Skip to Main Content
Construct 3 suggestions 21H2 - ARCHIVED

This suggestions platform is now closed and will be shut down on March 1st 2024.

Please ensure any content you care about is backed up before that date.

Feature requests are now handled on GitHub here: https://github.com/Scirra/Construct-feature-requests

23 VOTE
Categories Editor
Created by Overboy
Created on May 6, 2022

Hierarchy View

Add a new "Hierarchy View" Bar (see mockup picture)
(can be activated in Menu > View > Bars)

Right now the workflow of Hierarchies in the editor is pretty bad UX, it's pretty hard to remember which object is the parent based on the arrows, it requires many clicks to create a hierarchy relationship and the order we need to do the selection to add the parent/child is counter-intuitive. Many times we do the opposite than what we wanted to do.

It's a shame because Hierarchy and now Templates (which will hopefully support Hierarchy soon) are the best features that were added in Construct 3.




This is why we need Hierarchy View.
Here are the most important features it should support :

  • All Instances in the current Layout would be visible in the Hierarchy view so we can easily drag and drop them on top of each other to create parent/child relationship (like it works with the new Layer Group feature right now in term of UX)

  • All Instances in the Hierarchy view can be reordered as the C3 user wants (the user needs to let them in the same "Level" to not change previously created Parent/Child relationship of course) so it's not ordered alphabetically but manually. This way most commonly used object could be placed by user on top of Hierarchy to select them easily (no need to lock everylayer on top of it to select)
    So i can change which object appears at the very top of the Hierarchy view for example, by dragging it at the top (same for children of a specific Object)

  • The User can create Folder at any Level of the Hierarchy View but they don't have any impact on Hierarchy features. For example it's possible to put all "Entities" Object under a the same Folder so it's easier to find/fold/unfold them later without creating unwanted parent/child relationship

  • Template Feature & Hierarchy View : if an instance use the Template Feature a symbol next to the Object Type name to show if it's replica 🟡 or a template source 🟢, + the name of the Template between parenthesis after the Object Type Name Of course Hierrarchy support for Template should be added to Construct Before


    SEE MOCKUP

QOL/UX Ideas :

  • Clicking an Instance in the Hierarchy view would select it in the Layout (so Properties tab would be showing this instance) and vice versa, selecting an instance in the Layout would select it in the Hierarchy view

  • Add a boolean somewhere to show/hide UID of each instance next to their Object Type name


[Bonus/Additional Suggestion] Enhancement of Template & Hierarchy : Not only Hierarchy support for Template would be awesome, but it would be even better if all not-yet-supported Plugins (such as Tilemap but also non World Objects such as Array or Dictionaries) would be supported by both the Template and the Hierarchy Feature.

This way we could add an local Array as child of a Family through events to pick it easily or create realtionship in the Hierarchy view as well and so on.

If we add a Data Object as parent/child to an Object, all the optional boolean of the corresponding Action Event (Z Elevation, X, Y) could be grayed out except the "Destroy with Parent" (or instead of graying out them, the unwanted boolean just disappear)
Same for Tilemap, the option to sync properties like angle/width/height would not be possible.




  • Attach files
  • +12