Bug and improvement report

[Vincent]

Hi!

That thread concerning load problems for sprites made me realized that there's a couple of things in SGDK2 that could be improved I think.  I worked with recent versions of SGDK2 for 2 years, so here are the things that annoy me a little:

1- Sorting dropdown lists:
I have a lot of sprites, maps, counters, you name it in my project.  I think it was a huge improvement to have all of them sorted in alphabetical order in the project tree.  It would be great if these elements were sorted in the same fashion in dropdown lists for rules, tileset counters, etc.  My dropdown lists are huge, and I use the letters to get to the right element faster, but since they are not sorted, it's still long to select the right one.

2- Frameset "del" button:
When I create a new frameset, the first thing I do is to give it a name.  So I focus the text field, select the "New " part of "New Frameset" and press "del" button.  And then "boing!" I get an error because no frames are selected.  It would be nice if SGDK2 noticed that I focused the name textbox and not a frame in the frame set to delete.

3- Global Counters can't be lower than 0:
Sometimes, I use global counters to store values of a sprite because I want other sprites to access a single sprite value.  For example, the sprites dx or dy.  If the sprite is going up or left, I can't store the value, because counters don't go below 0.  Since sprites' counter can go below 0 and you don't get an error for storing one property value in another property, it can be confusing.

4- Global counters and sprite counters are integer:
Many values in SGDK2 are floats rather than ints.  When I want to store speed, exact location, etc.  I have to round or truncate the decimal to get them stored into a counter.  I lose precision.  It would be nice if counters (both global and sprites) could be stored as floats.

5- Accessing sprites values from another sprite:
It would be great if rules within a sprite could allow access to values of another sprite in the same map.  Not easy to do I guess, since at design time, sprite rules don't care about which map they're in, so there's no real clean way to access another sprite.  But maybe there could be a "layer" or "map" property into the sprite that would be set to the current "map" or "layer" the sprite is in when activated and then, using this in the sprite rules, a rule could access the property, get the right sprite in the list of sprites of the layer and then reach the desired property.  Maybe a difficult feature to implement, but it would be so much easier to make sprites interact.  Of course, there must be a lot of exception handling done in this not to crash the game at runtime...

6- Graphic sheet design size:
I know I have big images in my game, but I don't really understand why the graphic sheet prevents to zoom in when the borders of the image can't fit into my screen.  It makes it real hard to edit images within SGDK2.  On a small laptop screen, it's not pleasant to modify big images if you can't zoom in.

7- Graphic sheet movement of windows:
The graphic sheet consists of 4 sub-windows or palettes: 1 the image you work on, 2 image at normal size, color palette and the graphic sheet navigator.  When I load a graphic sheet with big cells, palettes can get out the screen.  In relation with report #6  , i have to reduce the zoom, and it seems there is code to replace the palettes in a logical way.  But sometimes, the "replace windows" code gets a little erratic and when I want to replace them in a way that suits me best, they go crazy and move out where I don't want them to be.  It would be nice if this replace windows code was optional.  Maybe a checkbox in the palette window to turn it off.  That would be great!

8- Output text that is not debug nor message:
In my game, I want to show text in the menu and some places.  There are statistics to show.  I can find only 2 ways to output text in SGDK2: via the showmessage (but you get a frame around it and can't really place the text where you want) or via logdebuglabel (but it won't show in release mode and ignores spaces).  It would be nice to have a tool to write frameless text, with spaces where you want on the screen.

9- Global counter with dynamic max value:
It would be nice to be able to set the max value of a counter at runtime.  I did it in my game (it's a partial class after all), but maybe other people would find this interesting.  But why would they want to change the max value of a counter?  Well, I use it to show a lifebar.  The max amount of life a character has can change during the game.  If I set the value to max possible value at the beginning, it can be confusing for the player (why am I always damaged) or give him unwanted clues (I'm still missing life upgrades).

Hum...  I can't think of anything else at the moment.

Like I said, these things annoy me, but they aren't showstoppers at all.  I think it would make SGDK2 easier and a better experience.

Any one of these upgrades would be a great asset I think.

What do you think?

Thanks a lot!

[bluemonkmn]

It's good to hear suggestions from someone who has probably used SGDK2 even more than myself, and definitely used it more rigorously.  My little projects don't really test the limits of SGDK2's capabilities and usability as much as yours does.  Let me try to respond to a few items that may help you even without any changes to SGDK2:

5. There is a function "SelectTargetSprite" that you can use to store a global reference to a sprite as the "selected sprite".  It is based on a sprite collection and an index.  It's handy if you just collided with a sprite and want to interact with it.  I am actually working with it just this morning.  But I discovered there are not a lot of functions that work with the selected sprite.  Mostly just SetTargetParameter.  It's a powerful function, but doesn't provide any means to retrieve information about the sprite.  So I added this to a partial class for GeneralRules this morning (only for my project):

Code: [Select]

   /// <summary>
   /// Determine if the selected target sprite (selected with SelectTargetSprite)
   /// is of the specified type.
   /// </summary>
   /// <returns>
   /// True if the selected target is of the specified type, false otherwise.
   /// </returns>
   [Description("Determines if the sprite selected with SelectTargetSprite is of the specified type.")]
   public bool IsTargetSpriteType([Editor("SpriteDefinition", "UITypeEditor")] System.Type SpriteDefinition)
   {
      return SpriteDefinition.IsInstanceOfType(selectedTarget);
   }

   /// <summary>
   /// Deactivate the sprite selected with SelectTargetSprite
   /// </summary>
   [Description("Deactivate the sprite selected with SelectTargetSprite")]
   public void DeactivateTargetSprite()
   {
      if (selectedTarget != null)
         selectedTarget.Deactivate();
   }
Of course it would also be possible, and probably useful, to implement GetTargetParameter, but I have not done that yet.

6. The integrated graphics editor was not intended for heavy duty or large-scale graphics work.  It's mainly intended to be "good enough" for simple graphics in simple games, and to import more complex graphics from external sources.  Of course it would be nice if the graphics editor got even better, but for now, just be aware that it is possible to import and export graphics from external sources.

8. Have you seen the function for Plans called "DrawCounterWithLabel"?  It's probably very similar to what you want if not exactly what you want.  I think the reason it is a plan function and not a sprite function is because the plan is used to determine where the text is drawn (so you don't have to provide x and y coordinates manually).

[Vincent]

I'm glad you like to hear suggestions.

5. I already made something similar too.  Yeah, GetParameter would be great.

6. Yeah, that's what I do most of the time: import and export graphics and work with photoshop.  But sometimes, I realize I made a little mistake (one or two pixels) and it's troublesome to reexport, load PS, change, save and reimport.  I think the graphic editor is great as it is!  There's not much missing for it too be a wonderful stand alone graphic tool.  Anyway, I guess it's a lot of work to modify and it doesn't change the end result for a game.  The idea is to have a game making software, not a graphic making software I get that.

8.  Ohh!!!  I have to take a look at that!  It seems like exactly what I need.

What about the other issues?  You didn't comment because you have no opinion on them?

Thanks bluemonkmn!

[bluemonkmn]

The other issues are something I will have to investigate and possibly work on in my spare time.  I would look at them today, but I'm working on my game again so I'm focusing on things that affect my game .

[Vincent]

Great!

Then I'm going back to work on my game too!

[Vincent]

Hi guys!

I had some other ideas:
1- It would be nice if there was a way to change the default icon of the program.  I can do it by compiling the project, open it in Visual Studio and set the icon in the project's properties, but for those who do not have VS, it would be easier to allow it right in SGDK2.

2- It would be great to link Sprite Categories and Sprite Definitions in the IDE.  For example, you open the sprite category window with all the sprites in the project with the checkboxes and then you can click on the box to add the sprite definition to the category (current behavior until now).  It would be a nice feature to allow double-click on the sprite definition and it would open the sprite definition window.  Not very useful for small projects I guess, but very useful for one such as mine.

That's it for now.

[bluemonkmn]

You mean double-click on a sprite definition from the sprite categories window to open the sprite definition window?  Why is that so useful?  Isn't it the same list as you see in the project tree?

[Vincent]

Well, you see, there are almost 240 different sprite definitions in my project.  I never expected my project to grow so much, so I didn't normalize the names of my sprites.  But I have much less sprite categories.  Let's say I think of a modification I want to apply to all the sprites in the "projectileSpriteCategory" or the "EnemySpriteCategoery", I have to scroll through all the list of sprites and hope not to forget one of them in the list (which can happen because some of the names aren't so great). 

Since, all sprites already are in the correct sprite category, it would be faster for me to open the sprite category, check the box "only show checked items" and double click on each sprite in the category.  This way I know I won't forget any.  Of course, that's almost what I do, but instead of a double click in the sprite category, I use the category as a reference and go through all the list of sprites to find the right ones.

So, it's not a super-must-have feature, but it would be a nice shortcut.

[durnurd]

My thinking in places like this is: Currently, X does nothing?  What would I expect to happen if I do X?  Would I expect it to do something in a standard application?  If so, make it do something, otherwise, not.  In this case, double-clicking on an item in a list makes sense that it would open that item.

[bluemonkmn]

I fixed 1, 2 and 3 locally.  On #4, can't you store things like that in other variables instead of counters?  For example, add "static float tempFloat;" to SpriteBase (or a partial class of SpriteBase) and then you can always put decimal values in there?

[Vincent]

Thanks bluemonkmn!  That will be very helpful.

Yes, I could create float fields in SpriteBase partial class.  That will do nicely too.

When will you release these changes?

Thanks again! 

[bluemonkmn]

When I am done making all the changes that I think are appropriate from your list and Durnurd's (the changes that don't require too much fundamental change), I'll probably do another release then.  But I could release earlier or compile a build just for you if you're eager for these changes.  Maybe it'll be a couple weeks before the next release.

[Vincent]

Oh, there's no rush, I can wait a couple of weeks.  I was just curious.

[bluemonkmn]

I can't find durnurd's list... did I already do everything that durnurd suggested... or is there some list I missed and forgot?  I thought there was still some list I had to work on from durnurd.

Also, this morning I did some significant work on #5, and checked in the changes to SVN source control (in case anybody wants to compile it and use it before I release).  Here's the list of changes since the last check-in:

• Implement minimum value for counters.
• Sort all objects by name in the UI where appropriate.
• Don't try to delete frame when textbox has focus and pressing delete key on frameset editor.
• Display a better error when attempting to preview an animated sprite or tile without any frames.
• Add "SelectTargetSpriteFor" function and other functions ending with "For" to enhance existing selected target sprite functions so that any number of target sprites may be simultaneously selected for different global target/operation names.
• Add "GetSelectedTargetFor" function to retrieve the currently selected target sprite.
• Add GetTargetParameterFor function to allow other sprites' parameter values to be retrieved.
• Add DeactivateTargetSpriteFor to allow a target sprite to be deactivated.
• Add IsSpriteForTargetOfType to determine if the selected target sprite is of a specific type.

[Vincent]

Wow!  Great work!  All those "For" functions will be very helpful.