Hey Epic guys,
Since I got my hands on the UE4, I created a list of some of the things that need to change or be added in order to make the product more user-friendly or in some cases less frustrating. I thought most of it is already being looking into so I haven’t posted them before, until recently that I saw none of this were addressed in the changelist for the upcoming 4.1 version.
So here goes parts of my list, the following are the ones that are related to the blueprint editor, some of them might be relevant to other editors like the main editor or material editor as well, but it’s most related to the BP editor.
One last thing: I saw some of the Epic devs were requesting us to post these kind of items 1 per forum thread, so it can be more easily tracked by you guys, but my list is rather long, and if I choose to go that way, I’m gonna have to add about 20-25 threads to the feedback section. So I decided to post a thread only for each category of the items, which would be 3 maybe 4 threads in the end, but please DO let me now, if with all this, you still prefer them being separated and I’ll do so.
B1. Add acronym search to the blueprint search fields (especially palette and right click menu):
If you’re a programmer you already now how this works, for instance visual studio’s intellisense right now responds to the acronym search, so when you’re looking for a function called “FindBestPath”, while you cans do a search like anything else, with the phrase “findbestp”, you also can just type “FBP” and it shows all the functions that include words that start with F, B and P in order, which means it also finds FindBestPathActive or bFindBestPath.
Now while this might be useful for all the search fields throughout the editor, it definitely is a must for the search fields within the blueprint editor, which sometimes has hundreds of items, so please add this.
B2. Change the grouping in the favorite section of the palette:
Now favorite section was a good idea to add to the blueprint considering the high number of available items. Although honestly right now it doesn’t really make sense to have 5 functions favorited, and additionally see 7 category names, I mean come on, lol. First idea is to just remove the category names from there, either by default, or if you don’t want that for some reason, at least give us the option by adding a small button at the right of the search filed for instance, so we can turn the categories off.
B3. Add grouping/foldering to the favorite section of the palette:
Assuming B2 is gonna happen eventually, I think it would be better to let the users organize the favorited items by grouping or foldering them however he feels it’s best for his unique workflow.
If you feel it’s too many options, then you can easily combine B2 an B3 by adding a checkbox to switch between default categories and folders. (it can be placed either in the preferences page or even better, at the top of the favorite section itself)
B4. Blueprint graph mode’s graphs should always start at the home location:
I think that makes sense, you rather see the big picture first, and get a quick idea of how big/complicated a blueprint that you are dealing with is, when you open it up, and then go to the parts you want. If you guys think the same, then make the home location/zoom (the zoom level and location that you get when you press Home button on the keyboard when no node is selected) to be the default view for a blueprint, when you first open it up after each editor start.
B5. Make the textboxes in the details page to store the data if the focus was lost:
This one’s currently making the work somewhat frustrating for me. This happens mainly when we edit the name of any variable/object within the details page of the blueprint, as well as the tooltip field. When user goes all that way, select the variable, and start typing in the name property, he obviously has intention of naming/renaming the variable, but right now unless he presses enter all that change is just lost.
The reason this can be frustrating is that we’re simply used to change our fields and sometimes either hit the tab key to go to the next field, or simply click somewhere else, to update the field. This is in fact the default behavior in most applications, including both visual studio and the good old UE3. So please add that back, it’s more important than it may look like.
That’s it for now as far as the blueprint editor goes, I’ll add to the list later on as I find them and update this post. Thanks for reading and hopefully we’ll see some of these improvements alive soon.
