MechaSource Competition - Beginner Interface, Prizes inside!

MECHASOURCE COMPETITION
Beginner Interface


The main problem with MechaSource as of yet is that there is no easy transition for beginners. You're out of nowhere introduced to scripting - something you've never ever seen before. Other program languages have features that makes this transition easier. A good example is Game Maker with the Drag and Drop features. MechaSource does not feature this, and there is no reason it shouldn't! The simplest solution would be adding Drag and Drop, but I see no reason why we can't be inventive.
Draw a sketch, write a concept - anything. Bring in ideas about how an interface for beginners could work. Have it be extremely user friendly so that even that annoying brat of a younger brother of yours could understand it!



Entries have to be an illustration, a well explained concept message or both! Post them either here in this topic, or to me as a personal message (pm). Mark your post with "[entry]" (without quotations) to confirm that it is your entry. Multiple entries are allowed, but keep them in one post!
Do not limit yourself! Any idea is possible to make!

1st place	Beta Participation or Medal of Contribution
2nd place	Beta Participation or Medal of Contribution (see below)

The 2nd place prize is determined by the 1st place winner. If the 1st place winner chooses one prize the 2nd place winner will get the other item.

Beta Participation

Get access to the beta SDK the moment your new interface has been added!

Medal of Contribution

A medal showing in your profile and visible to everyone on the MechaSource Community. Only you have it! It's okay, you've been good, now you're bad :cool:
Enjoy the sight of this sweet medal the moment MechaSource Community launches!


The competition has ended. Get your ideas out and help the future of MechaSource!

Competition results here!

This post has been edited by Mecha the Slag on Oct 23 2009, 02:50 PM

Aw man

Good luck you guys

[Entry]

Well I believe a useful and easy to understand alternative to Drag and Drop would be to go along the route of Visual Basic.

You could house a library of predefined "code snipits" coupled with a "solution explorer" to make easy edits to a piece of code without having to understand what it is you are editing, though this would also be a great way for beginners to learn.

So here's an example of what I'm getting at:

Say you want to add a physics property to an object. You would right click your mouse, scroll down to "code snipits" then "physical properties" and then "gravity"

Select gravity and the basic outline of the code appears.

Off to the right your "solution explorer" displays what kind of things you can do with this gravity property and offers to fill in the desired settings for you if needed be. As an example, the solution explorer could have a "gravity setting" that allows you to input an integer value that, upon entering, displays in the actual code.

Well, that's my idea. Was it kind of what you were looking for?

Professional illustration time:



[/Entry]

This post has been edited by BurninLeo on Oct 14 2009, 03:34 PM

Definitely. Add "[entry]" to the start or end of the post so confirm it. Feel free to elaborate or illustrate it.

This post has been edited by Mecha the Slag on Oct 14 2009, 11:39 AM

BurninLeo pretty much has my idea right there, but let's see if I can't come up with something.

[entry]
Why not something like Scratch's "Puzzle Pieces?" That seems a bit easier to me, as each puzzle piece will contain a pre-scripted function, which then you can link up with other functions to make work. But we can also use Game Maker's Event module where you can check the collision, key press, mouse click, etc. right away, outside of code. We could also include Leo's Solution Explorer to make things even easier.

Example:

[[Step event]]

<Gravity scripting Piece>

<Piece checking vertical speed>
|
<Piece setting vertical speed>

[[Collision with "solid" event]]

<Piece that automatically handles collisiion with solid>

and for our more advanced users, we could have a puzzle piece that allows you to script...or something. I don't know how the scripting thing works.

[/entry]

Y'know this could probably be used with Leo's idea instead of taking one or the other.

This post has been edited by Black Boo on Oct 14 2009, 08:43 PM

Read as "MechaSource Completion"

was disappoint

[false entry]

Okay, so you know that annoying paperclip in MS word?
Okay good

[/false entry]

So wait, we can't get both the things?

No. If you win you have to pick either one!

Oh GOD thank you

I'm sorry Mecha, but I really have no clue what I'm doing in MS.

Okay first, BurninLeo's idea is fantastic. It should definitely be used. So I tried to come up with an idea that worked with it rather than against it. So here it is.



Okay so each object is broken down into four base situations: Physics, Collisions, Commands, and Events. Physics are the simple "how does gravity affect him" "how fast can he go" stuff like that.

Collisions are obvious, they trigger upon collision with an object.

Commands, they are triggered when you press a defined button.

Events are user-defined, self-contained "if" statements that are checked at all times. They are defined by the user (with a detailed instruction on how to do so), so you don't get useless functions happening in the background, nor will the game check for something that doesn't exist.

Perhaps for defining these events, you could provide a set of unfilled "if" statements, like "if x is equal to y" or "if there is x amount of z" or "if self is at l" and junk.

Okay, so Physics is easy to use. How are the other ones used? Well here ya go:



Clicking on one of those divisions opens up a list of further subdivisions, portrayed by an image or other thing. For Collisions, you see the thing you collide with (with the name underneath). Commands, the button, and events, the "if" of that event is displayed when you roll over.

Clicking on one of these opens up the code box, whereupon you can begin coding which can use BurninLeo's idea yadda yadda yadda you get the picture whoo-hoo.

And of course, a full tutorial on how to use this will certainly help!

So whaddaya think, MechaB?

so like...

what if the first place winner chooses the badge (assuming they have the beta already) and the 2nd place winner also has the beta

If I had an example of how MechaSource would work for advanced users, I could figure out how to make an interface for beginners. But, only if I had that advanced idea.

This post has been edited by RetroXYZ on Oct 14 2009, 08:42 PM

What?

Why do the advanced functions of MS have any effect on an interface for beginners?

[entry]
obligatory node system



i couldn't be assed to finish it but this would be an example of defining objects

actually programming this way would be a little more interesting to implement since you'd have nodes that may take only certain other nodes or datatypes for a given input (which type should be indicated somehow—i/o symbol shape?), and you'd have nodes with BOTH inputs and outputs

such as a "collision" detection node that takes two objects and outputs a boolean based on whether the objects touch, or simple math nodes or whatever you need

this would inherently be an OO system because nodeflow containing "object 1" would need to check all instances of "object 1", putting each one through its node system

in addition you could add "grouping nodes" that don't do anything other than, well, group a ton of related nodes under a custom name, so you could collapse/expand, show/hide, delete/move, etc all of them in one click. you should also have the ability to right-click a line and insert a node right into it, or delete one out of it, while keeping the line connected

blah blah i/o datatypes (these aren't necessarily lua's, but instead ones passed to/from mechasource's api):
* number
* string
* file
* boolean
* object
* any (specific type not specified or can't be known; nodes should do safety checks with these. the "Variables" box's output is an 'any' type for example)
* blah blah

a possible feature (shown on the workspace probably) would allow you to export the entire node setup as a valid lua script

This post has been edited by Xgoff on Oct 14 2009, 09:54 PM

i can't think of something that would be any easier than anything that hasn't been done before :/

[Entry]






[/Entry]

Keyser I think I love you.

This post has been edited by kane]deth[ on Oct 15 2009, 03:35 PM

Combinations of the ideas posted would be a good thing to do.

I don't think any one idea would stand up on its own.