ZGameEditor forum

Haven't tried this change yet, but I had an idea for another small visibility improvement.
How about a Divider Component, which does nothing except displaying a line between components in stacks?

For example, in my current game I have long lists of textures and materials, often sorted a bunch at a time, where I quickly want to discern between one group and another. I could use folders for this, but if I want to avoid opening and closing folders often, having them in a single list works better and saves horizontal space in the component tree.
With a divider, this would be the result :

- ComputerMaterial1
- ComputerMaterial2
- ComputerMaterial3
- ComputerMaterial4
- _______________
- DeskMaterial1
- DeskMaterial2
- DeskMaterial3
- DeskMaterial4
- _______________
- KeyboardMaterial1
- KeyboardMaterial2
- KeyboardMaterial3
- KeyboardMaterial4

Which would be much clearer than this :

- ComputerMaterial1
- ComputerMaterial2
- ComputerMaterial3
- ComputerMaterial4
- DeskMaterial1
- DeskMaterial2
- DeskMaterial3
- DeskMaterial4
- KeyboardMaterial1
- KeyboardMaterial2
- KeyboardMaterial3
- KeyboardMaterial4


Not sure anyone else needs this though, and if it's complicated it's not really that important. But in some situations it might come in handy.

You could add an empty Group component as divider and type "-------" as the Comment property. That should make it similar to what you want if I understand correctly.

Ah, true. I'll do that instead.

After some more hours of working with the latest ZGE beta, I suggest to move the Model/Definitions section to the 1st position from top. Having local variable declarations at the top is simply a good practice of programming in general.

I agree. Also I find it wrong that App.Content is not last (Light is). I'm used to add components at the bottom of the App. Maybe that's just me

VilleK wrote: Maybe that's just me

Not only you. I also prefer Content as last and Lights before.

I also agree...

Is there a way to drag the components up and down within their folder? I know I can use the arrows on top to move them one place up or down, but this tends to be a bit slow, especially when trying to rearrange, for example, a folder with Audio assets (ZGE IDE redraws the whole Editor area, it takes half a second at least, see video)... or am I missing something?

(Example).

This is more about "Properties" panel, maybe it's not strictly a part of the Project Tree but close enough... Anyway, I think that the names and the fields that show some text should go below the caption. Right now everything is just positioned using the same formula (left = caption, right = properties / tickbox / info text etc) which works perfectly fine for properties that have a simple "value" paired to them (a tickbox, a drop down menu, a number-input field, a color swatch etc etc), but when it comes to fields containing texts this sometimes doesn't work well.

Case in point is the ZExpression (probably the most used component in ZGE), which would really benefit from rearranging, I'm attaching a mockup. On the right we can see more code, eventual comment etc much better.

As a "serious user" of expressions, I'm fine if an expression is displayed only in Code editor. Properties should just visualize whether expression is specified or not; and for this displaying of the 1st line is usually sufficient. Also I like Properties as small as possible, because scrolling is really a pain - just try to find some property in ZApplication.

I'm not against expanding expressions also in Properties, but not by default. There can be some button, or ZGE setting to switch expansion on/off. Anyway, I see this as lower priority for ZGE.

Higher priority I see in refreshing the content of Properties panel during scrolling. Compare it, for example, to scrolling of Project tree which is refreshed continuously. Also I would appreciate scrolling of Properties panel by mouse wheel. I expect that the problem is in getting focus - I suggest that each panel gets focus automatically when mouse is over. If people do not like it, this behavior could be switchable on/off in ZGE settings, if possible. I'm using Blender and it has the same behavior of focusing panels - it's really convenient for multi-panel GUI with several scrollbars.

Hi Rado1,

Rado1 wrote:Higher priority I see in refreshing the content of Properties panel during scrolling.

This literally is / should-be a case of enabling the Tracking checkbox on VertScrollBar of TZPropertiesEditor ( that's how it's done in Lazarus at least ).

Rado1 wrote:Also I would appreciate scrolling of Properties panel by mouse wheel. I expect that the problem is in getting focus.

Correct .. but it's very straight-forward to redirect the scroll-wheel input to the parent TZPropertiesEditor.

K

Actually... If the text fields (either for comments or for code) were bigger... that'd just lead to trouble since the fields would look like they can be typed in (the way I made the mockup), anybody new to ZGE would probably just get confused if they clicked on a text field to edit some text just to find a new field with the same text popping up on the bottom... So never mind

If those fields serve just as an indicator, then I agree that "displaying of the 1st line is usually sufficient" but I wish they'd actually look more like an indicator as opposed to a "field with some text cut out", but I don't have a clear idea how could that be achieved... Edit: Oh of course, it should be done like in Sublime (text editor) - the way it draws the "map" of the text. Not sure if it makes sense

Also I would appreciate scrolling of Properties panel by mouse wheel. I expect that the problem is in getting focus.

Scrolling in the Properties panel worked slightly better in the old builds, as in the contents actually used to be redrawn "correctly" during scrolling with non-Windows themes, but now it doesn't work like that even there anymore. I already complained about it on a few occasions (1).

When trying to find a component (CTRL+F or right click on the background of the Project Tree, "Find component"), it's easy to mistype the name of the component or (especially when working with older projects) just remember what was the name of that thing (+there's no auto-complete in Find field...). In such cases, typing the name of the component that doesn't exist and automatically pressing Enter results in the Search just vanishing.

I think it'd be better if in such cases it threw a warning (maybe in the console? or just the search field could turn red or something simple like that... Just as long as it's not a separate message popping up that has to be dismissed manually) along the lines of "Not found" (maybe the bottom of the Search panel could extend with warning message). Should make it more practical to use than the current system where the whole thing just disappears.

Yes I agree, that would be much better. Also it would be nice with a partial name search so you get a list of components as search result.

I'd find it helpful if the default ZGE categories were slightly separate from the project-specific.

rrTea wrote:I'd find it helpful if the default ZGE categories were slightly separate from the project-specific.

Can you please give more detail? I don't understand from looking at the screenshot.