Playmaker Forum

PlayMaker Feedback => Feature Requests => Topic started by: jeanfabre on April 18, 2011, 06:18:58 AM

Title: clues about State Action and expectations
Post by: jeanfabre on April 18, 2011, 06:18:58 AM
Hi,

 Following my last post, I have to expand on this:

 State actions really make State versatile ( obviously... ), they can be instant, synched, waiting, animating, accessing other fsm somehow, etc etc, it's currently impossible to make sure about the behavior of a State on that level just at a glance.

 Her is a list of things that could be identified as actions "properties" are added and that I think should be presented visually in the fsm.

 -- number of actions:
 -- instant or not:
    it's important to see if State is just a one time thing that will then straight away transit, or if it will last in time ( if everyframe is checked or not for example).
-- access variable:
   It's really important to glance through state and know that a particular one is accessing ( setting or getting ) any variable at all.
-- other fsm access:
  Equally important to know when the fsm talk to other
-- Script access:
 same as above.

 I am sure other properties like that can be listed here, but you get the point I think.

 I played in photoshop to demonstrate visually one humble possible way. Just some simple icons or visual elements representing each something specific about the State.

Oh and while we are at it, if from the script api we could tweak that, say we want to add a custom icon somewhere. It could actually be simply a matter of doing it like that, each action can set certain flags that triggers the visual clues in that State . Fsm.State.FlagFsmAccess, Fsm.State.FlagAsTimeSpan etc etc That could be a simple way to do this.

Bye,

 Jean



Title: Re: clues about State Action and expectations
Post by: Alex Chouls on April 18, 2011, 02:48:52 PM
I think exposing more info in the graph is a great idea. However, I want to be careful about introducing too many symbols and conventions that make it harder for new users to grasp... maybe these will be advanced preferences.

Thanks for taking the time to make a photoshop mockup - it really helps!
Title: Re: clues about State Action and expectations
Post by: jeanfabre on April 19, 2011, 03:00:17 AM
Hi Alex,

 Totally agree, sorry for not making it clear, that it's not needed for "basic" usage, but rather for higher productivness . Some small icons can also help instead or color coding ( and would lend better with the greyscale of the whole view maybe).

Bye,

 Jean