I see your side and meant no disrespect. “I see no downsides” is how I see it. It was not meant to diminish your viewpoint in the least.
Other than undoing it, which is unlikely because it was a major redesign. What can be changed? I would like to easily pull up the variable screen at anytime and over any screen. Maybe even as another tab or sidebar. Maybe something in the copy/paste popup menu that made a variable from the selected text? IDK.
Oh mate dont worry i didnt take it that way, dont worry, its all good 
I was just clarifying my point.
…and heres the thing, it can easily be undone, 100% sure of this, you know why? Because the old code is still there, nothing has changed if you already have a project.
If you open a project with un declared variables, they work just fine, no error, no red letters, in fact you can even change these variables to new ones and they work just like before, you can duplicate them and make even more, still with no issue.
Thats the maddening part, its all still there, they just added a bunch of new steps if you try to make a completely fresh one.
This can be rolled back pretty quick.
Ill be posting a video very soon showing all of this nonsense, ill post it here in a bit.
This expresses and highlights my opinion and issues with the whole thing pretty well…
Please excuse the whole “pissed off” thing, but i take it you understand why
Keith there may be no downside…but this updated kicked in the ass who is far in his own projects and who already learnt a pretty solid (imo) method.
It wasn’t better as Zerox said here Different visual representation for NONE declared variables get both worlds?..(but at this point idon’t think it was possible)
Bouh said you can copy and paste with both methods (losing features that will comes) but the problem is still there for undeclared…this may looks easy for ppl who just do simple things…but not for others.
I would like to post a screen of my undeclared vars…you gonna laugh…
Man the more i look into it the worse it gets…
What both worlds? They didnt create anything new, thats the thing thats driving me nutts.
All they did was remove the different options when searching for variables and to access them, you have to declare the variable, so that the “Change Variable” condition/action can then “smart change” into the old option.
Nothing mechanical changed, undeclared variables still work, except now you have extra steps and they become red and almost unreadable.
For example, you can:
What was the point? What changed really? other than making me jump trough hoops and getting a variable in red font that i can barely read?
Nothing, absolutly nothing.
Thats the worst part of it, its that they wasted all these resources and time doing something that = 0, well actually =-10 because none was complaining before, and now people are upset.
This wasent a change with a purpose, something that had to be change for the greater good, this was just changed because… because why? just because bad idea.
As you probably know it is what we’re discussing here Different visual representation for NONE declared variables.
About the usefulness of the update we’re on the same page.
to summarize…
At the moment i refuse to update since i don’t think it worth…
but if they made this choice with something “useful” in mind i may be turn back and update…if u have problem you should do the same…
…Are you developing something that needs the new system?
I only see an improvement to my work flow. Before I used to have to choose between too many options - change a scene number, change a scene text, change a global number, change an object number… now it is much faster to just either select Variable or Object Variable.
Also, they now have local variables: Local variables - GDevelop documentation
Many programming languages do require you to declare variables, and it could be argued that the ones that don’t are expecting you to be more than a beginner programmer. Because when you don’t declare all your variables in one place it is a little bit harder to keep track of them. GDevelop is meant to be accessible to non-programmers. With that in mind it makes sense to stick to a more structured approach.
One big advantage of the way it is now done in GD is that you can rename a variable in the variable editor, and it will change the name across the entire event sheet.
They had to make it so that undeclared variables would still work, otherwise all old projects would be broken.
Nothing against it…if your started a new project or if you have not done your own game system…even the new vars system is not a problem.
But what about ppl who are already far in their projects? …(to be clear it’s not that i can’t get all of my 50 undeclared vars and turn em to the new “locals”…but why i should if i have already a solid/working system?..do i get any improvement?)…
that said i’ll stay with the old ver…and it’s perfectly fine…as long as i don’t see something i need…but thaz a personal choice
Yeah I see how that could be an issue. To be fair though, they did warn about this many updates ago, basically they said “start declaring variables now because it will become mandatory later”
Also, if you really have that many variables in the events sheet, that would be an indication that those variables should probably be contained in an object or at least an array/structure. I fall into this trap because when I’m prototyping it is easy to just throw variables in without thinking much about how they are organized. But then, down the line I realize “I’m not taking advantage of objects.” And, that is even more true now that the typing has been shortened.
This a stretch of an argument made to defending something that you for some reason want to make excuses for.
From the moment i started working in GDevelop this was never an issue, unless you dont like typing, but that dosent seem to be the case.
Want a scene boolean? Type in “scene boo”, and the result is right there.
You make it sound like you have to go trough a bunch of options to get to the one you want when that is not true at all, its right there, with the same amount of efforth as you have right now with the updated version.
Your workflow has not changed one bit, ours has.
…and for what?
Its what @RMDB said, whats the use? Its what iv asked, what was the point?
Whats the reason for this change?
It wasn’t a major problem or anything, I’m just saying it feels a little faster and easier now.
By the same token, you’re making it sound like you have to jump through hoops (actually I think you literally wrote that) in order to use variables. But really it only takes a second to declare them, instead of spending that second typing GlobalVariableString or whatever, you spend it declaring the variable. To me it seems that the overall time spent is about the same, but the organization and cleanliness of the events sheet is much better.
Again… im not picking on you, but its quite literally the same, you type in variable, you still have to clique on the variable option, and then do the rest as usual, no difference in your case.
Not even close! Did you even think about the number of steps between those two?
The heck kind of argument is that?
Old
New
Lets try again
Thats seems like its the same to you? You mad?
…and what if you looking at the event sheet, trying to work out a problem, then you go “oh yeah ill add a variable there thats missing, that will work”
Go trough it again.
Ends up you dont need said variable…
Well go back in and deleted then come back… or take a mental note for later, that will work…
The old way was amazing, it worked, it was an awesome workflow and easy to use.
What was the bloody reason to change?!
Reason i made a new post about this, its because that one seemed to be about getting rid of the red text but living with the change.
Which would just sorta bring it back to how it was but with extra steps.
My point was that there was no need for this and that this change shouldnt of happen in the first place, there was no need for it, no need to make declaring variables mandatory,
At least, to date, i see no actual reason why variables had to be changed to mandatory, thats probably the most annoying part.
Fair enough, didnt realize that tab was there, like i said, my eyes are bad.
Point still stands tho, take away the opening the properties for changing tabs and the number of steps are still higher than the old way by a few.
Heck, even if you had global variables as its own option when selecting the condition / action, it would still be more steps and more work.
It would be nice if the add variables window was more integrated with the events sheet, like in the drop-down menu there could just be an “add variable” option
Or, here’s an idea, what if when you enter a variable that isn’t already listed, it gets automatically declared with a default value? I guess typos could be an issue here but maybe it could be a toggleable option.
Added a better and shorter video explaining how this affects my workflow with less anger lol
Please don’t ping me about this, I am not on the GDevelop team, nor I am not a decision maker, nor do I have any influence or input of any kind on the decisions of the team. I learn about changes the same way as everyone else as they release and have no decision power over any of this.
Now that’s a rant!
I understand the problem and there’s little hope that things will change…
Why did they do it? Because it’s part of the “don’t scare the beginner” craze, so they hide as much as possible, the buttons, the options, the information.
That’s why there’s no instance number, no buttons on the interface and so many drop-down lists. GD5’s interface is just awful and it’s the same problem: it’s being imposed on us when before it was fine and it’s a shame to waste so much time redoing something that’s fine.
But instead of having both, it deletes… One day they’ll delete the software to stop scaring beginners… 
The problem is that they want to be taken seriously but when I see GD5 it looks like a toy and so the question that comes up every time is: Can GD do that? And that’s normal, it casts doubt, you can’t see anything, not to mention that it lacks a real user manual, which is the big black spot for beginners, but instead of doing that they cut up the software to make it “simple”.
They would have saved so much time over so many years by producing a complete manual to avoid all this mess.
Im sorry man, i was annoyed, my bad.
