playMaker

Author Topic: Task manager  (Read 3294 times)

escpodgames

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Task manager
« on: June 06, 2016, 03:47:32 AM »
Just under 3 years ago I suggested a task manager feature that could be built into Playmaker. Users could place task actions and get a sudo warning about it - See the below image
How possible is this?

jeanfabre

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Re: Task manager
« Reply #1 on: June 07, 2016, 03:45:32 AM »
Hi,

What would be a "Task"? is it purely for organisation purpose?

would it be like two actions?

BeginTask("Task A")
EndTask("Task A")

and then you'll have an editor window that would reference visually all current tasks, their duration, etc etc?

I am kind of liking this idea, and it would be actually easy to do. I am also thinking it could be actually implemented in the PlayMaker Timeline somehow, which would be tremendously more helpfull when debugging.


The way I see it, since it would be only in editor, would be to create dedicated GameObjects per task with a Fsm, which would then have two states "Running" and "Idle", and so you would enter "Running" on BeginTask and back to "Idle" on EndTask

As I am describing this, it could be helpfull even for actual game logic too :) which would then have to be driven by events possibly?

Let me know how all of this sounds and if it matches what you envision.


Bye,

 Jean

escpodgames

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Re: Task manager
« Reply #2 on: June 07, 2016, 04:47:35 AM »
I was thinking mainly for organizational purposes, being able to create tasks in and around the game logic would be super useful, each task could have a title which would show up in a task browser window which would display all tasks. The action could have a status drop down (Not started, in Progress, Completed etc) so you can sort the task manager. Each task action could have subtasks (think trello)

The great thing about the little error type message is knowing how many tasks you have left and being able to find them easily. This would be super useful for designing your game in the early stages.

escpodgames

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Re: Task manager
« Reply #3 on: June 08, 2016, 08:20:08 PM »
On thing I am considering is hiring someone to help make this as an asset for the asset store, do you think this would be something that could easily be built into Playmaker externally or is it something that will need to be built in?

jeanfabre

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Re: Task manager
« Reply #4 on: June 14, 2016, 02:52:59 AM »
Hi,

 It's totally doable externally:

-- One action "Begin Task"
-- One Action "End Task"
-- One Action "Log Task Comment" ( possibly)

These two actions keep track of tasks in a public static list ( you can keep more info like what fsm started and what fsm ended the tasks, the time, and all the logs if you 've implemented the third action

Then you build an Unity Editor script that simply lists these tasks and give some quick access to ping the various fsms, etc etc.

So Indeed this could work even outside PlayMaker.

Bye,

 Jean