[FEATURE REQUEST] A full rework of Blueprint system

[MothDoctor]

@janherca

I am requesting something I think is pretty reasonable. Sequencer is a new rework of Matinee and the Audio system is being reworked. Of course, I am not asking for a new Blueprint system that makes old unusable, just a new system that brings easiness for the C++ part.
Thanks for the opinion anyway.

TL;DR
Adding text editor to Unreal’s editor won’t solve any of C++ issues! It would use the very same compilers, linkers and everything that comes with C++.

1. Blueprints compile so fast because compiler speed truly depends on how many blueprints you changed. This is kind of blueprint-only magic. C++ compilers (or C# in Unity) also try to do this, it’s optimized well - from like 2 minutes of full rebuild to just 7 seconds. Still it’s not instant “compile & play” experience. Integrating text editor and compiler into editor won’t change it.
2. And if you would integrate IDE with editor you’d rely on hardcore version of code hot reload. 4 years passed and still hot reload in UE4 doesn’t work flawlessly. I often end up with throwing few bad words, closing editor and compile project normal way.
3. C++ and tools like VS are with us for decades. Developed for Epic and us “for free”. Still, it takes time to “only” improve UHT, UBT, support for different IDEs.

And comparing it with Sequencer or Audio engine doesn’t make any sense. These are kind of tools which need to be integrated into the engine. Old versions of these systems couldn’t be developed further without writing it from scratch. And Sequencer is kind of unique tool.
Writing new text editor while there are many of them out there? It’s reinventing the wheel. It wouldn’t help you write code faster.

EDIT

@janherca

• a context menu options “Switch to code”/"Switch to editor " and an internal automatic conversion between changes in a blueprint and in the C++ code,

Cannot be done. Blueprint-generated code isn’t ready to be further edited by human

@janherca

• full support of any C++ class, enum, interface, etc in both code and blueprints (with no exception),

You already have full support for any C++ class, enum and interface in… C++. Adding C++ editor to the editor’s UI won’t improve anything in BP.

@janherca

• always save any class in common C++ files and save the blueprint graph in a secondary text file that describes the graph elements

And that’s exactly what we’re doing today: combining C++ with BP. Source code for blueprint is a huge and messy text file. That’s why you can copy-paste part of blueprints.

@janherca

• a C++ simple editor with intellisense inside UE4 to avoid the need of and external tool (or the option to work with VS if is the desired selection of the dev),

Well, if somebody ever used Intellisense with huge codebase (i.e. Unreal’s source code) - he knows it works like a ****, terribly slow. Meanwhile, Blueprint’s context menu works instantly.

@franktech

So, does it make sense to build another layer on top of C++ that’s also Node based?

But this is Blueprint exactly… You already have it…