Please vote on the most vexing bugs in the bug tracker
Agent Argyle
Member, PRO Posts: 188
Trying to get work done in GS, I find myself cursing in exasperation at the program as it constantly crashes or in some other way inhibits my workflow. The devs are working diligently on the crashing, but there are some other issues that have been around for years that have gotten no love.
I have submitted some bugs and voted on a few existing ones in the bug tracker, but my guess is most people don't know about it or use it. Maybe that is why some bugs and feature requestes that have been around for 5 years or more are never dealt with.
I am asking people here to vote on some of their most vexing bugs and feature requests using the bug tracking system. You only get 5 votes (not sure why, but the ability to vote for more should be a feature request as well!
Besides the crashing, here are mine:
Can't copy and paste rules and behaviors from one project to another without breaking the links to the attributes- even if you create attributes of the same name ahead of time. So all those tutorials and templates need to be mostly re-built if you want to bring them into your existing project. This has been a problem since at least 2010 as far as I can see from old forum posts. I created a bug for this here: http://bugs.gamesalad.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1289 but there may be others I could not find by searching.
Can't copy text from one behavior expression editor to another. Re-typing in all those expressions is a colossal waste of time. http://bugs.gamesalad.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1279
Attributes aren't alphabetized. Trying to find the right attribute in a big project is also a huge waste of time. http://bugs.gamesalad.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1132 (This one asks for the ability to order them yourself: http://bugs.gamesalad.com/show_bug.cgi?id=439 )
Can't select multiple objects at once in layout view. If you have multiple actors on a scene this means you have to select them one at a time to move them or copy them within the same scene. http://bugs.gamesalad.com/show_bug.cgi?id=658
Can't copy actors (not to mention groups of them) from one scene to another. http://bugs.gamesalad.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1290 Would be hugely helpful if we could select a bunch of actors in a scene and drop them into place in another scene.
Can't hide layers when working in layout view: http://bugs.gamesalad.com/show_bug.cgi?id=209
Can't align actors in layout view or snap them to a grid. http://bugs.gamesalad.com/show_bug.cgi?id=657
Can't create polygonal image maps for actors. Collision detection is not as accurate as it could be: http://bugs.gamesalad.com/show_bug.cgi?id=252
- Constrarining size attributes breaks collisions: http://bugs.gamesalad.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1291
- Can't vote for more than 5 bugs....
Comments
With this one you can copy from one expression to another as long as the original expression box is open
And to be honest if I could type the expression I'd be saving a large amount of time. Having to select every single variable and whatnot from the dropdowns is more annoying.
Thanks @KevinCross - Agreed.
For everyone else, here is how to vote in case you haven't voted yet.
If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal
As a workaround, you can often use 'unused' attrbutes to circumvent this issue, for example I'll often use Angular Drag as somewhere to store an attribute or Max Speed (on a non-moving actor) . . etc . . obviously as all actors have an Angular Drag and Max Speed attribute cutting and pasting rules and behaviors from one actor to another that uses these attributes doesn't break the rules / behaviours.
All of which suggests a possible solution of kinds . . . with the recent support for games controllers we saw a whole bunch attributes added (no less than 128 attributes!! All in neat little folders) . . . I wonder if might be possible to give actors a folder of default blank attributes (say 10 real, 10 integer, 10 boolean . . . ) I say in a folder as firstly we know it can be done (see games controller attributes) and when collapsed wouldn't interfere with already established ways of working - i.e you wouldn't want to have to start scrolling passed dozens of blank attributes to get to your attributes beneath them.
So . . . . if you are using the third attribute of these default attributes to store - for example - a high score, then when copying rules and behaviours to a second actor, that second actor's third attribute of its own default attributes would be recognised by the rules and behaviours as the place to look for the high score (or the place to store the high score . . . etc) . . . we already know this works as, like I say above, using (for example) Max Speed to store a high score value in one actor that is referenced by the rules and behaviours will - when copied to another actor - recognise and use that actor's Max Speed attribute.
So the idea can be summed up as giving us a bunch of 'Max Speed' attributes in each actor, to use as we please, as we know the link between rules and behaviours is not broken with these default attributes when copying from one actor to another.
Weirdly, and with all the posts about crashing and instability, I never seem to get crashes, perhaps one or two a year (that's just a guess as I can't remember the last crash), GameSalad has always been very very stable for me, I'm not sure why I seem to be lucky in this regard, but all the waves of complaints about crashing seem to pass me by, the only thing I can't think of is that I don't use tables and have never used tables and a lot of these crashes are related to tables ?
Works fine for me, it's always worked fine for me ? I cut and paste expressions from one expression editor to another dozens of times a day without any issue whatsoever.
The one weird part is that a paste seems to empty the clipboard, which is very counterintuitive (and annoying) if you've been brought up with the universal standard whereby you can paste as many times as you like, but besides this cutting and pasting from one expression to another works fine.
Agreed, it would be nice to be able to re-order your attributes, and not just alphabetically, it would be great to be able to re-order them however you like.
This is issue is compounded by the fact that every window is reset in GameSalad when you shift focus, so you have a large scene, let's say 4,000 x 6,000, you scroll around to find a bunch of actors, let's say 12 of them, each one needs adjusting, you double click on the first, add 20 to its Y position, then go back to the scene layout to find you have been dumped back into the lower lefthand corner, so you scroll around again to find your bunch of actors, double click the next one, change its Y value by 20, then go back to the scene layout . . . where you find yourself dumped back in the lower lefthand corner . . .
This reseting of window positions - rather than leaving you were you last where - can be soul destroying on a large scene.
I often think some of the advantages of GameSalad's drag and drop approach are somewhat defeated by the UI/UX, sure you can get a platformer setup in 1/20th of the time it would take to code in Unity, but it will take you ten times as long to navigate the interface and get the elements in place.
Agreed, a little 'eye' icon that you can click on and off would be very useful.
If GameSalad were able to recently implement whole pixel value actor placement (after years of wailing and gnashing of teeth
) I wondered whether it would be possible to quantize to larger values - for example: holding down shift when placing an actor into a scene quantises that actor's position to the nearest 10 px position ?
First of all, votes mean nothing on bugs. The number of votes a bug has has no bearing at all on the order bugs will be fixed. GameSalad will fix bugs based on how quickly they can do so and how critical the bug is. Save your votes for feature requests.
The problem here is that each attribute has a unique number assigned to it. This is presumably what they use to reference the attribute in the actual code the game is converted to. Let's say I make a new project and add an attribute "game.Score". In the XML files, that attribute is given the number 10546. Now, let's say I go to another project and make an attribute called "game.Score". That attribute is given the number 54256. They have the same name, but not the same number, and so they don't work interchangeably. Getting GameSalad to know that game.Score is game.Score is presumably very possible, but I'm betting no small amount of work.
Personally I'd love to see this become a high priority, though.
Yes you can.
I personally hope that they don't force alphabetisation on us. I'd like to be able to reorder attributes, but I always want to be in control of the order.
This is a golden oldie and I hope to see it fixed.
This is a feature request though, not a bug. Vote here for sure.
I assume you mean placement of actors? As you can copy actors from one scene to another - that's what prototypes are for. Group select would be great though.
This is a feature request though, not a bug. Vote here for sure.
This is a feature request though, not a bug. Vote here for sure.
This is a feature request though, not a bug. Vote here for sure.
This is a feature request though, not a bug. Vote here for sure.
This is arguably not a bug, but expected behaviour. That said, I'd like to see it possible and would personally call this a bug.
Can't vote for any bugs :P (At least not with anything happening.)
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Good to know. Though maybe the devs would consider some bugs more severe if they received a lot of votes?
Doesn't work for me under Yosemite 10.10.5 and GS 13.36. Having both expression editors does not help.
In any case, glad to see these getting some attention.
Thanks!
How are you trying to copy and paste?
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
I stand corrected. I tried using copy and paste from the menu instead of command-c / command-v and now this DOES work for me now. It didn't before. Woo Hoo! Thanks @Armelline !
Enjoy
There's definitely work needing to be done on the copy/paste mechanics though!
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
1 is a non-problem. If you have a text editor, open an actor who has the attribute you want to transfer. In his initial lines, you will see the name of the "attribute" and an "id" next to it. You can transfer entire self.attributes from one character to another quickly.
But don't try it with anything else like behaviors or you will break the game if you don't do it just right. You gotta make sure all the things referenced are possible for that actor.
So when you go back in game, you will see all those self attributes in other actors, and then can copy and paste from one actor to another without breaking the links.
I use to use the method @socks mentioned, but then ran out of self default attributes that weren't being used and decided to test the above after figuring out the system identifies via "id" than name.
Typing an attribute with the "Same name" in the program won't work, because each time, it will have a new id, that is why you can have multiple attributes with the same name, because what they are actually being identified by is their "id" rather than name.