It is currently a bit tricky to create a new sprite, because you have to understand that "costumes" and "sounds" are not just magical tabs that sit on the top of the code/costumes/sounds area (like Scratch), but actually folders themselves. The folder icon probably helps, but there's still some confusion about it, as seen in leopard-js/leopard-mentors#7.
I think it would assist new users, and be convenient for experienced users, to have a "Sprite" button under the Project Files' "Create" menu. It would probably require you to choose the first costume, because sprites need at least one costume to function properly, and give it a name. (I don't know the best user interface for getting both of these - and they are both needed, to set up a sprite!)
Then it would create the sprite folder, its "costumes" and "sounds" folders, its JavaScript file, and - ideally - add the JavaScript code that actually initializes the sprite into the Stage folder.
Of course, this probably needs a bunch of workshopping to really become useful and feel right lol, but I wanted to bring it up as a point that might be important for helping users get started making their own projects in the Leopard editor.
Mainly, I want to remember that because the Leopard editor provides abstractions over the actual file system structure of the project, it should also provide tools to ease interacting with those abstractions. If it looks like the Scratch editor, it should basically work like the Scratch editor, or as close as we can get without hurting Leopard's own capabilities. The Leopard editor shouldn't just be a "skin" over a normal hierarchy-based code IDE, you know?
PullJosh
commented
4 months ago
It is currently a bit tricky to create a new sprite, because you have to understand that "costumes" and "sounds" are not just magical tabs that sit on the top of the code/costumes/sounds area (like Scratch), but actually folders themselves. The folder icon probably helps, but there's still some confusion about it, as seen in leopard-js/leopard-mentors#7.
I think it would assist new users, and be convenient for experienced users, to have a "Sprite" button under the Project Files' "Create" menu. It would probably require you to choose the first costume, because sprites need at least one costume to function properly, and give it a name. (I don't know the best user interface for getting both of these - and they are both needed, to set up a sprite!)
Then it would create the sprite folder, its "costumes" and "sounds" folders, its JavaScript file, and - ideally - add the JavaScript code that actually initializes the sprite into the Stage folder.
Of course, this probably needs a bunch of workshopping to really become useful and feel right lol, but I wanted to bring it up as a point that might be important for helping users get started making their own projects in the Leopard editor.
Mainly, I want to remember that because the Leopard editor provides abstractions over the actual file system structure of the project, it should also provide tools to ease interacting with those abstractions. If it looks like the Scratch editor, it should basically work like the Scratch editor, or as close as we can get without hurting Leopard's own capabilities. The Leopard editor shouldn't just be a "skin" over a normal hierarchy-based code IDE, you know?