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Remember Me? *finally* a new update: HTML5
I've finally deployed an update to the HTML5 version that has been in progress for a long time. I'm sure that it still needs some additional testing and fixing, but it is feature complete. Any game can be tested in the HTML5 version by either clicking the "html5" button on your My Games page, or adding "?v=html" to the end of the URL.
The HTML5 engine itself has a lot of fixes since the last update, but the biggest change is that the editor now works in HTML5 as well. Now that the new version is deployed, I expect to be deploying updates much more regularly again.
I'm sure there are things that I've missed, and that the new version will have some issues to iron out, so please post any problems you encounter in this thread and I'll try to sort them out ASAP.
Thanks!
The HTML5 engine itself has a lot of fixes since the last update, but the biggest change is that the editor now works in HTML5 as well. Now that the new version is deployed, I expect to be deploying updates much more regularly again.
I'm sure there are things that I've missed, and that the new version will have some issues to iron out, so please post any problems you encounter in this thread and I'll try to sort them out ASAP.
Thanks!
Comments
Congrats @grazer!
1) Open editor button is missing in html5:
2) The behavior editor is zoomed in like this and there's no way to exit it:
3) I honestly prefer the old design. I'm really sad with this one, but I think I'll have to deal with it.
4) The settings panel for behaviors always opens in the wrong place, sometimes it even goes out of the screen. Same thing happens with the color picker.
I'm using Firefox (latest version)
So little problem with the update
@Latif - The edit button should be there, maybe clearing your cache would make it show up? Also, which parts of the updated design are bugging you?
The positioning / scaling issues are weird, it appears that maybe the resolution calculations are wrong for your monitor. I'll try testing on some different screens to see if I can reproduce it.
I like the old pixel fonts too, but they are really small (and cannot be resized like a normal font). I got lots of complaints about them being hard to read, so I'm trying out this new one out. It does seem to be much easier to read in comparison.
For alerts, I'd like to maybe just move to the same font system as Label blocks, so you can select the one you want.
Thanks again for all the feedback.
The most annoying thing with the new design is how bright a button gets if you hover on it.
My screen resolution is 1920x1080px.
I went through a few different highlight color options, and that's one of the more contrasting colors I tried for sure. One thing that the previous interface does wrong is that there are lots of clickable elements that aren't obviously clickable. This led to people overlooking features that should have been obvious.
FWIW, the new color scheme is essentially based on Nord: https://github.com/arcticicestudio/nord (but some of the colors are modified)
One side effect of the update is that the colors scheme is now *super* easy to change, so I may make an option in the UI if it's something that you guys are interested in. I need to get a few more bugs ironed out first though.
So, I went into the sprite editor to look at how it looked, which one thing majorly changed (for me):
The whole thing was zoomed in so much I could barely do anything. I had to refresh the page to get back onto it, and I could not use many of the tools, and could only see the top right of the current sprite. I do not know if you have already fixed this or not, but I found it as a problem.
Also, I like most of the look of the HTML5 editor, but I found it to be very laggy (again, for me). However. when clicking upon an object to reveal the button to show the sprite editor, I found it to look much more pleasant, and I can't wait to start working with it more!
One more thing, I think it is a great idea so that you can choose the font of the alerts! While speaking of alerts, could you also consider adding a way so that there could be two or more buttons to the alerts, with each of the resulting to a different outcome possibility? I would really like that. Thank you for reading, and please consider!
- rcreger
@grazer
Working on a multiplayer game. Apparently dies of a seizure when you play.
Sometimes player check appears to work backwards
My Bug report for this update:
0.1 Clicking outside the window of a behavior block doesn't close it and it's not possible to interact with other blocks and "flowlines" while a window is open. This is new but I like it. Let's keep it.
0.2 Better performance on the editor. "Not bad but not good either" performance when playing. And I am using a really bad laptop.
0.3 I'm not sure if this update messed up with physics and probably raycasting. Will give more details on this soon. Now, I need to get some rest.
0.4 Everything is way too big and way too zoomed in. Not sure if this is a resolution issue.
1. On my laptop, the sprite editor is off place and looks like this:
On chrome, the screen is 1360x768
Feedback / Just my opinion:
2. I liked the new color theme. But it has a strong contrast sometimes. Way too bright in some parts.
3. I really dislike the font used on the UI. It doesn't fit. It lacks something.
4. The edit object menu is way too big.
I like how the "physics" menu is separated from the "properties".
I like the "physics" layout but dislike the "properties" layout. It has too much blank space and looks unorganized.
A layout suggestion:
5. The "flow" lines look better. Simple and Readable. perfect.
6. Re-order layers. Background layer should be on the bottom. Could have simplified icons to represent each layer. (Like the old one).
7. Icons should be all with the same size and stroke. I'm not sure if this is a resolution issue.
-------------
And I think that's it for now. Thank you grazer.
In my game Rise on the html5 version if you stay in the menu screen for about 20 seconds or so the music stops. i checked it and its on repeat so i don't know why its doing this. https://flowlab.io/game/play/1107855?v=html
I'm not sure that your edit object menu suggestion would work - it needs to have space for the "delete all" and "add to level" buttons when editing an object directly from the library. I've also been working towards making the editor more usable on mobile, and making some of the UI elements larger is part of that. It's possible that I've gone too far in that direction, though.
I'm not sure I see the issue with the sprite editor - it should be pretty much the same as before, just with the new color scheme?
You and Latif both commented on the contrast - is your complaint with the button rollovers as well, or the blue highlight color?
I can continue to look at other font options as well, but my focus is on a balance of readability and compactness. The previous pixel font was very compact, but I got lots of complaints about readability, since it was so small.
Other than random performance issues, HTML5 runs fairly smoothly.
The random issues that has occurred is that it sometimes lag with constant moving objects and crashing on rare occasions. After that though, seems to work great.
The light poles seem to lag sometimes right before they go off screen (in Game level).
I don't know if this could be caused by a ground object or by spawning more of the same object.
DRIVE: http://flowlab.io/game/view/938307?v=html
I like the new design, kinda feel a bit more professional, but I like to ask if there could be an outline around the wires connecting the behaviors. In a game with Black & White colors, its a bit hard to see the wires and were they lead to.
About the object menu:
Yeah, I forgot about those buttons.
But I still think that the "behaviors" button needs some kind of highlight or something that makes it distinct from the others.
And I still think that the "Type" should be over the "Name" instead of side by side.
Sprite editor:
The only issue with it's the "browse" button is overlapping the Color code and color preview.
Contrast:
The problem with the button color when the mouse it's over it is how hard it is to read the text on the button and the difference between the previous color.
e.g.: In some buttons (Select Layer) it stays grey and the text remains white, which creates a bad contrast between both elements. Even when the changes to a darker color it still has a bad contrast and looks more "deselected" than "selected". I hope that what I'm trying to say is understandable.
solution: A opt-in solution could be making the button darker instead of lighter when the mouse it's over it.
e.g.2: The OK button turns grey and I think a darker blue would look better.
Looking at the Color scheme and UI of Discord could help since it's similar.
Font:
There are a lot of vectorized fonts you could use. I just think that this new one seems dead since it looks a standard font.
1) New font - I agree that the previous font didn't have much personality. I've switched to the DIN font, which I like a lot better. I'm curious to see what you guys think.
2) I reversed the order of the Layers select button, and fixed the highlight color of the buttons (being white on rollover was a bug)
3) Darkened the input/output label colors for behavior blocks slightly, so that the block names stand out a bit better
4) Tweaked the button icon (Behaviors, Delete All, Add to Level) settings to make them a bit more consistent
5) Fixed a problem with some dropdown lists getting truncated
6) Tweaked the button rollover color. Not sure if you guys will like this one any better, but it has more saturation, so it shouldn't look "disabled" anymore, hopefully.
This doesn't address all of the critisisms, but hopefully it's a step in the right direction - leave your thoughts in the thread
Serif fonts don't fit with the user interface. They are usually used for heavy text reading (Journals, Magazines, Blogs, etc.)
So these are a few suggestions:
(All of them are Sans Serif fonts and are from Google Fonts)
Raleway
https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Raleway
Montserrat
https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Montserrat
PT Sans
https://fonts.google.com/specimen/PT+Sans
Ubuntu
https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Ubuntu