Was there a feature request about changing the background of the actor tab?

owen_dennisowen_dennis Just a guy, you know.Member, PRO Posts: 236

I feel like I remember there being one, but I can't find it.

I'm doing a game where all of my actors are controlled via changing the color within the actor. This means that they're all white, however, the background of the actors tab is also white, which makes it extremely difficult to quickly spot the actor I'm looking for.

White in gamesalad is basically the neutral color, therefore the background of the actor tab should not be that neutral color. It should probably be some shade of gray or something. Maybe even the color of this forum!

I don't want to make a new feature request for a request that already exists though. Does anyone know what it was called so I can vote for it?

Comments

  • SocksSocks London, UK.Member Posts: 12,822
    edited February 2016

    @owen_dennis said:
    I feel like I remember there being one, but I can't find it.

    I've brought it up a few times.

    @owen_dennis said:
    I'm doing a game where all of my actors are controlled via changing the color within the actor. This means that they're all white, however, the background of the actors tab is also white, which makes it extremely difficult to quickly spot the actor I'm looking for.

    Welcome to my hell :)

    Yep, that's the basic issue, GameSalad's ability to manipulate colour (when the starting RGBA pixel values are set at maximum) is fantastic, I wish this is how all other applications like After Effects worked.

    But yes, the fact that the background of the Actor's tab is white means that if you take advantage of how GameSalad handles colour control it means you spend your day sifting through a window of - effectively - invisible actors. So visual scanning is out of the question (see TIP below), which as you say makes navigating your Actor's tab a bit of a pain.

    TIP: When searching for an actor - visually - in the Actor's tab, hit: select all (Cmd+A on OSX) - this places a grey square around each actor, showing white actors on a grey background.

    @owen_dennis said:
    White in gamesalad is basically the neutral color, therefore the background of the actor tab should not be that neutral color. It should probably be some shade of gray or something. Maybe even the color of this forum!

    A mid-grey would be the best compromise, but ultimately the issue is that these things are - from what has been shared by the GameSalad team - not straightforward to fix.

    This is similar to the default-text-colour issue, for years it was white, the default actor colour was also white, so quickly throwing an actor into your scene with a display text behaviour would involve the extra process of changing either the actor's or the text's default colour, not a major issue but one of many small oversights that can often make navigating GameSalad a little like wadding through mud.

    So after a lot of pleading (half a decade) the default text colour was changed to black, which to me was an equally bad choice given that GameSalad's default background colour is black . . . so, without having to alter the default values, white on white renders everything that is inside the default actor size invisible, and black on black renders everything outside of the default actor size invisible - so - a typical case scenario - a quickly thrown together actor using Display Text to check and display a value like: player one's score: attribute AAA . . in white would blank out the middle section, and in black would blank out the ends . . . quite clearly the argument against a white default text colour was that is clashed with the default actor colour, so then making it the same as the default background colour was a shortsighted move, it didn't get rid of the problem, it just moved it elsewhere, why not make the default text colour red or grey or blue or anything but the default black and white ? Anyhow, it was such a long - half decade - process to get small issues like this addressed that I expect most of those interested just accepted black as a compromise.

    Five years of this problem:

    Was resolved with this fix:

    When, this seems like the more obvious choice (?):

  • GeorgeGSGeorgeGS Member, PRO Posts: 478

    We made the default text color black because that was what was requested by the majority of people that were talking about it at the time. Honestly, no matter what we pick it will be the worst possible choice for somebody. :)

  • SocksSocks London, UK.Member Posts: 12,822

    @GeorgeGS said:
    We made the default text color black because that was what was requested by the majority of people that were talking about it at the time.

    That's absolutely true, but in hindsight I think it was the wrong choice, it's as problematic as white as a default colour, I just think it was a missed opportunity.

    @GeorgeGS said:
    Honestly, no matter what we pick it will be the worst possible choice for somebody. :)

    Agreed, but logically it should have been anything but the common default colours (black and white).

  • ArmellineArmelline Member, PRO Posts: 5,327

    Black works great for me. I either make the text smaller or the actor bigger, and normally change the background colour anyway so I'm not staring at a big black rectangle. I'd much rather see the default background colour change to a grey or pastel or something than see the text change from black.

  • SocksSocks London, UK.Member Posts: 12,822

    @Armelline said:
    Black works great for me. I either make the text smaller or the actor bigger . . .

    But, wasn't the whole point of the default text colour change to avoid making these additional changes ? You could say white works great for you as all you have to is either make the text black or make the actor white ? What I mean is all we are doing here is swapping the additional process (the complaint was largely about needless extra processes) of changing white to black with the additional process of changing a size ?

    @Armelline said:
    I'd much rather see the default background colour change to a grey or pastel or something than see the text change from black.

    That's works too, I just think there should be an informed approach to these things - ultimately all these elements get changed to something other than the default values, but when in the process of rapid prototyping, which GameSalad excels at, it seems like the enormous advantages GS has in speed over competitors is somewhat hemmed in by an interface that seems to actively fight against you.

    Anyhow, without going over old ground, I'll just say I agree with owen_dennis it would be great at some stage to have a more comprehensive asset management system.

  • owen_dennisowen_dennis Just a guy, you know. Member, PRO Posts: 236

    So now I'm pretty sure who I saw talking about it last time. ;-)

    That's a good tip on the select all idea @Socks Thanks!

  • SocksSocks London, UK.Member Posts: 12,822

    @owen_dennis said:
    So now I'm pretty sure who I saw talking about it last time. ;-)

    That's a good tip on the select all idea @Socks Thanks!

    Yeah, it works great as a workaround.

  • GnarlyGnarly canadaMember Posts: 840
    edited February 2016

    A few small UI changes like this would be much appreciated.

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