.

Frankly speaking, now that it has been mentioned, I wouldn't be averse to a little "there are 12 events using this object/variable" additional warning text there so that we can go wut? I thought this wasn't used just in case.

It would be extra-handy if that pop-up also had a "find all references" button so you can immediately jump to the usages.

The editor already skips a warning if there are no references. If you see a warning about deleting something, it means it has references.

Ashley

You're talking about a text search. 'Find all references' is better than that. It gives you exact results regardless of the name of the object,, because it looks at the project structure rather than the names of things. It can tell the difference between Sprite2 and Sprite20 for example.

ahh okay, I've never even seen that! That does help a bit.

It's still nerve racking when I delete something; especially times when I manually delete all references to a variable and still get the pop-up warning (when I delete a variable declaration) that says: lines will be deleted. Even though I know there are none... I often feel I'm missing something. It doesn't always happen, but perhaps in certain cases it could be a bug? Regardless, it still feels bad to have things deleted that you aren't visually seeing. But I will start using the 'Find all ref' and see if that makes a difference. Thanks.