Question: Will renpy ever have a GUI?

[SilentWolfie]

If renpy has WYSIWYG GUI, it should be much easier. Currently I still think it's still difficult for people to do up games from the ground up, so I sort of want to ask if renpy will ever be possible to go to this direction. If there's a renpy 'premium', I'll certainly pay for this to save myself from torturing myself. =X

I actually found it hard to remember what I declared. I had 20 different face sprites that I already had difficulty remembering, and imagine I have 10 characters with 3 different poses * 5 face expressions. 150 different things to call = =... and I have to write "show this and that" everytime.

[Counter Arts]

I think there is some code where you don't have to type "Show" all the time. You just write whatever expression there is between the character name and the dialogue.

[jack_norton]

Problem is that while GUI might be easier, it's not going to be faster at all. Like in all coding languages you don't have to actually type show every time, you can copy the line and paste it changing only the sprite name. And if you named them correctly it's quite easy with the new system, just use descriptive names:
show heileen pirate
show heileen pirate happy
show heileen normal sad

etc. I don't see how a GUI could speed this process up when you'll have to browse all the images manually to pick the one you want.

[yummy]

Maybe the OP was referring to a sdk close to something like Visual Studio? With the syntax checker, syntax paradigms etc.

[Aleema]

I think the OP would like Novelty, pratically WYSIWYG in every way. But I'd really rather not turn Ren'Py into that. First of all, because it already exists, and also I like that there are 2 different engines, depending on what is more comfortable to you. Not sure I'd want them to combine.

[SilentWolfie]

show heileen pirate
show heileen pirate happy
show heileen normal sad

etc. I don't see how a GUI could speed this process up when you'll have to browse all the images manually to pick the one you want.

I'm sure we can have stacks of characters. I.E, 5 names - 10 images to them. Instead of typing "s heileen pirate etc', we can have a single double click on an image and the codes come out instantly. How can this not increase speed time? Most of the time there's only 3-4 characters on the screen so surely we can easily pick the images. Another thing is how the Image move x, move y is difficult to judge without having WYSIWYG.

Even this HTML editor has a *highlight* and click a single u, button. I'm sure we have choices and all, but isn't it better if it's 2 in 1 in the first place?

I'm sure after we have renpy 6.9.9, renpy 7.0.0 can start considering GUI requests?

[Camille]

If you have 150 character images, how is scrolling through the list of images and clicking one any faster than simply typing "show character happy pose2"? If you use an intuitive sprite naming system, typing that is way easier than having to double click an image from a list. 0_o

But like Aleema said, a WYSIWYG visual novel creator already exists. I think I remember PyTom saying that Ren'Py is probably not going to have a GUI like that... (don't quote me on this) Honestly, I think the GUI would just be more troublesome. I like it the way it is now. XD;

[Aleema]

I'm sure we have choices and all, but isn't it better if it's 2 in 1 in the first place?

Well, it's not "in the first place." Ren'Py has not been WYSIWYG, and making it so would probably mean huge rewrites if not a completely new engine. Even if "read my brain and do what I want" is ideal, someone still has to create that functionality. If PyTom took on this endeavor (to the full extent you're asking), I'm pretty sure it would be for commercial only, as you suggest. I'm not eager to rope off Ren'Py just yet, since I think the number of people who don't want to hit SHIFT+R to see if their sprite aligns up, or copy/paste image names as they need them, will not outweigh the number of people who cannot and will not pay for the program (not to mention the competitor is free). There will always be hard work and elbow grease needed in relation to making your own game. A fancy program isn't going to change this. =\

[jack_norton]

Well in that case I think really you should consider Novelty, since is the perfect tool for what you need. Ren'Py evolved quite a lot from a simple VN/Dating Sim language into... well a full 2d game development language, in my modest opinion the best available today for indies.

[PyTom]

I think I remember PyTom saying that Ren'Py is probably not going to have a GUI like that... (don't quote me on this) Honestly, I think the GUI would just be more troublesome. I like it the way it is now. XD;

I think what I said is that I'm not planning on making a GUI like that, as part of Ren'Py. The reasons are both philosophical and pragmatic.

The philosophical reason is that the textual interface of Ren'Py allows you to choose your own tools for working on Ren'Py code. Don't like jEdit? Use SciTE, Emacs, Eclipse, Vi, or even Notepad. You also get to leverage all the other tools (version control systems, for example) that are meant to work with text files.

The pragmatic reason is that a decent GUI would substantially increase the size of Ren'Py, and divert resources from other things that I consider to be more important.

The nice thing about Ren'Py's architecture is that it's easy for other tools to work with Ren'Py's script format - at least to output it. The big goal of 6.14 will be to add support for introspection, to allow the launcher and other tools to learn about Ren'Py code. I'd love it if someone wrote a decent text-editor plugin for Ren'Py - I just don't have the time to make and support it myself.

(Contrary to popular belief, I do have a day job.)

[SilentWolfie]

I think the biggest gripe I have with renpy is the ease of remembering the sprites names, as well as the side window images. As I said, if I plan on making a big novel, 20 charcters, 4 sprites, 5 expressions, I will suffer because I simply can't remember the names. In fact I had 60 combined declared expressions, 20 sound effects, 7-8 plus songs for a single prologue and I was already constantly referencing what I declared.

Still, I have my answer and I respect the decision. The final question I have for Tom is to ask how difficult it is to create just simply the face/sprites GUI codes and implementing it (so maybe I can actually do it myself, lol). I at least know of a few users who wish renpy has this function.

To camille: This is what I have in mind (at attachment)

[Spiky Caterpillar]

If you just want something to embed in your game that tells you what to type to show a given image, gives you a list of the images you actually have available, and possibly adds a tiny bit of context sensitivity (i.e. defaulting to showing you variants of the images currently on screen, assuming you've got the images organized in a way that it can understand), it shouldn't be particularly difficult if you aren't afraid of messing around with undocumented internal functions and already know Python (and might be a good learning project if you already know another programming language and just need something to dive into Python with); the downside is that using internal functions means that it might break if you try to move it to a different version of Ren'Py than the one you wrote it for.

Writing something that integrates with a text editor (or clipboard), runs outside the game, or actually modifies the code would be a fair bit more trouble - how much depends on your programming skill and how many bugs you're willing to tolerate.

Also, if you're currently manually managing the side window images, I suspect you'll find it's a bit easier if you put the side images in the character declaration - you can use a ShowingSwitch() to have it automatically set the side image to match the full-size image for an onscreen character, and for offscreen characters I usually just declare a separate character for each mood.

Code: Select all

player_lazy "Because this..."
show side playerlazy
player "Is easier than this."

[SilentWolfie]

I think I want to do a 3rd party program that generates codes for me, referencing images and what not and then place it into the text editor.

That should be better, I think. I don't have anything on programming and software etc, so if anyone can point out directions to what software/programming language is best, I give my thanks in advance.

[wizzardx]

If PyTom wanted to commercialize Ren'Py a bit at some point (to let him spend more time on it), then features like a gui editor or a text editor plugin might be interesting additions to the non-free version. Or perhaps better integration with "professional" IDEs like visual studio, photoshop, adobe flash, and whatever workflows professional VN developers normally use.

Well, that assumes that commercializing this is actually a viable business plan. As far as I know, VNs aren't all that popular a genre in the western world, that you'd be able to make enough profit from a project like Ren'Py, at least by itself. It might be better to target some of these features towards Japanese game companies, if there's some compelling features in Ren'Py that their current commercial software is lacking in.

[SinusPi]

Not to hijack a thread, but I often find myself lacking a simple timed reload, basing on changed source files. I'm sure many developers would appreciate being able to open a particularly nasty screen definition or code bit or animation sequence and just hit Ctrl+S in their editor, and have Ren'Py immediately do a reload - and, in case of a bad crash, just doing a full restart, never letting itself get locked in an unsalvagable "quit-only" situation.

That'd be a tiny step towards being WYSIWYG, would it not?