7 questions to Defold. I want the Defold to become popular!

[defolder]

Hello everyone!
This is not a programmer’s letter.

When you look at it, it says that it is the best engine for designers and newbies, but why do you have to program a lot? (camera, interface, timer, animation) Will you tell me to connect the modules? But why? If you say the engine gives everything out of the box!

Why is there no graphic scene for keyframe animation?

Why, in order to select another project, you need to exit it () and then enter it () again? (this is not convenient guys)

For 3 days I could not figure out how to make a stopwatch, timer, clicking on pictures and not buttons.

Do you want the engine to become popular? Why are there no translations into other languages?

When you enter a collection, it zooms in too close to see the scene you need to move away for a long time ?!

Why is there no sticking sprites in the editor? Anchors are good, but sticking in the scene itself is handy!

Thank you very much for the small size of assemblies =)

[britzl]

@defolder thank you for the feedback. Let me try to answer each point:

@defolder

When you look at it, it says that it is the best engine for designers and newbies, but why do you have to program a lot?

Where do we say this? Defold is definitely not the best engine for beginners and it is not a claim we have ever made. Initially Defold was targeting only professional developers with prior experience of game development, but this has changed over the years as the product has evolved, and we are now using a more neutral wording when describing the engine and features. We do not specifically target beginners. We do say that the editor is “designer friendly” since we know a designer is able to build levels and UIs straight from within the Defold editor.

@defolder

Why is there no graphic scene for keyframe animation?

This has been requested a lot, and it is something we’d like to implement at some point. Our focus for the last year has been mainly on the engine, extensions and new platforms and not so much on the editor. We are seeking funding for work on the editor and the keyframe/timeline animation tool is part of this funding proposal.

@defolder

Why, in order to select another project, you need to exit it () and then enter it () again?

Yes, I agree this is annoying.

@defolder

For 3 days I could not figure out how to make a stopwatch, timer, clicking on pictures and not buttons

Could you please describe how you went about researching solutions for this? Did you search our documentation for the word “timer”?

Defold Search Results

Clickable things are usually implemented using gui box nodes (which can have whatever image you want):

Button

But I’m guessing you’re asking for clicking on a graphical component such as a sprite?

@defolder

Do you want the engine to become popular? Why are there no translations into other languages?

You mean of the editor itself? Or the manuals? The manuals are translated into a number of languages. The editor is only available in English.

@defolder

When you enter a collection, it zooms in too close to see the scene you need to move away for a long time ?!

I agree. We should fix this.

@defolder

Why is there no sticking sprites in the editor?

What do you mean by this?

@defolder

Thank you very much for the small size of assemblies

You’re welcome!

[defolder]

@britzl

Where do we say this? Defold is definitely not the best engine for beginners and it is not a claim we have ever made. Initially Defold was targeting only professional

Everything is in the box, it’s good but it’s not. Much to install:

rgrams/rendercam

britzl/gooey

subsoap/defos

britzl/defold-input

@britzl

Yes, I agree this is annoying.

Thank you, I thought I was the only one =)

@britzl

Could you please describe how you went about researching solutions for this? Did you search our documentation for the word “timer”?

I found a solution on the forum, But this is such a useful feature, I’m sure for EVERYONE. It would be nice to just add a timer and stopwatch with a button.

@britzl

But I’m guessing you’re asking for clicking on a graphical component such as a sprite?

Yes.

@britzl

You mean of the editor itself?

Yes.

@britzl

I agree. We should fix this.

Thanks! It would be useful to see the area of the working scene, if you do not use GUI, the working area is not visible (the outline of the screen size in all scenes, not only in GUI)

@britzl

What do you mean by this?

For example snapping pixel by pixel or snapping to sprite paths or mesh

@britzl

You’re welcome!

This is really cool !

[Mathias_Westerdahl]

@defolder

Much to install:

What we’re talking about is the development environment.
You don’t have to install a lot of SDK’s for various platforms on your machine.

What you’re listing there are additions (or plugins) that you’ve chosen to use, They’re optional.
Different developers want different behaviors, and often a one-size-fits-all solution won’t work.
That’s one of the reasons why we have the possibility to add functionality to the engine.

[defolder]

@Mathias_Westerdahl

What we’re talking about is the development environment.
You don’t have to install a lot of SDK’s for various platforms on your machine.

Yes, and it’s nice, that’s what I like

@Mathias_Westerdahl

What you’re listing there are additions (or plugins) that you’ve chosen to use, They’re optional.
Different developers want different behaviors, and often a one-size-fits-all solution won’t work.
That’s one of the reasons why we have the possibility to add functionality to the engine.

But I’m talking about standard things that everyone needs, and these little things should be built into the editor.
If you want the engine to become popular, then you need to make many little things more convenient.
No add-ons, no downloads, no plugins - everything you need should be in one place.

[sven]

@defolder

But I’m talking about standard things that everyone needs, and these little things should be built into the editor.

I kind of get what you mean, but personally for all my projects I haven’t used any of those dependencies, so it is highly project dependent. I would instead argue that it should be easier to add the dependencies you want/need directly in the editor perhaps.

[defolder]

Yes, I also try not to use plugins, but these are such little things that could speed up development.

Maybe I’m the only one I would like to have everything in one box, no plugins, no dependencies.

[Mathias_Westerdahl]

@defolder

But I’m talking about standard things that everyone needs, and these little things should be built into the editor.
If you want the engine to become popular, then you need to make many little things more convenient.
No add-ons, no downloads, no plugins - everything you need should be in one place.

I understand what you mean, and for sure there are many things we’d like to implement in the editor and engine. We are a very small team (currently 2-3 persons) working fulltime on the editor/engine on features paid for by our corporate partners. And there are tons of things to do. We happily accept feature requests, pull requests, and donations.

Also, I think you might be a bit too liberal with “everyone needs”. It is often the case that different games need different things. And the developers want to customize those things too.
In order to not lock us into a single implementation, we encourage our users to use libraries to add certain behaviors to the engine.

In the end, we’re trying to make it configurable, so that it fits more people, not less.

Also remember that one of our goals is to have a minimal executable. By adding “everything” to the engine, you have to recognize that each thing we add, will add to the final executable size. Our users care deeply about the executable size.

[britzl]

@defolder

I would like to have everything in one box, no plugins, no dependencies.

This is not the design philosophy of the Defold engine and it never will be. We try to elaborate a bit about the design philosophy and the reason some things are the way they are here:

Why Defold?