Gdevelop: GD5: Add the option to set an object name in the add new object dialog

[Wend1go]

The current way of creating new objects is a little cumbersome since they are all automatically named "NewObject" and the "Edit object" dialogue immediately shows up before one can give it a proper name.
Having to right click on the object, choose Rename and overwrite the old name disturbs the work flow a bit.

It would be nice to have an input box (mandatory) for the object name directly inside either the "add a new object" dialogue or the "Edit object" dialogue that gets opened right after creating the object.
That way one wouldn't have to rename every single object after creation and it would also benefit the piskel editor because a proper object name for the image folder would already be available when it gets launched.

[blurymind]

@Wend1go I found this with my personal electron project - electron doesnt actually support having a prompt with text entry for some reason - unlike web browsers. There are workarounds of course, but they are not great. I can add it right now in the web app version of gdevelop , but it wont work in electron.

We need to create a new prompt gui class to make this happen.. or use an npm package- which is not great.
https://www.npmjs.com/package/electron-prompt

I wonder how to best address this

[4ian]

Prompt does not sound like a great user experience anyway - they are modal things and force the user to make a choice now while they can want to go back to it faster.
Can you think of an alternative solution that wouldn't require it?

[blurymind]

@4ian one thing that would be nice and will help here is have the object list (on the right) automatically select the object that is selected in the editor and even scroll to it.
If it scrolls to it and even has the name input steal focus on newly created objects- that would even be better. Perhaps to some it wont be obvious enough though

I was actually wondering whether to give this a try :)

[Wend1go]

I wasn't actually talking about a prompt but a mere text box instead. Something like this (just more pretty ;))
https://imgur.com/11SCbh3
But @blurymind ' s idea sounds good too, it would be the same approach as in GD4.

[blurymind]

@Wend1go @4ian How about doing it like this:

:)
I found this to be the most natural way to do it. It also adreses the fact that the object
editor is not showing the name of the object being edited

[Wend1go]

I like it

[blurymind]

@Wend1go my suggestion is to put it in objectEditorDialog.js instead
I noticed that you are already working on this. Would you be interested in tackling it in your pull request here:
https://github.com/4ian/GD/pull/545
I can give it a try again later this week too if you want :)

[Wend1go]

I won't have time to work on GD next weekend, if you have more time give it a try.
Otherwise I could look into it the weekend after next.

[blurymind]

Thanks to @4ian 's excellent guidance I made some progress with this and learned some new cool reactjs things. Now an object can also be renamed like this:

As you can see it gets renamed only if you apply the changes

This might require some bold refactoring of the rename object function - which is right now scattered in two places. My solution works right now - but it doesnt do the check if an object with that name already exists. Moving the checking outside of the object list module and into the index would solve it and makes things a bit simpler. Right now it is a bit confusing that as a third parameter you have to pass another function

[4ian]

Good job!
Yes you probably need to unify the rename function into a single one in the SceneEditor/index.js and then pass it down to use it at any point where you need it :)

[blurymind]

@4ian I was thinking to keep them separate, because I want the unique name check to happen when the input loses focus and the actual renaming when the user clicks on "apply".
When moving out the check function - make it a simple checkIfObjectNameCanBeUsed(newName) function that returns true or false

Not sure if thats the best approach, but I think it will make the code easier to understand

[4ian]

Then in this case it makes sense to have a slightly different implementation, but factor common code into a tool function so that the code is easier to read and obvious to implement :)

[blurymind]

I will try not to break things or change them too much. Right now its a choice between some refactoring or code replication. :)
I trust your judgement in this,so will take whatever approach seems most sensible

Btw do you like the idea of being able to rename the object from there?
I decided to put it there, so when people make a new object, they can rename it instantly.

It also shows the object name that the editor is editing

[4ian]

Having it here looks correct. Could maybe have a label "Object name:" before the text field and ensure the text field takes the whole width of the dialog.

[blurymind]

@4ian yes you are right. I will add that :)

[blurymind]

Made a pull here
https://github.com/4ian/GD/pull/547

[4ian]

Great job in implementing this :) I think we can now close this :)

[blurymind]

Thank you :) sorry for taking a while btw. Got interupted by traveling and
vacation

On Tue, 17 Jul 2018 01:36 Florian Rival, [e-mail] wrote:

Great job in implementing this :) I think we can now close this :)

—
You are receiving this because you were mentioned.
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub
https://github.com/4ian/GD/issues/542#issuecomment-405402542, or mute
the thread
https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGMbVSeaEgYCnE34RglS_vsmg3jx4Ehtks5uHRVkgaJpZM4U6LRn
.

[Wend1go]

Thanks a lot :)

[magicvince]

There's a bug in this option: If I type unfortunately a space in the name, my GD freeze all my computer and I have to reboot it. It seems to be a bug. I'm using GD 5.00 beta 62 with Linux Debian (stretch) Mint