Does Ren'py have a GUI to design Frames/Windows easier?

[Imperf3kt]

There is no guestimation in making screens if you know what size your assets are, which comes down to experience.

For what it is worth, I agree that a wysiwyg style editor is easier for new users and even some experienced developers find it easier, which is why I am making such a thing for renpy, but it's slow work. Don't expect anything for a long time, my personal life leaves very little time for my ren'py endeavours.

[zmook]

Patreons who fund visual novels would LOVE to offer $$$ to Ren'py developers, thus improving all of their favorite games, beacuse there's a lot of Patreons in general who prefer games be made in Ren'py.

A couple things, none of which I'm completely sure of. But first, I believe "Ren'py developers" is pretty much PyTom. Plus anyone who volunteers to contribute code, that he accepts. It's an MIT-license open source project, though, so you could fork it entirely. Or just create a standalone tool that generates .rpy scripts, like IDEs used to have back in the day.

Second, PyTom is a very skilled developer, and if he put his development time up for auction you'd probably have to add a zero to your budget there.

Could a very very basic GUI be made in 2 months? Maybe?? Would it actually do anything that would reliably save you time? I'm super not confident, then I'm much less a fan of visual development than you seem to be.

Oh woops! It was not my intention to appear angry! haha Everyone is right to a certain degree. If you have a lot of experiencing making screens, you can technically make them faster than someone who doesn't work with them constantly.

FWIW, you have come off as pretty aggressive about demanding features from free software.

typing it out and then having to run ren'py every time just to visually see the results is a nightmare.

Have you not discovered auto-reload mode?

[bonnie_641]

We need a GUI that lets us design screens on the fly, then lets us populate it with the following on the fly, letting us drag and resize, etc

Here:
viewtopic.php?f=51&t=22565&start=75#p455107

Although I have little experience with Ren'Py, thanks to this tutorial (from Leon) I was able to customize the start menu of my game. It only took me 1 month (between studying the code and applying it).
With much respect, my opinion is that it is better to learn to program with examples - rather than doing it graphically.
I am very happy because I can fulfill my dream of creating my game in a relatively easy way, through the examples given by the community. I thank Pytom for sharing with us the resources to be able to program in a simple way (I tried Pygame, Panda3d, Lua, RPG Maker among others and it was a total failure).
Although the documentation is very complex to follow, the community makes the difference. With an infinity of examples of all kinds of games, I learned a lot, plus many users are willing to help.

Rather than focusing on demanding to change the way of programming, it is better to be thankful for everything that is currently available.In all these years, the functionality of Ren`Py has improved a lot and I hope to soon finish my first project, which I proudly say is a game created thanks to the community, which otherwise would be impossible for me to do on my own.

[HEXdidnt]

With much respect, my opinion is that it is better to learn to program with examples - rather than doing it graphically.
...
Rather than focusing on demanding to change the way of programming, it is better to be thankful for everything that is currently available.

Gotta say, I agree 100% with Bonnie_641's sentiment here. There's a lot in Ren'Py that I'm struggling with because I'm no programmer... but making a system like Ren'Py GUI-based would likely reduce its flexibility, at least in the short-term. Lots of GUI-based systems are inherently limited by what their creators expected the user to do/want to do, where I don't feel that's the case with Ren'Py, which is limited only by the imagination and proficiency of its users.

Some of the customising options are complex and intricate, but the sense of accomplishment I've felt over successfully implementing even the simplest of changes (unique font styles within dialogue, altering text frame size and position, adding a splash screen) has been that much greater because I've actually learned how to do it rather than just clicking the mouse in a GUI and letting the system do it for me. Theoretically, that means it'll be quicker and easier for me to make similar changes and additions next time. When something clicks and a piece of code finally makes sense, I like being able to experiment and tinker with it further.

Not to say I wouldn't try out a GUI if one was developed, but I wouldn't want to rely on it.