Feature Request:Better Debugging Tools Who is with me?

guillopuyol

I understand GameSalad is build for non-coders, which is why I feel removing the obscurity of what happens behind the scenes is so important.

I understand that having a log debugging statement is useful, but would be nice to have a "Watch variable" so you can see how multiple variables change without having to see the hundreds (or thousands) of scrolling lines of text.

Also, it would be great to see a visual representation of tables at run-time so we know how the values are being changed as the game progresses.

tatiang

Those two suggestions are huge. I hope they make it into future versions of Creator.

ShmirlyWhirl

While it would be handy to have those built in no doubt, you can make your own debugging tools.

For instance, if you want to track whether an attribute is changing or not- Make a new actor. Put a Display Text behavior in there. Have it point to the attribute you want to watch.

Granted, this won't tell you at exactly what line it's changing, it will help you know if certain rules are firing or not.

tatiang

Yep, you can of course use DisplayText. But it gets tedious when you're trying to track 30 different attribute values. And sometimes you want to track values across scenes so you have to add the actor to every scene and then delete it....

And I've spent a lot of time building table display systems so I can watch table data "live" but again, it's a pain! If we had a separate Inspector window with attributes and table data, it would be great.

ShmirlyWhirl

Oh without a doubt it can get tedious. That's why I didn't even mention setting it up for a table.

Just incase he didn't know about that trick. It's pretty handy for tracking one or a few attributes.

guillopuyol

@ShmirlyWhirl yeah the display text method or log debug statements help, I'm just frustrated with some big tables not acting how I want and I'm having to spend a lot of time coding my own debuging tools...

Another nice feature would be an index attribute added to each instance automatically, whether it was spawned or placed in the scene manually it would be great to have a built-in way to talk to each instance.

ooh ooh! I just thought of another one...

On the creator, right click on an object and select "Add multiple instances" prompt appears "How many instances will you need master?" you type in "25" and 25 instances get added to your screen ready to be used.

CodeWizard

Noted.