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Tag name editor improvements


Hynekjhael

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I'm aware of the fact this game is in early access. Therefore, I understand part or all of all improvement points I'll describe bellow might already be acknowledged with a low priority in the devellopement roadmap. I also confess I did'nt went through every suggestion on the forum so this post might as well contain duplicate ideas.

When using logic parts in the drone editor, I often come to use very similar tags when building the logic of the same subsystem. If I'm building two legs for a walker, I may like to use tags such as FRONT_LEG_HEEL_FORWARD, FRONT_LEG_KNEE_BACKWARDS, BACK_LEG_HIP_FORWARD, BACK_LEG_TOE_GROUND_PROXIMITY and such. But then I face a few limitations doing so :

 

- Tags have a limited size of 21 characters https://ibb.co/h2RgDp

Relatively explicit tag names like I depicted previously dont fit. For comfort of use, I think tag names should allow more characters. For example, it's possible to fit 10 more characters without changing the dimension of UI : https://ibb.co/iydiR9

 

 - If you edit a tag, you cannot move the cursor inside the tag name, be it with mouse cursor or arrow keys. For example, you might want at some point to be able to slightly change a tag name in order to follow a pattern : "FRONT_LEG_HEEL_FORWARD" might be easy to change to "FRONT_LEG_KNEE_FORWARD".

 

- In a situation when you want to edit a previously set tag name, you can use backspace to delete part of the tag name, which opens new tag name autocompletion suggestions bellow the tag name editor box - if you have set similar tags before, that is. If you chose to select one of them, you can freely erase part of the content of the tag name editor box with backspace and/or add characters at the end of the tag name.

But if you chose to NOT select a suggestion, and simply add characters at the end of the tag name, it erases the entire content of the tag name box. This nullifies the usefulness of backspace in this situation, as deleting some characters - or all characters - is useless : typing will erase everything. It also greatly increases the time needed to write coherent tags since you need more effort to write normaly easily editable tags.

For example, you copied a logical part that uses the tag FRONT_LEG_HEEL_FORWARD. You want to change it to FRONT_LEG_HEEL_BACKWARDS. You can either

  • Erase "FRONT_LEG_HEEL_FORWARD" by directly typing "FRONT_LEG_HEEL_BACKWARDS" instead (24 keystrokes) ;
  • Erase "FRONT_LEG_HEEL_FORWARD",  begin typing "FRONT_LEG_HEEL_BACKWARDS" until an autocompletion suggestion for FRONT_LEG_HEEL_FORWARD appears, select it, erase "FORWARD", type "BACKWARDS" (17 keystrokes and a mouseclic assuming you dont press backspace down to erase more quickly and the autocompletion suggestion comes when you type "F") ;
  • Erase the last "D" of "FRONT_LEG_HEEL_FORWARD" with backspace, which will make an autocompletion suggestion for FRONT_LEG_HEEL_FORWARD appear, select it,  erase "FORWARD", type "BACKWARDS" (17 keystrokes and a mouseclic) ;

You should be able to simply erase "FORWARD" of "FRONT_LEG_HEEL_FORWARD" with backspace, type "BACKWARDS" instead (16 keystrokes).

 

- In the trail of previous suggestion, I think two hotkeys shoud be set for the tag name editor box :

  • Erase all characters off of current tag name (currently doable by typing over a previously set tag name)
  • "Remove tag", for which I suggest the escape key since it remains consistent with this key already erasing key bindings on a logical event.

 

Thanks for reading.

 

 

 

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3 hours ago, GreyCore said:

If you were a programmer, you would not have requested this. At least i wouldnt have.

Is that because programmers don't have these needs or challenges?  Or because a programmer would understand that it's unreasonable to ask? (Is it unreasonable?)

I'm not a professional programmer, but I've worked with C++ in my youth, and have a shallow familiarity with a number of scripting languages - javascript, lua, etc.  I see nothing wrong with the idea that a programmer should want to be able to edit his inputs with ease, and that common sense should apply to the text fields used for it.

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6 hours ago, GreyCore said:

If you were a programmer, you would not have requested this. At least i wouldnt have.

Totally agree with Lurkily. I don't see the problem with asking for this, to be honest I'd actually consider programmers the ones who should be the most interested in this, as programmers usually have great coding environments eg. with VS2017 and VAX.

I don't think it would be that hard to implement either, neither by writing completely custom code, nor using the text-box unity offers (which I'm fairly confident it does, I have only worked with UE4 but I'd expect Unity to be rather similar)

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11 hours ago, Lurkily said:

Is that because programmers don't have these needs or challenges?  Or because a programmer would understand that it's unreasonable to ask? (Is it unreasonable?)

I'm not a professional programmer, but I've worked with C++ in my youth, and have a shallow familiarity with a number of scripting languages - javascript, lua, etc.  I see nothing wrong with the idea that a programmer should want to be able to edit his inputs with ease, and that common sense should apply to the text fields used for it.

I mean, i always name my variables in compact names, so i dont feel a need for this. I guess some people need that, its just that i dont. And he probably has tiny to no experience in programming.

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The problem with very compact variables, is that sometimes you start writing and realize that two functions have the same initials; there are always ways to compress and streamline code after you're done making it functional.  I wrote a little javascript in the early, early web, when we had to worry obsessively over load times, optimizing every image and script, and I could write very explicit code, then run a script to compress it to a nub. 

And remember, this game is meant to be accessible to novice programmers, or even non-programmers; they're exactly the market for this game.

Hynekjhael has a valid point that would serve to improve gameplay.  Attacking his cred as a programmer doesn't serve any purpose here.

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Funny...my programming teacher used to praise long variable/function/class names, simply because you immediately know what they're supposed to do and you don't have to try to remember the abbreviation you used. No additional typing anyway, as you can use autocomplete.

 

I get your point, but I'd argue that it's very easy to take in an offensive way.

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9 hours ago, Lurkily said:

The problem with very compact variables, is that sometimes you start writing and realize that two functions have the same initials; there are always ways to compress and streamline code after you're done making it functional.  I wrote a little javascript in the early, early web, when we had to worry obsessively over load times, optimizing every image and script, and I could write very explicit code, then run a script to compress it to a nub. 

And remember, this game is meant to be accessible to novice programmers, or even non-programmers; they're exactly the market for this game.

Hynekjhael has a valid point that would serve to improve gameplay.  Attacking his cred as a programmer doesn't serve any purpose here.

I know nothing, becouse im way too dense, therefore whatever you say is most probably way more correct. So yeah, its not a bad idea to increase the limit of characters, it definetely wouldnt hurt anyone, and to be accurate, i was never against it.

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This sudden attack out of nowhere, am I on 9gag ?

For the record, I'm a profesionnal programmer. I have about 5 years of experience in various languages, including painful ones like Adelia, that dont allow more than 16 characters for variable names. Other answers have been given already.

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1 hour ago, Hynekjhael said:

This sudden attack out of nowhere, am I on 9gag ?

For the record, I'm a profesionnal programmer. I have about 5 years of experience in various languages, including painful ones like Adelia, that dont allow more than 16 characters for variable names. Other answers have been given already.

Naw, u just n33d to git gUd.. 😏 

Lol. Anyway

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