dgackeyAustin, TXInactive, PRO, Chef EmeritusPosts: 699
@Armelline said:
But spending 6 years facing the same old interface issues with there being no sign of any intention to ever do anything about them is pretty depressing. Literally hundreds of threads and posts on the forums about the issues with no replies from GS.
There are THOUSANDS of posts and we can't reply to them all. We do the best we can. You make it seem as though we're dodging these issues, but you know that I of all people am not afraid of giving unpopular feedback!
Trust that if things were easy to do, they'd be done by now. And that none of us like reading these threads, but do them anyway, because we want to improve the product more than anything else.
Dan Magaha · COO · GameSalad, Inc · danm@gamesalad.com
@Chunkypixels said:
Theres problems, big problems in how GameSalad has been developed over the years..
I think this is the key point here. The reason all this is being said at the moment is that for so long the inner working of GS development has been a closed book. Staff interactions were few and often meaningless.
Now we seem to have a staff that's engaging with the community and really cares about making positive change. Of course all these complaints will come out of the woodwork.
This isn't a big "Let's bash GameSalad!" session. This is a big "Holy crap, maybe something will actually get done about it now!" session.
dgackeyAustin, TXInactive, PRO, Chef EmeritusPosts: 699
@Chunkypixels you're confusing the topic of WHAT we focus on with HOW and WHY we do so. I am hearing a lot of supposition and hypotheticals about the latter and it's just not productive.
Dan Magaha · COO · GameSalad, Inc · danm@gamesalad.com
From what I can tell... With this new business changes, by the end of summer we should see a lot of improvements anyhow which is good... Let's hope for a good future for GS
@Chunkypixels said:
Armelline its also a ... "for gods sake please just concentrate on what should be important for once" session...
They've been doing that with the Creator speed and stability fixes. That was like a breath of fresh air.
Now it's more like a "Keep concentrating on what should be important" session.
The GS staff are probably getting a depressing view of things now. What is actually happening is that there has been huge improvements made and a huge part of the community has recognised those improvements. We've given big kudos to @BlackCloakGS in particular for the work he's done on the Mac creator, and that should continue. It's now apparent that @CodeWizard should get some of that kudos too, as it appears to have been his decision to shift focus onto that.
The overwhelming view of your paying subscribers is that GameSalad's made big, important and WELCOMED changes.
@Armelline said:
But spending 6 years facing the same old interface issues with there being no sign of any intention to ever do anything about them is pretty depressing.
I'd agree, whether it's a true reflection of GameSalad's actual outlook or not it's certainly the perception (for me at least), that Creator has numerous interface issues that can make even basic tasks cumbersome, and there seems to be absolutely no interest in addressing these issues.
@Armelline said:
Literally hundreds of threads and posts on the forums about the issues with no replies from GS. There will always be a new, flashier feature to add that will get popular support. I honestly wouldn't be surprised to find myself sat there six years down the road going into and out of actors, expanding drop down lists, changing X and Y coordinates, and then going back out of the actor and in to the next one. And that makes me sad.
Again, it's like you are reading my mind here, this is exactly my own view too.
On a constructive note, we obviously still have a problem of gauging community interest in future development. Making prioritization decisions based on a few emotionally charged forum conversations is not a good way to do this, but I think there's a valid point that Bugzilla is simply not being used to the extent that it's a reliable indicator either. (Which is why everyone should please vote for what they want, in addition to having this conversation)
So let's dig in! Why isn't Bugzilla useful (to any of us)? Certainly it has some usability issues. If it were improved, or we replaced it with another system, would you use that? Would users even notice that we have such a system? Maybe our real problem is communication. Maybe the entire notion of asking users to vote on feature requests is flawed? We'd appreciate your thoughts and feedback on this particular situation.
Let's keep things civil though. Accusing us of ignoring common sense is not helpful. Nor is it helpful for our users to tell us how simple it would be to implement a particular feature in our product.
And finally, please keep in mind that there's a lot of reasons that you might not see a feature for years after it's first suggested. Sometimes it actually is that time-consuming to build. Sometimes other tasks take priority. Sometimes we do prioritize things incorrectly and it's stuck at the bottom of a todo list somewhere and needs to be bumped up. It's unhelpful and fallacious to assume that we have no intention of doing these things simply because we haven't done them yet.
@WebWarrior said:
So let's dig in! Why isn't Bugzilla useful (to any of us)?
With Bugzilla - and the previous system - and the various 'vote for your favourite feature' threads, and the user started threads, and the various feature request conversations (and all that kind of thing) . . . has anything, ever, over the past half decade or so, ever delivered a user requested feature ?
dgackeyAustin, TXInactive, PRO, Chef EmeritusPosts: 699
Well, that was certainly a useful, constructive response.
Dan Magaha · COO · GameSalad, Inc · danm@gamesalad.com
@WebWarrior said:
And finally, please keep in mind that there's a lot of reasons that you might not see a feature for years after it's first suggested. Sometimes it actually is that time-consuming to build.
I think most sane people gave up on the more ambitious feature requests a long long time ago, you see a lot less requests for joints these days, but even what appear to be (to all us non-coders who don't have to do this stuff ! ) simple tasks are pretty much ignored too (or at least appear to be ignored), to me (again, accepting I haven't got a clue about coding) changing the default text colour might be something as simple as changing the default RGB values, but years (literally years) of request still see even small issues like this unaddressed.
@WebWarrior said:
It's unhelpful and fallacious to assume that we have no intention of doing these things simply because we haven't done them yet.
Weird sentence.
dgackeyAustin, TXInactive, PRO, Chef EmeritusPosts: 699
You found us out, Socks. We basically have no intention of ever adding anything that any user ever asks for anywhere.
Dan Magaha · COO · GameSalad, Inc · danm@gamesalad.com
@Socks said:
With Bugzilla - and the previous system - and the various 'vote for your favourite feature' threads, and the user started threads, and the various feature request conversations (and all that kind of thing) . . . has anything, ever, over the past half decade or so, ever delivered a user requested feature ?
Ah, so it's a trust issue. Makes sense. I hope that's the case, because it's simple to fix!
It is. It's hugely useful. As I'm sure @Socks will tell you, we spent years screaming for a central bug database. The introduction of it was lauded and we really appreciate the transparency it's provided. I'm sure it's helped the GS team pin down and fix lots of bugs that would otherwise have missed.
So I'm going to rephrase the question:
Why isn't Bugzilla useful for gauging subscriber interest in new features?
Well, that's pretty simple. The only way someone's likely to see it is if they read the forums A LOT. Casual readers looking for specific issues probably missed it. I'd be surprised if even 5% of your user base even know it exists.
What this means is that you're getting votes there from the more avid and dedicated users, and you're getting votes mostly when someone has a specific vested interest in a specific feature, and they then go and vote for it.
I'd be interested in how many users those votes come from. How many used all 5, and how many just voted on the one issue that was on their mind at the time? How many who voted realised they could vote on 5? (It's said, but people are experts at missing things.)
It makes things much too complicated. Even a simple stickied forum poll would get you a more representative view. I still stand by emailing all subscribers a short survey would be the best way though. The results should then be used to help guide development. I'm sure nobody is suggesting that is should dictate it. We have no idea what goes into things, after all.
Perhaps split the poll into categories based on difficulty to implement. Come away from it saying "Well the want this easy feature most by a small margin, but this pain-in-the-ass one came out way on top of that category." I don't know, there's going to be a middle ground somewhere I'm sure.
Maybe our real problem is communication.
For a long time, yes. Communication was dire. For about a year it's been noticeably improving, and for the past few months it's been great. You'd benefit hugely from a PR person managing the community who has a really good knowledge of what's going on at GS HQ, but obviously that's not a budge priority. Right now we've got a bunch of enthusiastic developers reading forums and replying to things that seem most important and today probably crying a little into their coffee because all the ungrateful bastards spouting off.
There is a bit of a feeling of issues being sidestepped (hell I wrote thousands of words of encouraging and polite suggestions and not a word in response), but there's also a feeling that you guys are really trying. I strongly suggest you take a good look at the mess Ellen Pao has made of reddit if you want to see the result of not trying. Now it's just a matter of working out a clear channel of communication.
I'd suggest doing a meetup or thread where people can ask questions and get answers, and have those questions and answered stickied for a few weeks. Some questions can't be answered. Some shouldn't. But right now the community feels like there's a real opportunity to affect change because we see things have shifted for the better internally at GS HQ. Unfortunately that's come across as more negative than I think people intended, and that's sad. But it really is a positive outcome of a positive situation.
It's unhelpful and fallacious to assume that we have no intention of doing these things simply because we haven't done them yet.
Often all that's needed is "That's not an easy change, but we're aware of the problem and we're actively working on ways to address it. It might take some time though." For some of these issues that's not happened once in 6 years.
@dgackey said:
Well, that was certainly a useful, constructive response.
GameSalad staff also constantly fail to quote or tag the person they are responding too, which can, on occasion, make following the conversation difficult - most users take the time to quote or tag the person they are responding to - there was a funny example of this the other day, where three people asked very straightforward questions, one after another, and a GS staff member, neither quoting or tagging a particular user (effectively a particular question) answered in the affirmative, his answer could have been addressing any of the questions.
@Socks said:
I think most sane people gave up on the more ambitious feature requests a long long time ago, you see a lot less requests for joints these days, but even what appear to be (to all us non-coders who don't have to do this stuff ! ) simple tasks are pretty much ignored too (or at least appear to be ignored), to me (again, accepting I haven't got a clue about coding) changing the default text colour might be something as simple as changing the default RGB values, but years (literally years) of request still see even small issues like this unaddressed.
Changing the default text color is simple. We've almost done it several times in just the last 2 weeks. The issue is, if all you use are default white boxes then black is a better choice than white. If you use real art then white is probably a better default choice than black. If you choose a 3rd option and add a preference for it that each user can set for themselves it isn't a 5 minute fix anymore.
@Socks said:
changing the default text colour might be something as simple as changing the default RGB values
I would pay good money right now to have the default text colour be black. Or the default actor colour to be black. Just not the same. Why they were ever the same in first place has kept me up at night, wondering, pondering, dreaming of what could be.
If changing that takes more than 5 minutes then holy crap the codebase for GameSalad must be bad. So bad, in fact, that surely the best course would be to scrap it and start again.
I actually think this specific point perfectly sums up the frustrations of long-term GameSalad users. Frustrations that are being vented now as it's the first time in years we feel someone is actually listening.
@WebWarrior said:
Making prioritization decisions based on a few emotionally charged forum conversations is not a good way to do this, but I think there's a valid point that Bugzilla is simply not being used to the extent that it's a reliable indicator either. (Which is why everyone should please vote for what they want, in addition to having this conversation)
I Agree... The devotion of the GS Team on the forum is outstanding... Fast answers, constant presence... People like that and it shows by how they get involve in those conversations. Haven't seen it on that extent with your close competitors.
@GeorgeGS said:
Changing the default text color is simple. We've almost done it several times in just the last 2 weeks. The issue is, if all you use are default white boxes then black is a better choice than white. If you use real art then white is probably a better default choice than black. If you choose a 3rd option and add a preference for it that each user can set for themselves it isn't a 5 minute fix anymore.
Most people use Display Text long before the put in art, and often remove Display Text entirely once the art is going in. I'd bet far more man hours would be saved changing black to white than are saved changing white to black.
That said, I'd say it would be WELL worth the extra time to put two options in the preferences: Default text colour + default actor colour. If that takes all that much more we're back to the horrendous state the codebase must be in.
@Armelline said:
If changing that takes more than 5 minutes then * the codebase for GameSalad must be bad. So bad, in fact, that surely the best course would be to scrap it and start again.
Which makes me want to ask the GameSalad team what program do you use for GameSalad?
@GeorgeGS said:
If you use real art then white is probably a better default choice than black.
Do people put Display Text on images? I only ever use Display Text when I'm debugging something and want to see a position of the mouse/touch or want to see a value in a game attribute. That's when I'd use the default white box actor and change the font colour to black. Everytime.
I couldn't use your Display text in a final game/app. It looks atrocious.
You guys should use GameSalad solidly for a good few weeks, maybe longer and try and build games. You'll have a better understanding on the issues. I don't mean how you use it to fix and test bugs.
I thought Bugzilla was great and voted for several things but I don't think any were implemented so I stopped using it. Mostly because the GS team said they were focusing on stability issues. So I'm not sure it's an issue with Bugzilla as much as people are waiting for the GS team to get rolling on adding in requested features.
Once you start knocking stuff off the list people will be a lot happier. People always like shiny new buttons to press.
@Armelline said:
I'd suggest doing a meetup or thread where people can ask questions and get answers, and have those questions and answered stickied for a few weeks. Some questions can't be answered. Some shouldn't. But right now the community feels like there's a real opportunity to affect change because we see things have shifted for the better internally at GS HQ.
I second that.. Would be an interesting subject... and appealing for new users I think
I'm confused, I see people talking about dragon things around in the editor. Precision positioning is something available in gamesalad.
In the windows creator, there is an x,y field in the upper right corner when looking at a level that refers to the currently selected actors position. Using this, and some math, I was, in minutes, able to line up a bunch of actors on say, the x axis, perfectly aligned with each other by determining their exact edges using math, {If say they are 20 px wide, then you'd have them line up on the Y axis as 20, 40, 60, and so on. Although, not exactly, they center around a point, so it would be 10, 30, and so on.
You'd still have to create them individually, but positioning them takes 5 seconds by just typing in their coordinates. When I discovered this by accident, I was able to do something that would have taken 30 minutes in 2.
And as for official "tiling" there is in the attributes of an actor. If you want to use a single tile to repeat, you just make a big actor of say 720x720, make a tile graphic divisible by that, then put it as it's image. In attributes, set the image to "tile" instead of stretch, and you'll have a repeating wall of bricks, blocks or anything else.
@WebWarrior said:
Ah, so it's a trust issue. Makes sense. I hope that's the case, because it's simple to fix!
That might be factor, I can't really speak for anyone else, but I gave up on all these kinds of schemes when they didn't appear to do anything . . . my question was genuine, I was curious as to whether in half a decade of bug report systems and feature request threads and polls and conversations and promises had delivered a requested feature or fix, I'm not aware it has (I could of course be wrong), even putting trust issues aside, just practical reality / previous experience might be the reason for a lack of uptake ? This is all guess work on my part to be honest, who knows.
I don't think any process where people openly speak their minds should be seen as unhelpful (even if the views expressed are negative), but maybe that's a personal view - I also don't think it's unreasonable to think there is no intention to address issues that have been in the software for years after years of requests, the view might actually be wrong, but I don't think it's an unreasonable (illogical) assumption.
Comments
There are THOUSANDS of posts and we can't reply to them all. We do the best we can. You make it seem as though we're dodging these issues, but you know that I of all people am not afraid of giving unpopular feedback!
Trust that if things were easy to do, they'd be done by now. And that none of us like reading these threads, but do them anyway, because we want to improve the product more than anything else.
Dan Magaha · COO · GameSalad, Inc · danm@gamesalad.com
I think this is the key point here. The reason all this is being said at the moment is that for so long the inner working of GS development has been a closed book. Staff interactions were few and often meaningless.
Now we seem to have a staff that's engaging with the community and really cares about making positive change. Of course all these complaints will come out of the woodwork.
This isn't a big "Let's bash GameSalad!" session. This is a big "Holy crap, maybe something will actually get done about it now!" session.
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
@Chunkypixels you're confusing the topic of WHAT we focus on with HOW and WHY we do so. I am hearing a lot of supposition and hypotheticals about the latter and it's just not productive.
Dan Magaha · COO · GameSalad, Inc · danm@gamesalad.com
Up until a couple of months ago it really felt like you were.
I honestly believed it was company policy to not publicly engage with issues related to Creator interface problems.
We still haven't actually got a straight answer on the matter (and a number of others).
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
From what I can tell... With this new business changes, by the end of summer we should see a lot of improvements anyhow which is good... Let's hope for a good future for GS
@Armelline its also a ... "for gods sake please just concentrate on what should be important for once" session...
They've been doing that with the Creator speed and stability fixes. That was like a breath of fresh air.
Now it's more like a "Keep concentrating on what should be important" session.
The GS staff are probably getting a depressing view of things now. What is actually happening is that there has been huge improvements made and a huge part of the community has recognised those improvements. We've given big kudos to @BlackCloakGS in particular for the work he's done on the Mac creator, and that should continue. It's now apparent that @CodeWizard should get some of that kudos too, as it appears to have been his decision to shift focus onto that.
The overwhelming view of your paying subscribers is that GameSalad's made big, important and WELCOMED changes.
We're just all Oliver, though.
This should have been an expected response!
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
I'd agree, whether it's a true reflection of GameSalad's actual outlook or not it's certainly the perception (for me at least), that Creator has numerous interface issues that can make even basic tasks cumbersome, and there seems to be absolutely no interest in addressing these issues.
Again, it's like you are reading my mind here, this is exactly my own view too.
On a constructive note, we obviously still have a problem of gauging community interest in future development. Making prioritization decisions based on a few emotionally charged forum conversations is not a good way to do this, but I think there's a valid point that Bugzilla is simply not being used to the extent that it's a reliable indicator either. (Which is why everyone should please vote for what they want, in addition to having this conversation)
So let's dig in! Why isn't Bugzilla useful (to any of us)? Certainly it has some usability issues. If it were improved, or we replaced it with another system, would you use that? Would users even notice that we have such a system? Maybe our real problem is communication. Maybe the entire notion of asking users to vote on feature requests is flawed? We'd appreciate your thoughts and feedback on this particular situation.
Let's keep things civil though. Accusing us of ignoring common sense is not helpful. Nor is it helpful for our users to tell us how simple it would be to implement a particular feature in our product.
And finally, please keep in mind that there's a lot of reasons that you might not see a feature for years after it's first suggested. Sometimes it actually is that time-consuming to build. Sometimes other tasks take priority. Sometimes we do prioritize things incorrectly and it's stuck at the bottom of a todo list somewhere and needs to be bumped up. It's unhelpful and fallacious to assume that we have no intention of doing these things simply because we haven't done them yet.
With Bugzilla - and the previous system - and the various 'vote for your favourite feature' threads, and the user started threads, and the various feature request conversations (and all that kind of thing) . . . has anything, ever, over the past half decade or so, ever delivered a user requested feature ?
Well, that was certainly a useful, constructive response.
Dan Magaha · COO · GameSalad, Inc · danm@gamesalad.com
I think most sane people gave up on the more ambitious feature requests a long long time ago, you see a lot less requests for joints these days, but even what appear to be (to all us non-coders who don't have to do this stuff !
) simple tasks are pretty much ignored too (or at least appear to be ignored), to me (again, accepting I haven't got a clue about coding) changing the default text colour might be something as simple as changing the default RGB values, but years (literally years) of request still see even small issues like this unaddressed.
Weird sentence.
You found us out, Socks. We basically have no intention of ever adding anything that any user ever asks for anywhere.
Dan Magaha · COO · GameSalad, Inc · danm@gamesalad.com
Ah, so it's a trust issue. Makes sense. I hope that's the case, because it's simple to fix!
How do I English?
It is. It's hugely useful. As I'm sure @Socks will tell you, we spent years screaming for a central bug database. The introduction of it was lauded and we really appreciate the transparency it's provided. I'm sure it's helped the GS team pin down and fix lots of bugs that would otherwise have missed.
So I'm going to rephrase the question:
Well, that's pretty simple. The only way someone's likely to see it is if they read the forums A LOT. Casual readers looking for specific issues probably missed it. I'd be surprised if even 5% of your user base even know it exists.
What this means is that you're getting votes there from the more avid and dedicated users, and you're getting votes mostly when someone has a specific vested interest in a specific feature, and they then go and vote for it.
I'd be interested in how many users those votes come from. How many used all 5, and how many just voted on the one issue that was on their mind at the time? How many who voted realised they could vote on 5? (It's said, but people are experts at missing things.)
It makes things much too complicated. Even a simple stickied forum poll would get you a more representative view. I still stand by emailing all subscribers a short survey would be the best way though. The results should then be used to help guide development. I'm sure nobody is suggesting that is should dictate it. We have no idea what goes into things, after all.
Perhaps split the poll into categories based on difficulty to implement. Come away from it saying "Well the want this easy feature most by a small margin, but this pain-in-the-ass one came out way on top of that category." I don't know, there's going to be a middle ground somewhere I'm sure.
For a long time, yes. Communication was dire. For about a year it's been noticeably improving, and for the past few months it's been great. You'd benefit hugely from a PR person managing the community who has a really good knowledge of what's going on at GS HQ, but obviously that's not a budge priority. Right now we've got a bunch of enthusiastic developers reading forums and replying to things that seem most important and today probably crying a little into their coffee because all the ungrateful bastards spouting off.
There is a bit of a feeling of issues being sidestepped (hell I wrote thousands of words of encouraging and polite suggestions and not a word in response), but there's also a feeling that you guys are really trying. I strongly suggest you take a good look at the mess Ellen Pao has made of reddit if you want to see the result of not trying. Now it's just a matter of working out a clear channel of communication.
I'd suggest doing a meetup or thread where people can ask questions and get answers, and have those questions and answered stickied for a few weeks. Some questions can't be answered. Some shouldn't. But right now the community feels like there's a real opportunity to affect change because we see things have shifted for the better internally at GS HQ. Unfortunately that's come across as more negative than I think people intended, and that's sad. But it really is a positive outcome of a positive situation.
Often all that's needed is "That's not an easy change, but we're aware of the problem and we're actively working on ways to address it. It might take some time though." For some of these issues that's not happened once in 6 years.
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
GameSalad staff also constantly fail to quote or tag the person they are responding too, which can, on occasion, make following the conversation difficult - most users take the time to quote or tag the person they are responding to - there was a funny example of this the other day, where three people asked very straightforward questions, one after another, and a GS staff member, neither quoting or tagging a particular user (effectively a particular question) answered in the affirmative, his answer could have been addressing any of the questions.
Well, that was certainly a useful, constructive response.
Changing the default text color is simple. We've almost done it several times in just the last 2 weeks. The issue is, if all you use are default white boxes then black is a better choice than white. If you use real art then white is probably a better default choice than black. If you choose a 3rd option and add a preference for it that each user can set for themselves it isn't a 5 minute fix anymore.
I would pay good money right now to have the default text colour be black. Or the default actor colour to be black. Just not the same. Why they were ever the same in first place has kept me up at night, wondering, pondering, dreaming of what could be.
If changing that takes more than 5 minutes then holy crap the codebase for GameSalad must be bad. So bad, in fact, that surely the best course would be to scrap it and start again.
I actually think this specific point perfectly sums up the frustrations of long-term GameSalad users. Frustrations that are being vented now as it's the first time in years we feel someone is actually listening.
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
Ask and you shall receive.
Dan Magaha · COO · GameSalad, Inc · danm@gamesalad.com
I Agree... The devotion of the GS Team on the forum is outstanding... Fast answers, constant presence... People like that and it shows by how they get involve in those conversations. Haven't seen it on that extent with your close competitors.
Most people use Display Text long before the put in art, and often remove Display Text entirely once the art is going in. I'd bet far more man hours would be saved changing black to white than are saved changing white to black.
That said, I'd say it would be WELL worth the extra time to put two options in the preferences: Default text colour + default actor colour. If that takes all that much more we're back to the horrendous state the codebase must be in.
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
Which makes me want to ask the GameSalad team what program do you use for GameSalad?
Do people put Display Text on images? I only ever use Display Text when I'm debugging something and want to see a position of the mouse/touch or want to see a value in a game attribute. That's when I'd use the default white box actor and change the font colour to black. Everytime.
I couldn't use your Display text in a final game/app. It looks atrocious.
You guys should use GameSalad solidly for a good few weeks, maybe longer and try and build games. You'll have a better understanding on the issues. I don't mean how you use it to fix and test bugs.
I thought Bugzilla was great and voted for several things but I don't think any were implemented so I stopped using it. Mostly because the GS team said they were focusing on stability issues. So I'm not sure it's an issue with Bugzilla as much as people are waiting for the GS team to get rolling on adding in requested features.
Once you start knocking stuff off the list people will be a lot happier. People always like shiny new buttons to press.
Twitter:rondorocket
Web: rondorocket.com
Do you know me? lol
I second that.. Would be an interesting subject... and appealing for new users I think
I'm confused, I see people talking about dragon things around in the editor. Precision positioning is something available in gamesalad.
In the windows creator, there is an x,y field in the upper right corner when looking at a level that refers to the currently selected actors position. Using this, and some math, I was, in minutes, able to line up a bunch of actors on say, the x axis, perfectly aligned with each other by determining their exact edges using math, {If say they are 20 px wide, then you'd have them line up on the Y axis as 20, 40, 60, and so on. Although, not exactly, they center around a point, so it would be 10, 30, and so on.
You'd still have to create them individually, but positioning them takes 5 seconds by just typing in their coordinates. When I discovered this by accident, I was able to do something that would have taken 30 minutes in 2.
And as for official "tiling" there is in the attributes of an actor. If you want to use a single tile to repeat, you just make a big actor of say 720x720, make a tile graphic divisible by that, then put it as it's image. In attributes, set the image to "tile" instead of stretch, and you'll have a repeating wall of bricks, blocks or anything else.
This is not in the Mac version. Implementing even just this would be enough to table this particular issue for another year at least.
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
That might be factor, I can't really speak for anyone else, but I gave up on all these kinds of schemes when they didn't appear to do anything . . . my question was genuine, I was curious as to whether in half a decade of bug report systems and feature request threads and polls and conversations and promises had delivered a requested feature or fix, I'm not aware it has (I could of course be wrong), even putting trust issues aside, just practical reality / previous experience might be the reason for a lack of uptake ? This is all guess work on my part to be honest, who knows.
I don't think any process where people openly speak their minds should be seen as unhelpful (even if the views expressed are negative), but maybe that's a personal view - I also don't think it's unreasonable to think there is no intention to address issues that have been in the software for years after years of requests, the view might actually be wrong, but I don't think it's an unreasonable (illogical) assumption.