i dont get why noobs jump to think that python is needed for something complex, they can barely do event based programming and just assume it would be easier to make a game using an even more difficult method. heck they can barely make a custom plat movement and want to make a super epic RPG, gets me so MAD!

I don't think there is anything wrong with wanting to use script

if you come from a coding background, the event system's logic is very foreign in the beginning, and it might seems like a helper system for newbs. This is especially true if you're used to something like GameMaker, where the visual way of doing things is very cumbersome, limited, and weak, and the scripting language is necessary for anything reasonably interesting

so I understand why people want to jump straight to script. I was like this in the beginning actually before I understood how powerful the event system is

that being said, python should be the last thing you learn after you understand the power of the event sheet way of doing things

if not, you're missing out on a lot of power, and ease of use

if you can understand how to make everything you're trying to do in events

and then you want to use scripting anyway, that's when you should use it

I recommend not using script, if it's because you have no idea how to do something with events.

you really can do almost anything with them

ask in help forums how to do something if you think it's difficult or impossible without script

I only found one solution

don't worry, most things in construct are easier to do than any other game making package

this is just one of those things

but anyway, the solution is here:

click me!

look at the cap first, before reading, or this will seem even more confusing

make a global variable to track whether any asteroid has been destroyed by the current click

you can make a global variable by making an action to Set a global variable (under system) or a condition to check a global variables value (also under system), when it asks you which variable you want, just click "add new"

then "on left mouse button clicked"

set the global value to zero. Zero will mean "no", because this is a new click, and no asteroids have been destroyed yet

then a subevent, "for each object ordered"

• this will do all your actions, once per object, and put the objects in the order you tell it

make it FOR EACH "asteroid" ordered by asteroid.zindex - descending -

this makes it so the object with the highest z index (in front of other objects) goes first

then another subevent "is global variable" zero

so if your global variable still equals zero, it will run the actions

the actions will be to destroy the Asteroid, and then set the global variable to 1, so when the loop goes to the next asteroid, it won't won't get past the "is global variable" zero condition, and it won't get destroyed

the break loop action doesn't work on "for for each objects",

it was gonna be my solution to this thread (the second part of his question)

could have "for each ordered by" "zorder" "descending

but you can't break out after the first one

sorry for the repost, but it's on second page now, and no one would see this

it's still a little ways off, mostly because I'm busy...it really doesn't take too long to make a plugin

these are the features that will go in, if all works out:

actions:

• choose sprite, there won't be any special setup options, because splitting up tiles, and importing several frames, is very easy with the builtin features in construct, so you import your font sprites into one animation in construct
• Set Animation Range: here you will be able to set up a range of characters to go with a range of frames, so if your font only has 0-9, and a-z, you would call this action once for each range, you choose which animation frames go with which range of characters
  • Frame Start
  • Frame End
  • Character Start
  • Character End
• Set Spacing: this will set how far the next character will be placed from the last, you will be able to set whether the space is from an imagepoint or from the edge of the sprite
  • from imagepoint/from edge - edge is default
  • all / per character - apply spacing to all, or override "all" setting for one character - decides how far the next character will be from it
  • spacing - a number, 0 would be touching, negative positive corresponds to left/right number of pixels offset
• set wrap width - set the width the words wrap in. I will do my best to follow any wrapping conventions I'm aware of, but I don't have the time to research, and I'm not an expert on formatting, but I did read yours arima, and that will be observed
• set display width - this is to be able to put your text into a box and scroll through it, it will make some of the other actions possible, and save the user from having to make a mask everytime they want to do this
• set alignment - left/right/centered
• set justified -
  • on/off
  • method
    • between word spacing - justify the normal way, by spacing words apart
    • per character spacing- justify by spacing each character
    • by character width - justify by setting the width of each character
• attach to object -sets height and width to an object
  • border left
  • border right
  • border top
  • border bottom
• set all/per character width Absolute/ or ratio (to the original character size)
• set all/per character height Absolute/ or ratio (to the original character size)
• set capital/lowercase size - allows you to make capital of lowercase letters, by adjusting the size ratio x/y
• set scroll x/y ( relative/absolute) - offset from phrase position
• set rotation (of entire phrase)
• set position (of entire phrase)
• set circular x/y (on/off) - this makes it so a letter scrolling off the left side, comes back out the right side if you scroll beyond the end of the phrase
• set phrase width - sets the width ratio of the letters, so they all fit into this width

now I will have to be careful with the naming of actions, because you will be able to do this per character meaning "a", so every "a" is set to a certain width or per character, to be used with the following condition:

• For each character in phrase - which could do all of the above functions, but per character in phrase (in order regardless of what letter it is), this will make it possible to do all the crazy stuff you'd want to do with bouncy swirly, zigzaggy text, text wrapped in a circle, it's up to you to come up with the algorithms, using the actions, and the following expressions: (most of the "get" conditions will also have a "get previous" and "get next" but I don't want to write all that out)
• get character x/y
• get character position in phrase
• get character distance from left/right/top/bottom edge (of text display width)

oh yes, and of course actions to put the text to the screen

please let me know if I missed anything.

edit: davio added request for outputting character by character one at a time, and a corresponding "on character typed" condition to add typewriter sounds for instance

also, letting users use your text as an edit box, is a feature I plan to add later, after a stable build (of this plugin)

This might sound a bit weird, but wouldn't the effects like swirls, zigzag, etc be better in a behavior you could attach to any object? I'm thinking the behavior could run off of for each object(ordered) in a family. Then the behavior could have several types of movements built in.

it would be easier to just build them into the plugin, but that would also be limiting, since I would be deciding what things you could or couldn't to do with your text.

but if you give me an example of something you'd like to see text do, I can show you how it's easy to do with very few actions, conditions, and expressions.

ok

it's still a little ways off, mostly because I'm busy...it really doesn't take too long to make a plugin

these are the features that will go in, if all works out:

actions:

• choose sprite, there won't be any special setup options, because splitting up tiles, and importing several frames, is very easy with the builtin features in construct, so you import your font sprites into one animation in construct
• Set Animation Range: here you will be able to set up a range of characters to go with a range of frames, so if your font only has 0-9, and a-z, you would call this action once for each range, you choose which animation frames go with which range of characters
  • Frame Start
  • Frame End
  • Character Start
  • Character End
• Set Spacing: this will set how far the next character will be placed from the last, you will be able to set whether the space is from an imagepoint or from the edge of the sprite
  • from imagepoint/from edge - edge is default
  • all / per character - apply spacing to all, or override "all" setting for one character - setting for one character, decides how far the next character will be from it
  • spacing - a number, 0 would be touching, negative positive corresponds to left/right number of pixels offset
• set wrap width - set the width the words wrap in. I will do my best to follow any wrapping conventions I'm aware of, but I don't have the time to research, and I'm not an expert on formatting, but I did read yours arima, and that will be observed
• set display width - this is to be able to put your text into a box and scroll through it, it will make some of the other actions possible, and save the user from having to make a mask everytime they want to do this
• set alignment - left/right/centered
• set justified -
  • on/off
  • method
    • between word spacing - justify the normal way, by spacing words apart
    • per character spacing- justify by spacing each character
    • by character width - justify by setting the width of each character
• attach to object -sets height and width to an object
  • border left
  • border right
  • border top
  • border bottom
• set all/per character width Absolute/ or ratio (to the original character size)
• set all/per character height Absolute/ or ratio (to the original character size)
• set capital/lowercase size - allows you to make capital of lowercase letters, by adjusting the size ratio x/y
• set scroll x/y ( relative/absolute) - offset from phrase position
• set rotation (of entire phrase)
• set position (of entire phrase)
• set circular x/y (on/off) - this makes it so a letter scrolling off the left side, comes back out the right side if you scroll beyond the end of the phrase
• set phrase width - sets the width ratio of the letters, so they all fit into this width

now I will have to be careful with the naming of actions, because you will be able to do this per character meaning "a", so every "a" is set to a certain width or per character, to be used with the following condition:

• For each character in phrase - which could do all of the above functions, but per character in phrase (in order regardless of what letter it is), this will make it possible to do all the crazy stuff you'd want to do with bouncy swirly, zigzaggy text, text wrapped in a circle, it's up to you to come up with the algorithms, using the actions, and the following conditions: (most of the "get" conditions will also have a "get previous" and "get next" but I don't want to write all that out)
• get character x/y
• get character position in phrase
• get character distance from left/right/top/bottom edge (of text display width)

oh yes, and of course actions to put the text to the screen

please let me know if I missed anything.

edit: davio added request for outputting character by character one at a time, and a corresponding "on character typed" condition to add typewriter sounds for instance

also, letting users use your text as an edit box, is a feature I plan to add later, after a stable build (of this plugin)

yes please

it's an awesome idea

and we need it

If you hear hooves, assume it's horses, not zebras

nice metaphor ashley

anyway

if you want to know if it's sound effects

why not save your cap,

then remove all the sound objects

or sound events

and then test your cap?

how do you set the defaults for combo params in the acetable?, if possible

That paragraph sounds more like a bug report (not all groups enable/disable) than a feature request. Is it on the tracker?

i think what he means ashley, is that he wants it to work that way. so he can make subgroups on the fly.

if thats what you mean, manontherun. there's a plugin im going to be making, currently in the planning phase that allows you to make arrays of objects. i havent posted a description yet, but it should allow dynamic group creation and destruction. unfortunately, i cant give you an eta, becuase im going to make the bitmapped text object first.

but anyway..if thats what you meant, keep an eye out for the object array plugin

thanks ashley

you've been a great help as usual

Picking. I've been looking through some picking operations, and wow...there's alot going on there. I get some of it, but in the interest of distilling, as a simple example

let's say I have

*CRunObject Hello; //already pointing to a single instance of an object

what command(s) would pick this object and allow it to continue down to the next subevent or actions?

what if I had *CRunObject Hello, and *CRunObject Goodbye, how can I make both of those picked

do you have to explicitly tell it to suppress elses, to run subevents, and run actions every time? or does it depend on the complexity of the particular picking operation?