Stupid problem: Need to delete an attribute... but it's in too many actors (can't see REMOVE)

TomCoffee

I have 68 copies of one actor on my screen (it's a puzzle game). I tried to delete one Attribute from the main actor and it said "Warning: this attribute is in use..." and then it lists all 68 actors its in... but then the little message window too long and I can't get to the REMOVE button...

Anyone know of a shortcut/keyboard command to choose "Remove" instead of Cancel?

... or should I just rip it out of the XML files? Does it only exist in one place?

Thanks..

guilleface

why are you deleting, why not just leave it like that and dont use it, i had troubles before by deleting a attribute like that and all my 24 same actors were affected.

tatiang

That warning message appears whenever you use an attribute in a rule or expression. I would recommend going through the prototype actor and removing the attribute from rules/expressions, assuming that you haven't created a bunch of unlocked instances on the scene. Then, once it's out of the rules, you can delete the attribute without seeing a warning.

tatiang

Hmm... actually, I just created an attribute, added it to a rule, and created a bunch of copies of the actor but when I delete the attribute it doesn't warn me at all. Now I'm not so sure why you're seeing that.

kolabo

Interesting. @tatiang @TomCoffee. I'm able to recreate the problem by making an actor with multiple copies.(latest nightly) I get the warning.

Here's a couple of off the wall ideas that might work. If you can, increase the resolution of your monitor to reduce the size on the screen. Or, my external monitor allows me to rotate the display image 90degrees giving more space underneath the dialog box. Slim chance these work for you, but just in case.

TomCoffee

Oh... duuuuhhh.. I could just remove the behavior (it's a change attribute that's turned off, NOT a rule)...

I'm not using any nightly build.. using 0.10.4.1 beta...

@guilleface: It's really not a good practice to leave old attributes and rules around because it makes things more difficult to edit in the future. My little game is messy enough without leaving unused attributes just sitting in place.

Actually.. found another little quirk: even though I removed the behavior and saved the file, GS still thought it was in all 68 actors. I shut down GS, went back in and... bing... all gone!

Found a few other little things that seem to work better once you restart GS... maybe there's just some cleanup behind the scenes that's not being performed until you restart...

Thanks for all your suggestions!

tatiang

@kolabo Ah, maybe's it only in the nightly build. I just tried it there and I see the warning message.

Well, the method at http://superuser.com/questions/473143/how-to-tab-between-buttons-on-an-mac-os-x-dialog-box allowed me to tab to the Remove button and then by pressing the space key, I activated it.

tenrdrmer

As a best practice you should not delete that attribute until you can clear the list of actors that attribute is in. Right now the list is giving you a great way to see where it's at. Make the changes or removals now before that nice little reminder list is no mare and you just have actors with borked rules in them.

Cheers