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Question - IDE When will we have a GUI system, is it planned?

xDGameStudios

GameMaker Staff
GameMaker Dev.
Hi everyone :D
This is a question/issue that lives with me for quite some time. One problem that makes me shift from GMS2 to other engines is actually the GUI support.. every time I start working on a project I approach it using GMS2 as I think it is a powerful and capable tool both for indie and profession use but I always fall in a pit when I think of implementing GUI.

It almost always starts like this
Code:
1) the idea is there the concept is perfect...
2) the game systems are starting to look great
3) playability is good... and the game plays well
4) let's start polish.. add dialog... add menus...
4) OMG, I'll need to implement my own GUI system!! damn!!
and that is the time I start having seconds thoughts... maybe it's better to port this to another engine... I start using other engines (Godot/Unity) that are just so overwhelming just for the sake of GUI. So my question is, will we get a taste of GUI a system in the GMS2 IDE in the future? How far down the road is it?
 
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Lonewolff

Guest
The problem is that what you see as a GUI system may be entirely different from my idea.

RPG Maker has a GUI system. And every single game made in that engine looks 'samey'. The same thing would happen to games made with GMS if such a system were put into place.

I personally think that the GUI is the easiest part to code, so it doesn't really worry me that there isn't a complete system already in place.
 

xDGameStudios

GameMaker Staff
GameMaker Dev.
A GUI system is something like the Unity GUI / Godot GUI system / WindowsForms GUI System / MonoGUI System... You have containers, you have buttons you have, text boxes, labels... you can parent those ones inside others and drag&drop those to make your GUI.. that's what a GUI system is.. the RPG Maker one is a very limited and very focused one.
 

xDGameStudios

GameMaker Staff
GameMaker Dev.
The problem is that what you see as a GUI system may be entirely different from my idea.

RPG Maker has a GUI system. And every single game made in that engine looks 'samey'. The same thing would happen to games made with GMS if such a system were put into place.

I personally think that the GUI is the easiest part to code, so it doesn't really worry me that there isn't a complete system already in place.
Okay then.. how easy do you think it would be to do something like this:


and this:

 
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Lonewolff

Guest
Okay then.. how easy do you think it would be to do something like this:
Not that hard really.

Take away the flashy graphics and there is not that much too it. Remember GMS doesn't give you the graphics. RPG Maker does and it gives the same pitfalls of being instantly recognisable.


More examples of the pitfalls of a pre-baked system.





 

xDGameStudios

GameMaker Staff
GameMaker Dev.
More examples of the pitfalls of a pre-baked system.
Not sure you understood.. do you know what I'm talking about? Do you know Mono GUI.. for example?
https://www.mono-project.com/docs/gui/

It is completely different from what you are posting here... and it supports themes.. so you can change every element appearance.. it has ItemLists, Grids, SlideBars, NumUpDown, TextBox, Labels, Vertical and Horizontal SplitContainers...
 

xDGameStudios

GameMaker Staff
GameMaker Dev.
I'm aware of all the systems there might be... and I already owe half of them. My question still stands for the ones responsible for the development of the GMS2.. For when is it planned a builtin GUI system for GMS2.. with it's own IDE editor and stuff? :D
 

xDGameStudios

GameMaker Staff
GameMaker Dev.
Best that you fire off a support ticket to YYG then, as this is a community forum and we can't speak on the developers behalf.
Well... someone on the team responsible could read this and give a hint if something like this is even planned (it has happened before here in the forums) it is a technical support after all. People ask about bugs here, how payment works... compiling errors... someone has to read this.. is not the community that is fixing the bugs :)

but will do that
 
People ask about bugs here, how payment works... compiling errors... someone has to read this.. is not the community that is fixing the bugs
Yes, we ask here and for all of those things - if they are accounts, payments, and bugs in the IDE (not compile errors as those are people making their own code mistakes) the response is always to raise it with YYG support as the community cannot fix issues with accounts or with things in the IDE or runtime. So best bet is to raise it through the proper bug channels and put it as a suggestion.
There is no guarantee that anyone from YYG will be reading the community forums on the off chance that someone posts something about a feature that they want.
 

breakmt

Member
Lack of GUI editor is GameMaker problem and disadvantage in engines competition. For simple games and games without much GUI it shouldn't be a problem. Otherwise it could be reason which will lead developers to choose another engine.
PS: examples with RPG maker are not correct at all, system in Unity/Godot is much more complicated than premade menus
PPS: I don't think that it will be implemented in the next 2 years
 
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immortalx

Guest
I started using ImGuiGML the other day and is absolutely awesome. It's a wrapper for the popular Dear ImGui framework that is mostly used for game-tools, but there's nothing stopping you using it for a game's GUI.
 
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Lonewolff

Guest
Probably not... but who cares about RPG maker games UI? TS asked about GUI system like in Unity/Godot
That's the thing. RPG Maker is extremely customisable. People tend to take the easiest path though. People will follow the tutorials and (assuming GM had a GUI editor) it will look samey.

Gamemaker games already look very samey for the most part.
 

JeffJ

Member
That's the thing. RPG Maker is extremely customisable. People tend to take the easiest path though. People will follow the tutorials and (assuming GM had a GUI editor) it will look samey.

Gamemaker games already look very samey for the most part.
That has absolutely nothing to do with the suggestion at all, and everything to do with how lazy users will utilize it, and is really not an argument against it.

For the record, I agree that RPG Maker or similar is a poor example. Obviously a premade GUI framework will never be able to cater to every need, but there are so many GUI elements that are just so incredibly standard now, even in games, that it would cover a huge amount of the most frequently used cases. A standard framework out of the box could cover such GUI elements as
  • Buttons
  • Radiobutton groups
  • Checkboxes
  • Sliders
  • Parent window wrappers
- Just to name a few. They could allow for easy skinning / coloring, with some sprite input or something like that to allow for custom looks, and obviously scaling up/down. In this way, users could have all the most regularly used GUI component needs covered, without sacrificing too much aesthetic control.

There is definitely something to be said for the usefulness and value of a solid and flexible GUI framework included out of the box.
 

Kezarus

Endless Game Maker
Yeah, my first task in the next coming project is to make a framework for simple things like panels, buttons, sliders, etc.

If GM have this it would be great. And I don't really think it's too much to ask...
 

erayzesen

Member
Yep, I woke to the topic again. :) Firstly my english is a little bit broken. Sorry for that.

I want to this feature in gms too. Of course , I sent feature request to yyg.

But what do you think guys? I tired to make gui parts with only writing codes from the zero. Sometimes I think that I'm wasting time right now when I'm working on game menu side. Because all of popular game engines (even not popular engines :D ) have gui system and nobody even cares about the gui side.

edit: By the way, the sequence feature was perfect. But without the gui system, I feel like I'm using a ferrari with no seats in it. :D
 
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Evanski

Raccoon Lord
Forum Staff
Moderator
Yep, I woke to the topic again. :) Firstly my english is a little bit broken. Sorry for that.

I want to this feature in gms too. Of course , I sent feature request to yyg.

But what do you think guys? I tired to make gui parts with only writing codes from the zero. Sometimes I think that I'm wasting time right now when I'm working on game menu side. Because all of popular game engines (even not popular engines :D ) have gui system and nobody even cares about the gui side.

edit: By the way, the sequence feature was perfect. But without the gui system, I feel like I'm using a ferrari with no seats in it. :D
Draw GUI event:
GML:
draw_set_color(c_red);
draw_set_halign(fa_center);
draw_text(room_width/2-y,room_height-100,"WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF TOMORROW!")
draw_set_halign(fa_left);
draw_set_color(c_black);
easy title for the main screen

can even make gui functions easier with the new scripts, I personally dont see the benefit of yoyo adding a gui system, when making a gui is easy as drawing a sprite on the gui layer
 

erayzesen

Member
Draw GUI event:
GML:
draw_set_color(c_red);
draw_set_halign(fa_center);
draw_text(room_width/2-y,room_height-100,"WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF TOMORROW!")
draw_set_halign(fa_left);
draw_set_color(c_black);
easy title for the main screen

can even make gui functions easier with the new scripts, I personally dont see the benefit of yoyo adding a gui system, when making a gui is easy as drawing a sprite on the gui layer
Yep we may create text with this simple way.

But in practice, there is so much we need. Imagine you need make menu like this; (This is just a simple sample )



And you need to code this menu. The problem isn't only coding checkboxes,option lists, slide bars...etc. You need to positioning with fast way in complex menus. And the work was not finished yet. You need to quickly adapt and diversify this to maybe different devices, different platforms.

Yep, we can code this but why? Why we can't do this with builtin gui system in the ide in 1-2 hours? Why do we have to spend hours and stress for this? :D Nobody will play to the my game menu, they will play only my game.
 

Cpaz

Member
Long term, I think sequences will act as a makeshift GUI system. Keep in mind, if the roadmap is anything to go by, there's still more to see out of sequences.

If that fails, I genuinely think we're going to have easily modular GUI systems with the structs being a thing.
I'm very interested to see catalyst and/or the marketplace make even further strides.
 

Kezarus

Endless Game Maker
Hmmm, what if someone got very frustrated about this... enough to make a framework with lots of GUI elements (and much more)... and is distributing the code... for free... in the marketplace... and on Git...? Hmmmm. 🤔

Well, mate! Look no further! You can get Monastery Framework right now! It's free! It have GUI elements! That are made with nine-slices! It have Screen Shake, a Particle Lab, Language Support, Rebindable Keys and some other surprises for FREE! You can get it now! It's extensively documented! Don't need everything? Sometimes, neither do I! Its a toolbox that you can pick and choose what you want. Do you use GM 1.4? GM 2.2? GM 2.3? We got it all! Go get it! XD

If you have any suggestions, I am right here and this is the forum thread. I made this with the help of the good people of this forum and I credited each and everyone of them. It's not the best thing since bread came sliced, but it gets the job done. I hope it's useful for you. =]
 

Evanski

Raccoon Lord
Forum Staff
Moderator
Hmmm, what if someone got very frustrated about this... enough to make a framework with lots of GUI elements (and much more)... and is distributing the code... for free... in the marketplace... and on Git...? Hmmmm. 🤔

Well, mate! Look no further! You can get Monastery Framework right now! It's free! It have GUI elements! That are made with nine-slices! It have Screen Shake, a Particle Lab, Language Support, Rebindable Keys and some other surprises for FREE! You can get it now! It's extensively documented! Don't need everything? Sometimes, neither do I! Its a toolbox that you can pick and choose what you want. Do you use GM 1.4? GM 2.2? GM 2.3? We got it all! Go get it! XD

If you have any suggestions, I am right here and this is the forum thread. I made this with the help of the good people of this forum and I credited each and everyone of them. It's not the best thing since bread came sliced, but it gets the job done. I hope it's useful for you. =]
But what if i where to make my own gui framework and put it on the marketplace for money! haha delightfully devious Evanski

 
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Deleted member 45063

Guest
For now I think the best way to quickly create GUIs is if you create a custom editor for them that exports them into either some file that you include as an external file and then load at runtime or that just spits out the GML code you need to paste somewhere in order to get that UI. This would obviously be highly tied to whatever custom GUI framework you ended up using, but you could take an existing one from the Marketplace and just create the editor layer on top.

Alternatively you can try to use some UI specific tool to create the UI, export that and implement a converter from whatever that tool exports to GM, or implement a loader of whatever that tool exports in GM.
 
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We shouldn't have to re-invent the wheel for something commonly used. Hard coding draw functions and trying to correctly place it in the room from trial and error, or having every single person make their own custom GUI editor specifically for their 1 game is just bad.

I keep seeing people drop GM for the reason of dreading to hard code draw functions and placing the GUI correctly. I myself am on the fence of jumping engines because of this same reason. I am actually researching on a new engine right now.

Edit: Btw, I am not saying I want a starter GUI kit that has text input, buttons, etc, I pretty much just want an improved room editor that has nine slice and a text element to make it easier to make GUI interfaces. I think what I said might have come off to people like I wanted a starter GUI kit, but I just want an improved room editor.
 
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GDS

Member
add event > draw > Draw GUI ,>>>> Am i joke to?
Like if you can code a game,
gui is like the easiest part to make.
if you are new to coding you can just download a item menagent script for free on the marketplace
 

Nocturne

Friendly Tyrant
Forum Staff
Admin
I love writing GUI and it's one of the parts of making my games that I most enjoy. Having a framework is fine, BUT it does also mean that users run the risk of having a very generic and bland looking interface (and this is seen in games from other engines, where you can actually tell what engine it was made in just from the main menu!). At least when you have to "roll your own" you aren't boxed in and can explore and create new and innovative stuff. I've seen some absolutely amazing GUIs made by users of GameMaker, for example @Coded Games "Decks Of Dexterity" has a fantastic dynamic GUI and almost every game by @NAL has awesome GUI too. It just takes a little effort and imagination. :)
 
add event > draw > Draw GUI ,>>>> Am i joke to?
Like if you can code a game,
gui is like the easiest part to make.
if you are new to coding you can just download a item menagent script for free on the marketplace
It is easy, it is just cumbersome to actually *place* the GUI correctly without having to keep guessing the position coordinates. It takes a lot more time to correctly place than it should, *especially* if you don't have GMLive because then you would have to run the game for every time you change the code just to see the difference. Not everyone has GMLive btw, it costs money, and it isn't the perfect solution as you are still guessing the position coordinates but not as much.

Another thing is that the room editor doesn't have a text element, so you can't visually see text not until you actually run the game. The room editor also doesn't have nine slice.

My games are usually 1920x1080 native and rely more on GUI than other games.

What am I wanting, is the ability to make our own GUI interface in the room editor. So, nine slice for objects and asset layer elements, a text element that can be visually seen in the room editor and that can be attached to a variable so you can change its text in-game, the ability to initially have these GUI elements turned off but can be turned on through code so that the GUI doesn't run when you first enter the room, and that's all I would want.

So basically just an improved room editor where it is easier to make a GUI interface pretty much without having to use draw functions and doing guess work on the placement coordinates.
 
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Tthecreator

Your Creator!
Now this is the moment where I come in to this discussion. This also may be or may not be a shameless advertising plug.
Anyways, I've been making a UI framework since 2017, and I'm very close to releasing my next major performance, bug and usability update. (I'm just refactoring and reworking my entire manual).

What I want for a UI framework in GameMaker is something where it is easy to use, and easy to extend.
Furthermore, one shortcoming I see in every single other framework is that they lack structure and more advanced positioning. For example, when you have button you give it an x and y position in pixels. Perhaps also a width and a height in raw pixels. This gives no flexibility for different displays or window sizes. So what I have done is I've introduced data types: dpi based ones, ones as a percentage (or factor as I call it) of a parent. I also have position types like uiz_snapright, uiz_center, etc...

Now to talk about structure, I use a parent-child system where objects can be put inside other ui objects. This is useful because I also support windows, framesets, grids, etc...

For customizability I'm using a "background" system. It basically means that every button, dropdown menu or window uses a standardized and swappable implementation. I could choose for a 9slice implemetation, maybe I could choose just a plain square or I can write something completely custom. (only worked out in my dev version)

For performance, I'm always making sure to only update what needs to be updated. When the user is not interacting with UI the performance penalty of having UI is negliable. Only when a button changes state because of a mouse press or hover for example is the button going to redraw itself. (only worked out in my dev version)

For some examples, this is what you can easily put together:

1598100285200.png
Or this win31 example: https://tthecreator.itch.io/uiz-show (compiled using latest dev version)

I'm very eager to get this update out because it is taking me a long time and it gives some much needed, long overdue upgrades. I also planned it to be the last version to support GMS1.4, so I really want to get this out so I can finally really move on to GMS2.x.

Anyways, if anyone would like to try my asset you can get it on the marketplace. If you want access to the newest development version you can contact me to create an account on my private git server.
 
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erayzesen

Member
add event > draw > Draw GUI ,>>>> Am i joke to?
Like if you can code a game,
gui is like the easiest part to make.
if you are new to coding you can just download a item menagent script for free on the marketplace
Sorry dude, I'm not agree with you.

With the same approach; I can develop my homemade cross platform 2d game engine with SDL library now, it's not difficult for an any programmer. (This takes a long time.) :D But I don't want to do this, I want to make only games. I'm using game maker because of that, I just want to spend my energy and effort coding my game.

For example; I'm working on GUI system to make a game/options menus for 10 hours, with other hand unity or godot engine's users are working for maybe 1 hour with builtin IDE tools . And we make the same things; buttons, sliders, checkboxes... other works are stylization and positioning.

Finally, game players never say to you this "Wow, your GUI system is great man, sliders are very smooth...buttons are very impressive " etc. :D

edit: My english is broken. Event these words are broken (paradox) Sorry.
 
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Sorry dude, I'm not agree with you.

With the same approach; I can develop my homemade cross platform 2d game engine with SDL library now, it's not difficult for a any programmer. (This takes a long time.) :D But I don't want to do this, I want to make only games. I'm using game maker because of that, I just want to spend my energy and effort coding my game.

For example; I'm working on GUI system to make a game/options menus for 10 hours, with other hand unity or godot engine's user working for maybe 1 hour. And we make the same things; buttons, sliders, checkboxes...

Finally, game players never say to you "Your GUI system is great man, sliders are very smooth...buttons are very impressive " etc. :D

edit: My english is broken. Event these words are broken (paradox) Sorry.
That's kind of why I am on the fence. I don't necessarily want a GUI kit, but mostly because the other engines have a more visual way of creating the UI interface while GM you have to code it which is trial and error for the GUI positions and sizing. It actually takes me a while to create and position the GUI, and if I wanted to re-position the GUI, oh boy it takes a while.
 
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Kezarus

Endless Game Maker
We shouldn't have to re-invent the wheel for something commonly used.
Agreed 110%! Have to make an GUI engine for every game from scratch is a pain...


add event > draw > Draw GUI ,>>>> Am i joke to?
The joke is not having standard functions that construct buttons and elements that the majority of the games have. (besides that weird text based games of old)


gui is like the easiest part to make.
But takes time. And not as little time as one might think. If you have to write everything from zero on your first GM game, well, that's a huge demotivator for sure.


So basically just an improved room editor where it is easier to make a GUI interface pretty much without having to use draw functions and doing guess work on the placement coordinates.
I have those in my framework, but I usually prefer to position the elements by code as the screen size could change from PC to PC.


I understand that this should be inside the GM Engine. The second best alternative is using something from Marketplace. Problem is, if you already pay for Game Maker, you are probably less inclined to buy something again.

I tried to put together most of things that a game have in my framework. It's a toolbox that I personaly use for my projects. I am not charging anything for it, it's free, because I know that most of the times we just want to create a game and don't want to fiddle around things we take for granted in other languages and engines like buttons, nine-slices, rebind keys, language support, etc. If we don't find a function in GM we got frustrated and probably jump to the next engine option.

I made Monastery Framework to help people that don't want to fiddle around those things to have a way to just develop their games and focus on gameplay and mechanics, that is the core of every game and everything else comes in 2nd.

I am the first to say that this Framework is not the best thing in the world, but it was made to be easily used, it's is open-source, have many examples inside, is extensivelly documented and free. I accept and implement features as I need them and get suggestions. It's my humble way to to give back to the GM community that I am part of. =]


Cheers!
 

erayzesen

Member
I made Monastery Framework to help people that don't want to fiddle around those things to have a way to just develop their games and focus on gameplay and mechanics, that is the core of every game and everything else comes in 2nd.
Thanks dude. this is a very daring contribution! But actually I'm waiting a builtin gui library support and GUI Editor support in IDE from YYG. It's not requried only for me. New game maker users will find that feature.(Because all of engines have this support) I'm a programmer but too many game designers, graphic artists are using GMS2 to make own solo projects. (and they produce beautiful projects.)

edit : I should also say that when I made my first game with the game maker, this GUI issue really got me down. I wasn't expecting this much missing support and was shocked. I devoted 1 week to writing my own gui system. This is a depressing welcome, friends. I know many old users have gone through this adventure.
 
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Kezarus

Endless Game Maker
Thanks dude.
My pleasure! =]


I'm waiting a builtin gui library support and GUI Editor support in IDE from YYG.
Yeah... I was waiting too. But I tire of waiting and did something that isn't, assumed, the best option as other engines have this natively.


I maybe wrong, but I don't see this GUI functionality anywhere in the future of GM, be it near or far, on the roadmap. They are focusing very much in sequences in the next couple months and I know that there are some people that are using sequences to make GUI elements.
 
Thanks dude. this is a very daring contribution! But actually I'm waiting a builtin gui library support and GUI Editor support in IDE from YYG. It's not requried only for me. New game maker users will find that feature.(Because all of engines have this support) I'm a programmer but too many game designers, graphic artists are using GMS2 to make own solo projects. (and they produce beautiful projects.)
I am waiting too, but the only patience I have is waiting up until GMS3. If it doesn't have room editor nine slice and text elements, then I am jumping ship.
 

Kezarus

Endless Game Maker
I am waiting too, but the only patience I have is waiting up until GMS3. If it doesn't have room editor nine slice and text elements, then I am jumping ship.
I am sorry to see one more Game Maker user go, but I totally understand you.

That's the very reason I made the framework. If I didn't made that I would probably jump ship too long ago.

May you find a engine that helps you and keep on making games, mate! =]
 

erayzesen

Member
I am sorry to see one more Game Maker user go, but I totally understand you.

That's the very reason I made the framework. If I didn't made that I would probably jump ship too long ago.

May you find a engine that helps you and keep on making games, mate! =]
I'm sorry too. But I don't recommend going to another game engine unless there are other reasons. :rolleyes: Because the adaptation period is longer than it seems. But if you have decided this for sure, I hope everything will be as you expected.
 

samspade

Member
I don't think there should be a built in GUI system for the same reason that I don't think there should be a built in platforming system, visual novel system, etc. GameMaker, at least to me, has always been about providing the fundamental tools to build what you want, not building half of what you want for you. Although I understand that on some level that's a subjective distinction.

What I would be much more in favor of is more official YoYo Assets and tutorials on things like this. I would also be in favor of slightly (but only slightly) more GUI editing elements in the room editor and a little bit more support for GUI elements in general - for example, not only is draw default, which is good, but you have to manually disable it with a blank event, which is annoying. None of the built in events that use the sprites mask work in GUI space, which is more than annoying, especially for a new coder. There's no way to see in the room editor how your gui will be laid out without repurposing one of the views or using an outside program.

I don't know how hard the above suggestions would be to implement in code, but they could be accomplished easily in the editor just by having a toggle for objects (room/gui) and gui overlay you could toggle on and off and set to different dimensions. This would go a long way, in my opinion, to making gui elements easier to work with (and you wouldn't have to give continually tell new users on the forums to make a blank draw event, how to code your own touch event that works on the gui layer, how to position things in the room editor so that they work, etc, all of which feel like hacky work arounds for something that should be natively supported). Basically, I just think working with the GUI layer should be as easy as working with the room layers across the board (at a minimum) rather than feeling like a second class citizen.
 
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Kezarus

Endless Game Maker
I don't think there should be a built in GUI system for the same reason that I don't think there should be a built in platforming system
Sorry to disagree with you @samspade, but unless Yoyo wants to lose users left right and center, there are functionalities that should be implemented on GM's core. U**** have it, U***** have it, G**** have it. Why are we left out? It's buttons that we are talking about! There are some VERY specific games that DON'T have them.


I would also be in favor of slightly (but only slightly) more GUI editing elements in the room editor and a little bit more support for GUI elements in general
And, yet again, we don't even have that. I, for one, advocate for a full fledged GUI System. If a user wants to create it's own, fine! But I doubt that most game designers and artists here wants to code that from scratch.


not only is draw default, which is good, but you have to manually disable it with a blank event, which is annoying
And this is a makeshift solution, but we use it because we don't have a better one. We are using a hammer to drive a screw to the wall. This is unacceptable. (ಠ_ಠ)
 
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Evanski

Raccoon Lord
Forum Staff
Moderator
Without saying too much and getting fired from the job, all I'll say is that some of these suggestions for extra tools are definitely on the way... :squirrel:
" Speculate about GMS features or YYG policy - we don't want pointless speculation becoming rumour or being considered the "official" YYG point of view. Stick to known facts from official YYG sources please. "

 

woods

Member
downloads preset gui, platform level, scoreboard, player sprite, enemy sprite,
places all these downloads randomly into a prebuilt room,

look i made a game!


isnt the point of all of everything we are doing here to make our own game ?
;o) just sayin
 

kburkhart84

Firehammer Games
I don't disagree with the idea of them integrating a GUI system...and if done right, they can make it so you can customize it to your liking. Adding such a system doesn't stop other people who really need their own system can still roll their own. However, I think the issue is about priorities, does the GUI system matter more, or the recently implemented language features(I'm glad they chose the language features). Its a game they play with all features that they want to implement, which ones matter to more people, and which ones take more or less time and/or or more/less feasible in a given time span. And finally, which ones are there that maybe could be implemented right now, but would be better waiting on other features first(like maybe wanting the new structs first before implementing the particle system, which could be better done using structs to control settings, etc...).
 

FrostyCat

Redemption Seeker
YoYo's efforts should be put into making it easier for an arbitrary UI system to fit into the GMS 2 ecosystem, not necessarily making that UI system itself. The GML 2020 additions are an important piece of the puzzle, the next is documenting the UI plugin interface and releasing the API.

And it's not like UI engines are one-size-fits-all. Some are focused on being pretty and customizable. Others are focused on being WYSIWYG and tightly integrated with the IDE. Others are focused on responsiveness. You make a system favouring one thing, and it necessarily means you sacrifice elements essential to another. So the biggest problem with the question "when will we have a GUI system" is not whether it will happen, but the singularity of the outcome it asks for.
 

kburkhart84

Firehammer Games
YoYo's efforts should be put into making it easier for an arbitrary UI system to fit into the GMS 2 ecosystem, not necessarily making that UI system itself. The GML 2020 additions are an important piece of the puzzle, the next is documenting the UI plugin interface and releasing the API.

And it's not like UI engines are one-size-fits-all. Some are focused on being pretty and customizable. Others are focused on being WYSIWYG and tightly integrated with the IDE. Others are focused on responsiveness. You make a system favouring one thing, and it necessarily means you sacrifice elements essential to another. So the biggest problem with the question "when will we have a GUI system" is not whether it will happen, but the singularity of the outcome it asks for.
I can't agree 100% on this, though in a general sense I do agree. I still don't think there is an issue if Yoyo were to go ahead and make a GUI system. It is true that it would likely sacrifice something...but at the least it could be made to handle a great portion of use cases, which is kinda what GMS has always been about anyway. It has never tried to really be the end all be all, most powerful engine out there, and the internal components fit that bill. GML doesn't have to be the "best" language, with "all" the features, as long as it can handle most of what we want to do. The same would be said of the GUI system IMO.

That said, IMO, it shouldn't really be at the top of their list either, as there are plenty of other things that I think are more important, things that are much more painful to implement ourselves than a nice GUI, like a more powerful particle system for example. I ALSO would be upset if they removed something in order to force the GUI system in...like if they decided we no longer needed the DrawGUI events.... that would be a step backwards and is not something I see them doing.
 
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