How do I allow user to take screen shot and save/load projects within my working app?

dabbuhl

I'm working on an art app and I want to allow the user to save their project and be able to load a saved project and most importantly, take a picture of the project. Not a screen shot of the entire screen with all the tools but only of their artwork area. Is there a way to do this?

tatiang

You can save individual attributes or entire tables. So to save "their project" (I'm not sure what that means), you would decide which values to save and then save them as a table or as attributes. Generally, a table is a much more efficient way to save data.

You cannot take any sort of screen shot using GameSalad.

Socks

@dabbuhl said:
I'm working on an art app and I want to allow the user to save their project and be able to load a saved project and most importantly, take a picture of the project. Not a screen shot of the entire screen with all the tools but only of their artwork area. Is there a way to do this?

Like @tatiang says GameSalad unfortunately doesn't support screen shots . . . but you could have a button that hides all the tools so the user can then take a standard screen shot which is saved to the photos app/folder.

dabbuhl

The app is an art app and so the user would create artwork. I want to be able to let them take a snapshot of only the art work. I also see the need, if they are working on a drawing and they need to stop for them to be able to save the drawing and come back to it later.

tatiang

It's just not possible. GameSalad is working on a more advanced engine called Graphene and it may allow for use of the screenshot and camera features via plug-in but that's all hearsay at this point.

The best I can think of is that you could record all of the paint strokes and play them back (spawn them again) when the user loads their drawing but it's both cumbersome and inelegant.

I'm not even sure how you were planning on having the user "create artwork." GameSalad is very limited in this regard. People sometimes assume that because GameSalad has the word "game" in it, it's only for games. This is simply not true and it can be used for many other purposes but... art creation is not really something it excels at.

Armelline

@dabbuhl said:
I'm working on an art app and I want to allow the user to save their project and be able to load a saved project and most importantly, take a picture of the project. Not a screen shot of the entire screen with all the tools but only of their artwork area. Is there a way to do this?

I have a template that demonstrates the saving loading. There's a preview here:

How I handled the screen shot ability is like @Socks said - I give the option to completely hide the interface for a short period of time, and the user can then take a screen shot using the iPad's built in screen shot ability.

I plan to upload it to some store soon, but you can PM me in the meantime to buy it if you want.

The saving is done by recording the x/y/width/height/colour etc. of each actor, in the order they were spawned, and then loading simply spawns them again. I only save when requested (better for performance and in my opinion a better usability choice), but if you wanted to save each item as it was drawn that would be possible too.

tatiang

Those filled and rotatable shapes are pretty sweet, @Armelline!

Lovejoy

@Armelline said:
The saving is done by recording the x/y/width/height/colour etc. of each actor, in the order they were spawned, and then loading simply spawns them again. I only save when requested (better for performance and in my opinion a better usability choice), but if you wanted to save each item as it was drawn that would be possible too.

This is very nice and different.

MentalDonkeyGames

The saving is done by recording the x/y/width/height/colour etc. of each actor, in the order they were spawned, and then loading simply spawns them again. I only save when requested (better for performance and in my opinion a better usability choice), but if you wanted to save each item as it was drawn that would be possible too.

If the attributes are saved after every line that's drawn, wouldnt it be possible to make an undo/redo feature?

Armelline

@Nizoster said:
If the attributes are saved after every line that's drawn, wouldnt it be possible to make an undo/redo feature?

Yes. It wouldn't be all that simple, but it would definitely be doable. There would be a noticeable performance hit if you're recording all that information for every actor spawned as it spawns, though.

@tatiang said:
Those filled and rotatable shapes are pretty sweet, Armelline!

Thanks! They can be resized (one at a time or all the ones you select) using swipes too! I plan on putting a video together tonight or tomorrow showcasing the features included, but unfortunately won't be able to post it on the forums unless in direct response to someone asking for a drawing template. To be honest I'm still not entirely sure what I can and can't post :P

dabbuhl

@Armelline said:
The saving is done by recording the x/y/width/height/colour etc. of each actor, in the order they were spawned, and then loading simply spawns them again. I only save when requested (better for performance and in my opinion a better usability choice), but if you wanted to save each item as it was drawn that would be possible too.

Can you save only one project at a time or multiple? I want to allow the user to save projects like they can on a computer.

Armelline

@dabbuhl said:
Can you save only one project at a time or multiple? I want to allow the user to save projects like they can on a computer.

I only set it up for one, but it wouldn't be too difficult to make it work for multiple. You can't create tables at runtime in GameSalad, though, so you'd be limited to a predefined number of slots as each save would require its own save.

It would be possible to use one table for unlimited saves, but it would require some considerably more complicated save/load logic.