Behavior needs to be attached before writing the related events

[PascalLadalle]

Describe the bug

Some features only work when steps are followed in the expected order.
Is this only related to behaviors? Is this related to all behaviors? I don't know.

To Reproduce

Using the platformer example, step one:

"Argh, red flag! Nevermind, I'll add the behavior now."
Step two:

At this point, logic says it should work, but it doesn't. You can do all the inline tweaking you want, there won't be any tweening.
Step three is necessary, which is: open the related event, and close it!

Now it works.
I think it could fill the expected behavior and still show the red flag...which is actually what you get if you remove the behavior and reopen the event: the red flag is here, but the behavior still displays. If then you re-attach the behavior to the object, the tweening works without having to reopen the related event to "register" it.

Win10
GD5b79

[4ian]

Can you try the new action/condition editor (activate it from the preferences)? In essence, the way the action/condition editor is done may be biasing you in thinking "why can't I add a behavior to this object" because it's showing all available conditions/actions.

…

On Sat, 17 Aug 2019, 10:43 PascalLadalle, ***@***.***> wrote: Describe the bug Some features only work when steps are followed in the expected order. Is this only related to behaviors? Is this related to all behaviors? I don't know. To Reproduce Using the platformer example, step one: [image: image] <https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/25978830/63215189-62603880-c123-11e9-93c7-296c89efb1cc.png> "Argh, red flag! Nevermind, I'll add the behavior now." Step two: [image: image] <https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/25978830/63215213-b8cd7700-c123-11e9-976d-e09a69e651f4.png> At this point, logic says it should work, but it doesn't. You can do all the inline tweaking you want, there won't be any tweening. Step three is necessary, which is: open the related event, and close it! [image: image] <https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/25978830/63215199-8ae83280-c123-11e9-9f16-200cb0491839.png> Now it works. I think it could fill the expected behavior and still show the red flag...which is actually what you get if you remove the behavior and reopen the event: the red flag is here, but the behavior still displays. If then you re-attach the behavior to the object, the tweening works without having to reopen the related event to "register" it. Win10 GD5b79 — You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#1198?email_source=notifications&email_token=AAJYRAQHE3VVJH7YEZ3V4ATQFA2FDA5CNFSM4IMQALU2YY3PNVWWK3TUL52HS4DFUVEXG43VMWVGG33NNVSW45C7NFSM4HFZLQ2Q>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAJYRAWKTB5EGZFG5Q7VO4DQFA2FDANCNFSM4IMQALUQ> .

[PascalLadalle]

I didn't quite get that last part. If the behavior was automatically added to the action as I suggest (even though it's not attached to the object) and I got a red flag: "You need to attach the behavior or this action won't work", there's no confusion possible and I know what I have to do for it to work, and the bug would also be gone.

Regarding the new editor, I now cannot find the tween actions unless

1. I have added the behavior to the object and
2. I have selected the relevant object in the editor.

It's a solution, although I can't say I like it. As a "beginner", I search for action names but I'm not always sure of the names. So if I search "tween" (not the best example tbh, as this one is easy to remember) and the search returns nothing, I won't think "ah, true, I need to add the behavior first", I'll think "I'm not remembering it right", and I'll try a few other names before browsing manually through everything (and in the end, I won't find it since the behavior needs to be attached first, which is quite frustrating).

On a side note, I'd like to mention that this sentence (the "or" part of it) is misleading:

Even if I add the tween behavior to an object, it seems I cannot find the tween actions unless I select the relevant object and the object actions tab opens.

[Wend1go]

Having a button to the right of the "Behavior" field to add a behaviour (or at least show the "Edit Object" dialog) would also help to improve the workflow, since you don't need to close the actions dialog to add a new behaviour to the object.

[4ian]

Concerning:

Regarding the new editor, I now cannot find the tween actions unless
I have added the behavior to the object and
I have selected the relevant object in the editor.

and

Even if I add the tween behavior to an object, it seems I cannot find the tween actions unless I select the relevant object and the object actions tab opens.

This is done by design :) Let me explain:

• At the beginning, only a handful of actions/conditions were available in GDevelop. The solution was: easy, just display a list of everything, including the object related actions/conditions, in the list of actions/conditions.
• Then behaviors have been introduced. Things start to get messier as the number of extensions is growing - and also the design of showing everything start to become weird because in the case of behavior, you can choose objects that end up not having the behavior (hence this issue).
• Then I introduced the ability to write custom behaviors using events - which I think is an essential step toward enabling GDevelop to handle larger games and make them much easier to author.

This last step leaves us with a potential huge number of behaviors in a game. I would not be surprised to see games with hundreds of behaviors in the next months/years.

The design of the action/condition editor is showing limits there, because showing everything (while it's nice when you're searching things) is also becoming super messy, hard to navigate and less performant.

I think the proper solution going forward is to ask first choose the subject of your action or condition. The subject is in 90% of the case the object. It's only after selecting an object that you see the actions/conditions - and you're only seeing the one relevant to this object in the current state. This is the design of the new action/condition editor - still in beta.

While I do understand that the workflow you're describing looks broken, it's in the first place something that I don't want to encourage too much. I understand it's nice to search in the list of all actions/conditions - and also frustrating to be asked "please add the behavior". But the entry point should not be the action/condition editor.
I want to encourage people to search more in the behaviors first, and add the behavior to the object first.

In other words, I think the current editor gave us bad habits. Instead of shaping your object with behaviors, and then being able to manipulate it in events, we have been writing events before shaping our objects.

I'm happy to discuss more about this. The advantage of the design where we show everything is that it might be a bit easier to explore things and find the "tween" actions you are looking for. But this won't scale at all for games having 50+ behaviors (just look at the space shooter example). Even worse, the list is overwhelming for new users. The new approach only show what you can do with your object. It's removing the "bug" entirely because it's not possible anymore to try to apply wrong actions on wrong objects.

I believe in the long term this will be a welcome new design, as more intuitive:

1. find interesting behaviors for your object
2. add it to your object
3. Add actions/conditions, seeing only the thing that you can do with your object.
4. repeat until your game is done :)

Final note, if you think it's harder to find new features for your game because these tween actions/conditions are now hidden, then we need to work to improve the discovery of behaviors :)

[PascalLadalle]

I see your point... I can't speak for all users, but to me, the scene tab is just the graphical side of things, and the events tab is where it all happens, and behaviors/extensions, while having a graphical side to them (especially the tweens), are part of "the action".
I create a scene, add the objects I'll need, place some instances, and that's it for the graphical part.
Then I think about the action and switch to the events sheet, figuring out what I want and how to do it, and building it, block by block.
Switching to the scene tab, accessing the object properties, switching to the second tab, and adding the behavior... that's seven clicks and a scroll at least.
When I could just access the tween action I want, set it, and the tween behavior would be added on the fly to whichever object I pick (or I would add it through a shortcut, as suggested above).

Regarding the list becoming too big...The list is already too big and messy if you ask me, and quite hard to navigate. Not a good tree structure, no visible structure on the side and no color contrast.
I counted about 25 top-level branches at the moment, unsorted. 😲
With a clear tree structure, behaviors would just be one branch among others, and extensions another, no matter how many there are.
Here's an example (for actions) that would seem more efficient to me, with 6 top-level branches:

Objects
	Object parameters
		Movement
		Direction
		Angle
		Position
		Size
		Visibility
		Effects
		Animations
		Timers
		Variables
	Object management
		Create
		Pick
		..
	Object linking
		Link
		..
	Behaviors
		Tween
		Physics 2.0	
		Platformer
		...
Data/Local?
	Variables
		..
	Game system
		..	
	Inventories
		..
	Storage
		..
	JSON
		..
	Functions
		..
Scene 
	Create from external layout
	Layers and cameras
		...
		...
	Timers and Time
		...
		...
	Stop the scene
	Pause the scene
	Quit
	...
Device
	Mouse and touch
		..
	Sensors
		..
	Vibration
		..
	File system
		..
	Audio
		..
	Game window
		..
External
	Open URL or file
	Send a request to a webpage
		..
	Shopify
	Admob
	Facebook
	...
Extensions

I'd love to turn that into a pie menu that pops up on the events sheet when you hold the left click...
something like: https://doc.qt.io/archives/qq/qq11-piemenu.html
Well if I had the skills, that is. 😬

[4ian]

@PascalLadalle Thanks for your explanations - I see the idea and I also agree that the list is already not ideal at all. I think it's still a good thing going forward to move to a "subject first" editor for actions/conditions. This will almost entirely remove the problem of the "list too big" entirely and should make the selection of .
I still think the list of "Other actions/condition" in the new editor is too big and will need a new sorting/categories, but this can be gradually added :)

I also understand the idea of adding behaviors automatically from the events editor, but as the number of behavior will grow, it will be important for the game developer to set up the properties of these behaviors - we may see more and more behaviors that allow complex stuff to be done, in which case seeing the properties just after adding the behavior is important to know that things can be done :)
I'm afraid of making things implicit: if we automatically add the behaviors, some people could entirely miss the object editor to edit the properties. Worse you could select an object by mistake, and have the behavior added "for you" to the object while you don't want it - resulting in strange things in your game and painful debugging until you understand you have to open the object editor and remove the behavior that was added by mistake.

More generally, adding behavior is an act where you "shape" an object. As such, I think it's important for this to be in the object editor.

This being said, if opening the object editor is too complicated... maybe we can add a link/shortcut from the events editor when selecting an object? ;)

For the pie menu, this is a quite uncommon UI pattern so I'm not too sure about it. For now, I'd like to see how the new editor is working.

[PascalLadalle]

@4ian
It's true that users must know about the behaviors' properties, or it could be very confusing.
How about: Behavior: Tween. ❌ [Add the behavior]
Clicking on it would add the behavior (without opening a new window), and the window would be updated. Behavior: Tween. ✔️
And below, there could be an indication "This behavior has X adjustable properties", and that would be a link to access them, if needed.

It might also be good to put the behavior icons that are attached to an object next to the object name (in the object list). It would serve as a reminder and perhaps it could be a direct link to that behavior's settings.

I've been using the new editor a bit, and I don't really like it. It could be that I need more time to get used to it, but I think I'll switch back to the old one.
Either I search for an action that I never find because I haven't selected the object (or haven't added the behavior yet), either I select an object and search and search and realize that I shouldn't have selected the object (e.g "Create an object", very counter-intuitive), either I select an object and spend too much time scrolling the list of available actions, because it's not structured.

Considering that there will always be non-object-related actions, I think the object filtering shouldn't be mandatory. The full list would open, and there would be an objects dropdown list at the top to select an object as filter. Then there would be the chosen object name at the top, with an X on the side to remove that filter if needed.

But whichever way things go, the lists of actions and conditions really need a better structure, and I assume this should be fairly easy to change (and make a big impact for us users)... although I tried searching the repo and didn't find where that would be 😬

The pie thing is just what I feel I would like to have. Maybe I'd try it once and not like it 😅
But just one click, and then moving the cursor through each sub-menu until reaching the desired action...sounds great to me. And little by little, I know I'd learn the "path" of the most common actions, which would save me even more time.
The search feature is nice, but I don't use it much, I think I don't like switching from keyboard to mouse all the time. GD is so visual that I think everything (or almost) could and should be based on mouse/touch, and the pie menu would be one way to achieve that with a minimum of clicks.