-June 13, 2017- (Notes by Andy)

I've made a bunch of changes in this latest version based on feedback / requests we've gotten. At the moment, I would definitely treat this latest update like a beta – some behavior might not be backwards compatible, and I'm sure some bugs will crop up. With that aside, though, I'd encourage you to check it out, pull in your old projects and see how they work, and try to build some new projects. The big changes:

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Some issues to keep in mind:

-I've removed the SVG RePresent characters, temporarily -There *will* be some issues translating old projects into this. Nothing major, I tried to accomadate backwards compatibility as much as possible, but just be prepared to do some tweaks. -Everything is still a work very much in progress – so be free and open with your feedback! What do you want, what parts are confusing, etc?

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New Features:

-The action sticker has been improved, and now includes more actions (move to (x,y), visibility, resize image, rotate, raise/lower z-layer, etc), more options ('easing', which lets you not just have linear motions, but have objects moving more smoothly), and lets multiple actions occur at the same time (pick 'advance instantly'), so you can do things like roll an object *and* move it so a ball looks like it's rolling… or have two people walk towards one another at the same time.

-You can now choose when both actions and sounds effects will advance to the next sticker – either instantly, when completed, on mouse click, or after a certain amount of time. (Right now, that default time is 10 seconds, it's a first test to see whether folks are interested in that feature / how we should implement it)

-The objects now have variable fields, so you can use object variables just like any other (in text fields, or if-branches, or in the variable node, say). They aren't terribly user-friendly, right now (still need to get them in the scriptor's variable panel), so you need to know what to type. The variable is {objectname.variablename} where possible object variables are: posx, posy, width, height, rotation, name, image, visible, value, text, color, textcolor, fontsize.

-On that note - object names no longer need to be the same as their image's filename. You can change the names at will in the Layout tool, and the scripts will be updated with the new name accordingly.

-Also related, the coordinates have been changed to make things more consistent. It's roughly pixel-based, now, with the screen height being 540 pixel, and the width being 960 pixels. (0,0) is right in the middle. So an object placed at (270, 480) will be in the bottom right corner of the screen.

-The sizes of objects are controlled by height and width variables, now, so they are connected to the coordinates used for the positions. An object with height set to 540, for instance, will be the whole height of the screen.

-In the layout tool, you can now stretch the items arbitrarily (not just at their default aspect ratio) – though if you'd like to force them to scale at their default aspect ratio, you can just hold 'shift' as you do so. You can also rotate objects, now, in the Layout editor.

-The Layer Panel in the Layout tool now lets you set or read the different object variables. If you click the 'var' button on an object in the list, a list of its position, size, etc will appear – all of which with fields you can edit. The 'locked' and 'visible' button states are also saved… so if you set an object to be invisible in the layout, it will be invisible when you play the scene. (And this, and the locked-state, will be remembered as you navigate between the tools)

-You can zoom and drag in the Layout tool now - just like in the scriptor - so you can more easily edit the scene. (No more objects getting lost off stage left)

-Choice stickers now give you the option of selecting objects as clickable choices. At the top of the sticker, you now have four options for the choice sticker –> a “simple choice” which is the same as before, an “object choice” which also lets you select objects for each choice from a dropdown (if 'none' is selected, it will appear on a button) - also the choice text gets written on top of the object. There's an “advanced choice” which lets you not only pick objects, but give a conditional for each choice about whether it will appear (that way you can have certain choices not be available if a player hasn't performed an earlier task, say). And, finally, there's the “open response” that we're familiar with.

-Interface objects! Not a huge number of choices yet, but now you can add in Text Boxes, panels, buttons, meters, etc. You can find these objects by picking 'interface' in the dropdown menu in the Layout tool. You can change text, text color, object color, or even the image. The 'buttons', I'll note, don't automatically have any button-features – these are just objects that have both an image and text at the same time. You'd still need a choice sticker running with the button as a target to make it 'active'. Interface objects have a few special actions in the scriptor, like 'type text', or 'set value' (for the meter).

-If an object with a text field is used as a 'choice button', the text from that choice will appear in that text field. And *any* object used as a choice button (interface object or otherwise) will become visible when that choice node is reached – and if it wasn't visible before, it will turn *invisible* afterwards. In this way, you can easily create your own UI if you don't like the default buttons the tool provides. (You can easily put the buttons all on the left of the screen, or with a smaller font, or different colors, etc)

-Sound effects have been moved to a new sound sticker – minimal functionality at the moment, but you can play sounds and set their volume.

-Walk animations have been deprecated for the moment - they only ever worked for the represent characters and I'd like to add them in more consistently in the next round of improvements.