Any way to hide this 'mess' of initialisation code?

SteveZX81

Hi folks,
Whenever I start a new project you can guarantee the first 50-100 lines are going to be an ugly mess of loadimage-createsprite-setsprite commands and the like as I load my images and initialise the sprites etc. but man it looks messy and pig ugly (see image)

I tried to create a function at the very end of my project and dump all this stuff there but of course that does not work.

So, I'm wondering. Do you have any tips on how to make it look less messy?

pianofire

You can tidy it up a bit using functions e.g.

player = createPlayer()
pal = createPlayerAim( "playeraiml" )
pam = createPlayerAim( "playeraimm" )
par = createPlayerAim( "playeraimr" )

// Create player sprite
function createPlayer( )
  result = createSprite( )
  image = loadImage( "player" )
  setSpriteImage( result, image)
  setSpriteLocation( result , 500, 500)
  setSpriteScale( result, 3, 3 )
  setSpriteAnimation( result, 0, 2, 25 )
  setSpriteColour( result, 1, 1 ,0, 1 )
return result

// Create player aim sprite
function createPlayerAim( imageName )
  result = createSprite( )
  image = loadImage( imageName )
  setSpriteImage( result, image )
  setSpriteLocation( result, -250, 0)
  setSpriteScale( result, 3, 3 )
  setSpriteAnimation( result, 0, 0, 0 )
  setSpriteColour( result, 1, 1 ,0, 1 )
return result

pianofire

You could even refactor this again (but maybe not so readable) - untested

player = createPlayerSprite( "player", { 500, 500 }, { 3, 3 }, { 1, 1, 0, 1 }, { 0, 2, 25 } )
pal = createPlayerSprite( "playeraiml", { -250, 0 }, { 3, 3 }, { 1, 1, 0, 1 }, { 0, 0, 0 } )
pam = createPlayerSprite( "playeraimm", { -250, 0 }, { 3, 3 }, { 1, 1, 0, 1 }, { 0, 0, 0 } )
par = createPlayerSprite( "playeraimr", { -250, 0 }, { 3, 3 }, { 1, 1, 0, 1 }, { 0, 0, 0 } )

// Create player sprite
function createPlayerSprite( imageName, location, scale, colour, animation )
  result = createSprite( )
  image = loadImage( imageName )
  setSpriteImage( result, image)
  setSpriteLocation( result , location)
  setSpriteScale( result, scale )
  setSpriteAnimation( result, animation.x, animation.y, animation.z )
  setSpriteColour( result, colour )
return result

SteveZX81

Thanks a lot!

Jonboy

I tend to organise my projects along these lines:

//Main global variable
player = [.id = 0, .pal = 0, .pam = 0, .par = 0]

setup()

loop
    checkControls()
    player()
    enemies()
    display()
    debug()
    update()
repeat

// then just dump all the actual setup down here..

function setup()
    image = loadimage("player")
    paimm = loadimage("playeraim")
    paiml = loadimage("playeraiml")
    paimr = loadimage("playeraimr")
    player.id = createsprite()
    player.pam = createsprite()
    player.pal = createsprite()
    player.par = createsprite()
    setSpriteBlahBlah....
    setSpriteBlahBlah....
return void

function debug()
// prints useful variables
return void

Although saying that - my method above with Colin's more sensible user createSprite function would be even better!

But, I am not sure if my approach is seen as good or bad - it just works well for the way i like to work.

sahara-min

Here is a trick you can use if you want to place your global variables at the end of the code:

function main()
  // Program starts here
return void

// Other functions...
// Variables...

main()

The main function serves as the starting point for your program. It is defined at the top but invoked at the very end of the code, so all variables will have been created when it runs.