Ideas for update v1.4.0 - need your feedback!

[kraifpatrik]

Please read through all the points before voting in the poll, as they can further describe more changes than just their headline! Also, if there is some point that you totally don't agree with, please, leave us a reply and tell us why. In this topic you can post a reply even without being registered!

Dear PEd users,

we have made a list of ideas that we are thinking about to implement in the next major PEd update. The problem is that we are thinking about some drastical changes to the editor and so we need to know your thoughts on them! Here is the list of the ideas (may be updated later):

(1) Much more detailed change logs
The reason why will be obvious from following points. Users will need to know exactly what has been changed and where.

(2) Source code restructuring
We would like to completely restructure the source code of the editor. Mainly to make it much more cleaner, easier to understand and to implement your own features. One part of this change would be dividing the editor into separate, independent object, that would take care only of one feature of the editor and nothing else. For example we could have object Renderer, that would take care only of rendering the scene. That means it would be a lot easier to implement your own rendering pipeline. Another thing is that this way you would not have to overwrite the whole source code and so you could keep your Renderer object for example (we would always let you know exactly what has been changed in updates through change logs).

(3) New GUI
We would like to implement a brand new, fully customisable and overall a much better GUI system. It is not yet finished, but you can see some videos on our YouTube channel.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFY-3itklhU (older version)
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRKPXROBLwQ (new window docking system)

(4) New controlls
With the new GUI a right-click context menu would come. That means that we would have to make changes to controlls according to that. But on the other hand, we could make more stuff accesible even without keyboard shortucts. Just right click and select what you want!

(6) Avoid running game code in the editor
Instead of creating user's object, we would create a special one, that would not contain any game code, just variables necessary for the editor (for example name of the original object, so that the levels could still be easily saved). That means that you would not have to check if you are currently in the editor to disable game logic. It would just work and you would not have to care about anything!

BUT doing it this way, we would have to handle instance rendering differently (users would still be able to rewrite it in the Renderer object if they need).

For 2D object, it would work exactly the same way as it is now in the GM's room editor. Objects without a sprite assigned to them would draw some default sprite, other would just draw their sprite.

For 3D objects it would be a bit more complicated, as there is no 100% solution that would cover all the cases. So the easiest and also the best solution would be to make PEd to be more like an engine when it comes to 3D. That means that there would be no backwards compatibility with v1.3.0 for your 3D projects and if you wanted to use PEd for 3D games, you would probably have to make them in PEd from scratch. I know that it sounds horryfing, but this way we could make it a LOT easier to make 3D games in GM.

(7) Run your level directly from the editor
Users would finally not have to first make the level, export it, close the game, add the level into your project and then run the game again. You could just build the level, hit play button, test it and then go back to the editor!

These all the changes that we have on our mind for know. But we first need your thoughts on them to know if we can or if we should not make them. So please, leave us a reply below!

[Tarco]

Hi

I would be interested in seeing further improvements to the GUI, the BlueForms idea looks great.
cheers

[IMP700]

Hi Tarco,

Thanks for your feedback.
Once we finish all the necessary things,
the new GUI is the next thing on the list we want to add.