Suggestions for the next version of AGS

[Pumaman]

Hello,

Now, I'm aware that we already have an AGS 3.01 Wishlist thread. But that has all sorts of suggestions, ranging from minor to extremely major, and it's useful as a long-term goals type of list.

I'm planning to do a 3.0.1 release in a relatively short timescale of a couple of months, and I want to fix up those little things in the new editor that annoy you, and implement any relatively minor improvements that would make a difference to your everyday experience.

These are some that have already been suggested and that I'd like to do:
* Bring back drag & dropping sprites around in the sprite manager
* Drag & drop views into different view folders
* Ability to delete views

So, if there are any other minor things that are bugging you about 3.0, please post them here.
However, please keep your suggestions reasonable such that they could be implemented in a short time frame. If you've got more fanciful suggestions such as a new interaction editor, please put them in the 3.01 Wishlist thread instead.

I reserve the right to delete any large suggestions from this thread 

[VK Dan]

*Stick the header and main script of script files into their own node, similar to how the rooms work.

[monkey0506]

I actually suggested this once Dan, but it was turned down. Maybe if we see more support for the suggestion the decision will be overturned?

Not sure if this is necessarily appropriate for a 3.0.1 release, but for some reason I never got around to mentioning that:

*While File and similar functions work with the Compiled directory when running the debugger, RunAGSGame still seems to work with the current directory instead and can't load games, even if they are found by File.Open.

If it's easy enough to fix I would appreciate it, but understand if it's better suited to a later version.

I would also like to state my support for Rui's following suggestion. I don't actually use the My Documents folder for anything, but I find the behaviour quite annoying. When I actually do open the My Documents folder for any reason I find it quite cluttered with empty folders! :o

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

By default, the editor fills the SaveGameFolder in General Settings with the game's name. It means that by default my My Documents folder is gonna get seriously crowded as more games are released. Could the default behaviour be to leave it blank, like standard AGS behaviour so far?

[Snarky]

In the edit room view, I'd like to be able to select the listboxes and use the arrow keys to cycle through the options. This kind of works currently, but it seems flaky, takes two keypresses to move one entry, and if you go off the end of the list you start tabbing through the other controls.

[OneDollar]

The ability to zoom the room background to make it easier to draw walkable areas and walkbehinds in the editor?

[Ghost]

It would be nice if the room list would auto-sort by number. Changing a room's number now keeps its position within the list, so that you can have Room 4, 9, 1, 3, 7. I use consecutive room numbers (with gaps) to "group" my rooms, and this is pretty much impossible with the current system.

The ability to a) LOCK and b) OUTLINE GUI elements, while certainly not used too often, were quite useful, and I wonder if we could have them back?

Apart from that, yes, drag'n'drop for sprites and view groups, that'd be ace.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

The bug I mentioned to you about the editing scripts right-click menu often not having cut/copy/paste available would be a nice fix .

Perhaps making the room edit crosshair match the resolution of the rooms rather than display properties and give it a transparent center?  It might make it easier to draw with, and it's terrifically small on my widescreen LCD even @ 1024x768.

And of course a toggle to allow rawdrawing over sprites/objects, but that's probably a tall order for a quick release.

[Gribbler]

Only one thing: MI & FOA GUI Template.

[Monsieur OUXX]

The pestering guy : "a serious detection of wether or not the .NET framework is installed (in the installer or during execution)"

[Pumaman]

*Stick the header and main script of script files into their own node, similar to how the rooms work.

I haven't done this because it would mean you'd need an extra click to expand the node and get to the header. However, if people want it to work like this I can look into it.

*While File and similar functions work with the Compiled directory when running the debugger, RunAGSGame still seems to work with the current directory instead and can't load games, even if they are found by File.Open.

Thanks, I'll look into this one.

By default, the editor fills the SaveGameFolder in General Settings with the game's name. It means that by default my My Documents folder is gonna get seriously crowded as more games are released. Could the default behaviour be to leave it blank, like standard AGS behaviour so far?

Not really -- the reason for this defaulting as it does is because of Vista and its permission issues around Program Files. Therefore, if the default was to write save games to the same folder as the game EXE, it could fail on Vista systems.

I appreciate that this way could clutter up your My Docs folder though, I'm not sure what the best compromise is? I guess it could create a single "AGS Games" folder in My Documents and then create the game save directories under that, but people would probably think that didn't look very professional for their game.

In the edit room view, I'd like to be able to select the listboxes and use the arrow keys to cycle through the options. This kind of works currently, but it seems flaky, takes two keypresses to move one entry, and if you go off the end of the list you start tabbing through the other controls.

The strange behaviour at the moment is to work around an issue whereby pressing Ctrl+E for example would take you to the Edges section rather than selecting the Rectangle mode. If I can find a way to sort it out properly, I will do.

The ability to zoom the room background to make it easier to draw walkable areas and walkbehinds in the editor?

Ah yes, this old chestnut. I should really get this done.

It would be nice if the room list would auto-sort by number. Changing a room's number now keeps its position within the list, so that you can have Room 4, 9, 1, 3, 7. I use consecutive room numbers (with gaps) to "group" my rooms, and this is pretty much impossible with the current system.

Ok, I think the easiest thing here is just to add a right-click option to "Sort rooms by number" for this sort of situation.

The ability to a) LOCK and b) OUTLINE GUI elements, while certainly not used too often, were quite useful, and I wonder if we could have them back?

Fair point, I'll think about this one.

The bug I mentioned to you about the editing scripts right-click menu often not having cut/copy/paste available would be a nice fix

Yep, I think I can get that in.

Perhaps making the room edit crosshair match the resolution of the rooms rather than display properties and give it a transparent center?  It might make it easier to draw with, and it's terrifically small on my widescreen LCD even @ 1024x768.

Does anyone else have any problems with this crosshair?

And of course a toggle to allow rawdrawing over sprites/objects, but that's probably a tall order for a quick release

I'm not really sure what you mean by this. RawDraw normally draws onto the room background. If you want to draw something on top of objects, then create a dynamic sprite, raw draw onto it, and place it on an object/overlay in front of everything else.

Only one thing: MI & FOA GUI Template.

Well, this isn't something I'm going to be writing. If anyone wants to volunteer to provide one, I would of course include it.

The pestering guy : "a serious detection of wether or not the .NET framework is installed (in the installer or during execution)"

What do you mean by this? The installer should already check that the .NET framework is installed.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Well, I'm saying it would be nice to be able to rawdraw over sprites/objects through the regular drawing functions for convenience; take DrawLine, since I'm writing a rain module of my own that uses DrawLine and detects impact sites (solid characters/objects/and marked regions), but it cannot currently draw in front of them as well, which would be great.  I could just have a sprite overlay version raining in the foreground, but maybe you see what I mean when I say it would be useful simply to be able to rawdraw over chars/objects with some kind of z-order setting.

[monkey0506]

I too can see how Prog's suggestion would be useful, but perhaps if there were some way to apply a Z-order to screen Overlays that could be integrated with the GUI Z-orders. GUIs I think should take a higher precedence to Overlays but this isn't currently the case, so if we have, for example, a room with a raining effect using an Overlay then we turn on a menu GUI we would have to turn off the rain or it would be drawn on top of the GUI. Another example would be the Flashlight module which does allow for a GUI mode to by-pass this issue, but I think idealistically we should have some type of z-control for Overlays.

[movti]

The ability to zoom the room background to make it easier to draw walkable areas and walkbehinds in the editor?

Ah yes, this old chestnut. I should really get this done.

I`d love the ability to have semitransparent walkable areas and walkbehinds. I find drawing a bit painful not seeing the background under the area.

[RickJ]

• Validation of GUI Dimensions - It appears that both height and width are validated if either height or width are changed.  It the GUI is initially purposely set larger than the screen dimensions to host dynamic controls, since both dimensions can't be set at the same time, a runtime error is generated when the GUI is resized.    Perhaps it would be better to validate only the property that is being changed.   Also, how about instead of compile warnings, just pop a message when someone enters an invalid  dimension in the property grid.   Someone who had made a mistake would get immediate feedback and someone who had done it on purpose would only get nagged once instead of repeatedly.
  
  
• New Game From Template - When creating a game from a template a dialog pops up displaying the template.txt file.  If the template.txt file is too long the OK button that closes this dialog is in accessible and off screen.   I believe in the previous version of AGS, display of the template.txt file was truncated so that the complete dialog box fit on screen.
  
  
• Game Locations - I ran the whole installation and the Demo game got installed in c:\Win\All Users\Application Data\AGS Demo and it took awhile to find it.  I think this is somewhat related to the comments above about new games being created in MyDocs in that there may be a common solution.   Couldn't we please have the ability specify a games folder where we can do our development.   The installer could ask for a location where new games are to be created.  MyDocuments could be the default so the uninitiated could just click through.  This would also be specified via File->Preferences menu.   I believe many of us would be grateful and that this would also satisfy Vista's needs.
  
  
• New Game - The initial dialog box that comes up when creating a new game requires that the descriptive text be read each time to determine which is the title and which is the folder name.  While this may be nice for new users, it's annoying for the rest.   Perhaps words similar to "Folder:" and "Title:" could be displayed to the left of the entry fields.   It appears that there is enough room to shift the fields right to accomodate the additional text.
  
  
• Module Script Order - Currently when new modules/scripts are created or imported they are prepended to the script list so that the global script remains at the end of the list as it should be.  This however, makes it difficult to manage module dependencies.  For example, suppose you wanted to have a module that defined some things that future modues or scripts would use.  With the current scheme, whenever a new module is added, it and all preexisting modules would have to be exported, deleted from the game, and then re-imported in the correct order.  A better and more intuitive scheme would be to insert new modules just before the global script so that the first module is always the first module, the second is always second, etc.  This is the way it used to work in 2.72
  
  
• Script Editor Search - When searching in the forward direction the found text is displayed in the last line in the window and searching in the reverse direction the found text is displayed in the first line of the window.   For me this seems backwards in that when searching forward I would prefer to have the found text displayed near the top of the window.   I think it was suggested in another thread that the found text be displayed in the middle of the page.   This is an acceptable compromise but perhaps a better solution is let the user specify a search margin of X lines in File->Preferences.    So when searching forward, for example, the found text would be displayed X lines from the top (or bottom if it's easier or clearer to define it this way).
  
  
• _blank.crm - This was really useful and is sorely missed.  However, I would be willing to wait if a NewRoom/NewModule templating system is on the books.
  
  
• Tab Update Feature -  Someone mentioned in another thread that if a lot of changes have been made to a script file and the bookmark and auto complete features are a bit out of synch with the current file, they can be updated by switching to another tab and then back.  Perhaps the update could also be performed just by clicking on the currently open tab, eliminating the need to switch back and forth. 
  
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  *Stick the header and main script of script files into their own node, similar to how the rooms work.
  

  I haven't done this because it would mean you'd need an extra click to expand the node and get to the header. However, if people want it to work like this I can look into it.
  

  For me, it's ok the way it is but if you wanted to do something to make things more consistent but not add extra clicks then perhaps something like the following could be considered. 
  
  Room Edit - Combine "edit room"  with the node  so that clicking on the node text does the same thing that clicking on "edit room" does now.   The property grid is displayed and the room background is displayed and the area editor is active.  Clicking on the
  [ + ] box would then reveal only the "room script" branch.
  
  [-] 1: Splash Screen
  |
  +----() Room Script
  
  
  Scripts - Make Module.asc into a node.  Clicking on it opens the *.asc file and displays the proiperty grid.  Clicking on the [ + ] box would then reveal only the *.ash header file.
  
  [-] Module.asc
  |
  +----() Module.ash
  
  Yeah I know,  I'm not being much of a purist here and shame on me for thinking like this.  But it's just food for thought about how to achieve both results, albeit in an impure manner.     

[Adamski]

Dialogue options on a GUI in a text-box, allowing for nicer customisation of topic selection without having to write an entire custom system.

[monkey0506]

Validation of GUI Dimensions - since both dimensions can't be set at the same time

Erm...GUI.SetSize? I'm curious as to whether this would help you to by-pass this issue, though a "fix" would probably be in order here.

Game Locations - Couldn't we please have the ability specify a games folder where we can do our development.

You mean like I suggested in the beta thread?

Module Script Order - With the current scheme, whenever a new module is added, it and all preexisting modules would have to be exported, deleted from the game, and then re-imported in the correct order.

Uh...[Module name].ash/[Module name].asc->Right-click->Move Up/Move Down? I don't personally care so much about where the new item is added at because I can just move them all around as I see fit.

Script Editor Search

Actually, probably not fitting for a 3.0.1 release, but I really like the way Firefox handles this. When I press Ctrl+F a small pane appears at the bottom of the window, but doesn't inhibit my ability to move about the page as I see fit. I can then use the search function as needed without having to close it if I want to look around a bit. Another thing I would like to see here is the option of case-sensitive searches. Since AGS is case-sensitive it would make sense to have this ability (though case-insensitive searching can be useful as well). Oh, also a "Find previous" option? I know I'm being a bit picky and needy here about the way I want my search function to work, but if it's not too much of a hassle to implement it would make it much more useful to me personally...which is clearly why Chris started this thread. To find out what I want for AGS. 8)

Room Edit - Combine "edit room"  with the node  so that clicking on the node text does the same thing that clicking on "edit room" does now...

Actually I personally prefer the way its handled now to this method.

[gff]

Ahoj,
a useful thing could be the follwing:
the ability to place the main character on the screen like an object and the coordinates are automatically placed in the character section.It's complicated to get a xy position with the mouse and remember(or write it down on a piece of paper^^) it in the character section.

[El_Yind]

*When you change the description of a room, it doesn't update the list
*When you create new subfolder in sprites or views you can't move the existents views into the new folder, some kind of copy/cut/paste would be nice
*When you are editing a room, and you change to do some walkeable areas or walk behinds all the objects hide and you can't see where they are, it'd be nice if there were a checkbox where you could hide or show them.
*Add 5 Ctrl+Z level (I made doble click and I lost all because I fill the screen twice) it should have a few more undo levels
*Add windowed mode the posibility of zoom like 1x, 2x or 3x I have a 1280 resolution and I work with windowed because it's easier but.. it's really small and I can hardly recognaize the things
*Add editing room zoom, it can't be so hard, just a + button and a - button.
* (I don't know if you are working on it but...) I don't know what is the use of the break point in AGS it should allow you to see a value when you stop the code at least that is what I do when I program in VB.NET and It helps a lot when you are looking for an error or just seeing what a function return in a easier way.

[fovmester]

Here are some things that is really bugging me with the new editor (other than that it works great!):

* "Assign to view..." doesn't remember previous view used. This means that if you for example want to add a couple of sprites to the down, left, right and up loop of some view (other than 1) you have to reenter the number between each assignment. And if you forget you might end up overwriting some of the loops of view 1. Very irritating and should be an easy fix!

* When doing tiled import and selecting the area for import (right mousebutton) the selection
  can go outside of the image. This makes the whole procedure more time consuming.
* Moreover, the import area is not remembered as it was in 2.72, so you have to define the area for each animation you import even if it quite often can be the same.

* Suggestion for further improving tiled import: Being able to specify size of import area (x times y pixels) for tiled import. This would remove the need of precision work with the mouse, which often ends up in the wrong import area because you accidentally release the mouse button prematurely.

These are things I've come across many times in the few days I've been working in AGS 3.0, and they really become a pain after a while. None of the things should be very time consuming to implement, but would really improve the smoothness of my work flow.

Thanks for the great work, CJ!