My suggestions so far

Hello, I would like to humbly let the team know about my suggestions so far. Some of these could be seen as nit-picky, but it is all in an effort to make NESmaker look and feel more professional.

General:
  • Make the program's window at least twice as big by default when it is launched
  • Make the tree already expanded when a MST is launched
  • Add an example MST file (maybe the troll game?)
  • IMPORTANT: the zoom scrolling is opposite to most programs (CTRL+scroll up should be zoom IN and CTRL+scroll down should be zoom OUT)
  • IMPORTANT: when using commands like New, Load, and Save, the folder opened by default should be the one related to what the user is trying to do. For example, when doing "New Project" it should have the Project folder open; when saving a bmp in the pixel editor, it should have the graphic assets folder of your project open; and so on
  • F2 to rename items in the tree
  • Have an "About" in the Help menu instead of writing the version of NESmaker in the program bar
  • Have the user save the project immediately when they select "New Project"
  • Have the option to automatically check for updates
  • F5 or CTRL+F5 to export and test the project

Overworld/Underworld
  • Have an x and y position in the Overworld/Underworld green maps (maybe in the upper-right corner like in the pixel editor, for consistancy)
  • Some more visual way to see which tiles have which attributes (perhaps with some small colorful tags that could be toggled on and off)
  • Be able to toggle the hud in the screen editor to have a better idea of what will be hidden by it [UPDATE: it's been added already, yay!!]
  • This has already been mentioned numerous times, but holding the left mouse button allows to "paint" in the screen editor

Pixel Editor:
  • Add select all, copy, paste, undo, redo somewhere, perhaps in a right-click menu
  • [bug?] The picture loaded in the pixel editor disappears when we click on another element in the tree and come back or when NESmaker is minimized
  • CTRL+A for select all
  • Have some indication that something was copied to the clipboard
  • The user should be able to click on the "Sub 1" part to have the palette selected, and click on the colors themselves to change the color (right now, you need to click on a color to select a "Sub"

Palettes:
  • Assign palettes to group just by dropping them in the tree
  • Have a default palette ready for the player instead of all gray when creating a new project

Text:
  • Have a default text bmp when creating a new project
 

cornphillips

New member
there should almost be a master thread for this exact discussion...
Love what im seeing here
i'll contribute thoughts soon...
 

Craigery

Active member
I wish you could flip the H or V on tiles when making assets. I could save a lot of space drawing mirrored assets. If this is already possible let me know.
 
WolfMerrik said:
I definitely love a lot of these suggestions! Great post!

Thank you! I can't wait to see what TheGeek and TheNew8bitHeroes have to say about it! There are probably quite a few things that have already been worked on for the next version.
 

tornotlukin

Member
Key Commands for drop downs and other specific tools. Save == Ctrl-S, Save As == Ctrl-Shift-S, Export & Test == Ctrl-E, stuff like that.
 

dale_coop

Moderator
Staff member
Something that would be useful, the possibility to "Save Player / Load Player", as we have for monsters, screens,...
 

Shodanbot

New member
Here's a couple of my own suggestions, with formatting shamelessly lifted from vrbandwagon.

Assets/Game Objects:

  • Horizontal and vertical tile shifting when applying tiles to an object. This would be handy when aligning an animation, especially one that is made up of 8 frames, but one or more of those frames are horizontally flipped and need to be aligned.

  • A user-defined variable frame rate for animation. Let's say I have an idle animation and in this animation, the PC inhales and exhales. The animation might look fine as is, but I think it could use a pause at the start and final frame to really give it a little extra bit of detail. I could add another frame or two in place of a variable frame rate, but I'm not sure if that's the most efficient way to do it. A variable could fix this without wasting a single frame slot.

  • Animation previewing based on your timing choices. Naturally.
 
Top Bottom