[Feature under Review] Improving parenthesis readability on Formulas

[Maji]

Parenthesis should look like how it looks in Visual Studio, with different colors to signify different parenthesis.

With Visual Studio, you can almost instantly identify where a parenthesis starts and ends. However, in GDevelop, you can’t really do that…

[Luni]

Hey Maji!
One quick question (also for future user who might want to comment on this topic):

1. You write those lines (you open and close your own parenthesis) by hand vs using an “auto complete”. Do you?
2. When you’re verifying your errors on the formula, do you scan them with your eye only, or do you like to follow the values with your cursor using the arrow?
   (I promise there is an intention behind these weird questions)

Thanks!

[Rasterisko]

Hello, Luni!

1. There is in Gdevelop an “auto complete”? Or is just a question for Maji using Visual Studio? I write by hand, but sometimes I take expressions here on the forum and adapt them
   Edit: Oh, the autocomplete to choose the variables, right? I’m so slow. I use sometimes, but it doesn’t insert the parentheses. That’s why I got confused with the question

2. I didn’t scan anything . I use the orientations of Gdevelop and it works great for me

Example with an already complete expression of my game :

But if during the construction of this expression Gdevelop shows me messages like:
Missing a parenthesis in the end:

Or missing a braket in the end:

I just start to put braket or parenthesis in the end until the messages disappear . So, answering the second question I didn’t use eye or cursor, I just make how I think it’s right and in the end I follow the instructions of Gdevelop.

[ZeroX4]

I am all in for this
Let’s face it we spot crap faster by it looking one way or another
And slower by trying to understand what we see

This would be awesome addition to building expression

@Luni for your questions
1 - I was using autocomplete but now i am faster with writing it by hand
I use autocomplete only as reference and very rarely click on suggestions
2 - I don’t even attempt as person with dyslexia i have very high chance not to spot my mistake and be able to fix it
Because my brain will convert it to what it should be even so my eyes would see the error
I just delete whole crap and start over
That is only correct solution for me

[Maji]

1. I write my parenthesis by hand. Didn’t even know there was autocomplete.
2. I kind of scan this by eye. What I do is I count how many open and closed parenthesis there is. Imagine it like a score. I scan across the entire expression, and when I come across an opening parenthesis “(”, I add 1 to my little brain variable: “parenthesis count”. If I come across a closing parenthesis “)”, I remove 1 from “parenthesis count”. If parenthesis count isn’t 0 by the time I finish scanning, then something is wrong and I have to go back and find out where the problem is.

Visual Studio completely removes this by already highlighting where parenthesis starts and end, and it’s overall much more convenient.

@_@

[Luni]

Shoot on the foot!
Those are a lotta parenthesis to figure out by naked eye. ;/
I’m tagging the Topic as “under review” cause I still need a little more information from y’all.

If any reader wishes to help me define the problem, I’ll ask them to comment on the topic a short video or gif on how they write their Variables. I want to see how y’all normally do it: if you use the auto complete for choosing variables, if you don’t, how you write the parenthesis, etc. (by the way: thank you @Rasterisko for the support images).

Thank you!