BansheeEngine/TODO.txt

--------- ALL LONG TERM TASKS / FIXES BELONG TO GOOGLE DOCS: ImplementationTODO OR PossibleImprovements ----------

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Assembly refresh

When serializing Camera I cannot save the reference to RenderTexture. Make it a Resource?
Possibly set up automatic refresh in debug mode after initialization? As an ad-hoc unit test

Modal windows are set up as persistent but I don't serialize their internal data anywhere

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C# Material/Shader:

TODO - Material/Shader has no color type so I cannot know when to display normal vector and when color in inspector
TODO - Implement param block and sampler support
TODO - When creating a Material without a shader, a default one should be used, at least in editor
TODO - Setting Material array parameters isn't possible from C#

GUIResourceField doesn't distinguish between tex2d, tex3d and texcube.

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ProjectLibrary import

I'm not sure if queued dependencies are handled properly. They're handled on an internal ProjectLibrary loop but perhaps I should
return them in checkForModifications?

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Prefab diff

TODO:
 - Document new Prefab code (Prefab & PrefabDiff)
 - Test prefab diff creation and applying (unit test)

Prefab unit test:
 - Create a set of scene objects
 - Create a prefab from them
 - Modify original set objects
 - Create prefab diff
 - Save prefab to disk
 - Load prefab and compare with instance
 - Compare and assert results

Get prefab saving/loading working and only add diffs later

Need to figure out how to restore IDs after prefab revert/update

High level goal list:
 - Add prefab ID system
   - Update IDs when linking/breaking a prefab
 - Fix native and binary diff so that GameObjectHandle can be compared properly
 - Hook up updates:
    - Save a diff whenever a HSceneObject with a HPrefab link is saved
    - Update active scene when prefab is modified (destroy them, create original prefab then apply saved diff)

When dealing with prefab saving make sure to consider scene object flags like "dont save"

Later: Native+Managed diff is not tested (only the link needs to be tested, I have a separate managed and native tests)
Later: Modify BinarySerializer so that _encodeIntermediate outputs intermediate format directly without a full on encode

See "Prefabs" gdoc for later goals
See "Brainstorm" gdoc for ideas about how to solve the ID issue (and see below)

When deserializing diffs I need to turn on GameObjectManager
 - Since diffs should be part of HSceneObject it should already be active but it is something to pay attention to

GameObjectHandle compare in managed serializable diff won't work for prefabs (will have the same problem for native diff)
 - Handle comparison compares instanceIDs which will be different between prefab and its instance
 - Best solution is probably to add a flag that tells the diff system how to deal with game object handles
   (i.e. compare using instance IDs or use the prefab link IDs)
 - But since I know I will be using serialized data (and not actual objects) to compare with
   I could do a pre-processing step and replace all the handle IDs before compare

Consider making ManagedSerializable* array/list/dictionary method/field references static (right now each instance has its own instance
 but they're identical)

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Polish stage 1

When elements are docked in the main window the menu bar drop down appears behind them
Click on empty part of the menu bar doesn't close the menu bar (ignoring NC area clicks?)
Attempting to dock a window that is not in focus will start drag instead (NC area incorrectly set up?)
Docking problem: When I dock three windows next to each other, e.g. Hierarchy|Scene|Inspector and then try to dock another
 so it splits space with Hierarchy vertically the dock area appears over both hierarchy and scene, and the when docked it looks wrong
Decent looking default layout
Fix DX11 (and possibly DX9) rendering
Missing Inspector values (name + transform fields)
Fix handles
Moving the title bar tab and then dropping it closes the window (possibly only happens when there is just one tab)

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Project window

Later:
 - Hook up ping effect so it triggers when I select a resource or sceneobject
  - Add ping to SceneTreeView
 - Consider delaying search until user stops pressing keys (so not to have thousands of search results in the initial stages)
 - Save & restore scroll position when Refresh happens

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Resources
 - Load/Unload/UnloadUnused
 - Uses same paths as ProjectLibrary
 - It uses different logic depending on Application.isEditor
   - If not in editor then a different path is used
   - That path is ..\..\Data (relative to the executable)
   - When in editor it also does special ProjectLibrary check to ensure that resource is included in final project
 - Internally just calls Resources (C++) Load/Unload/UnloadUnused
 - Need a flag in ProjectLibrary to include a resource in the final build
   - Need to be able to set that flag from C# (Likely through ProjectLibrary) interface
 - The final build procedure for the game would then be:
   - Copy all the prebuilt binaries (Banshee libraries, Banshee assemblies, 3rd party libraries and prebuilt executable) from Editor install folder to output folder
    - Which set of binaries is used depends on selected platform (e.g. win/mac/linux or 32/64bit)
   - Recompile script assemblies if needed and copy them from project Internal folder to output folder
   - Copy the Builtin resources for engine from Editor install folder to output folder
   - Copy all the resources marked with the flag mentioned above to \Data subfolder in the output folder, preserving the same asset structure

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Simple stuff

 - Inject an icon into an .exe (Win32 specific)
 - C# wrapper for GUISkin (and a way to assign the current skin to a window)
 - Move all the code files into subfolders so their hierarchy is similar to VS filters
 - Font doesn't have a C# interface
 - Get rid of PoolAlloc and other unused allocators (plus fix bs_new and others which have weird overloads)
 - Get rid of event callback from HString and figure out a better way
 - GUI TextureField similar to ResourceField but it displays the texture it has assigned
 - Better handle and gizmo shaders
 - Splash screen

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Handles

When scaling using center make sure to offset the object before scale
Handles should probably not having shading, or have better shading.

Rotate handle:
 - How to handle local/global with rotate handle?
   - This maybe just determines initial rotation of the handle?
   - I don't think my code properly handles rotation handle transforms (e.g. arc drawing)

Ideally free scale handle indicator should always render and be interactable and never be hidden by axis scale indicators (Not high priority)

Later:
 - Raycast snapping Ribek suggested

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Include files:

Test:
 - Try preprocessing using one RenderAPi and then load the shaders using another and see if they're created normally
 - Test if default values work
 - Test project library dependant resources (e.g. changing an include and seeing if shader is reimported)

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Scene View

AFTER I have scene widget in C#:
 - Test custom handles from C#
 - Test handle snapping

Make sure that camera controls only work when scene view is in focus

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Other

There is a memory corruption happening. Haven't determined where exactly but it's possible it has something
to do with the opening of ColorPicker window. One time I got a heap read after delete error caused by GUIManager
attempting to allocate a new transient mesh, and another time I got a hang when inserting a script object into a std::set.

Got a crash on shutdown that was caused by locking a mutex in an Event destructor. Event was Platform::onMouseCaptureChanged. 
Issue happened when I closed the app via the X button (if that's relevant). It doesn't seem to happen always.
 - This is likely due to some other error. When VS finds an exception it triggers a dialog box which triggers the msg loop in-engine and causes another exception.

Create a stack allocatable custom vector implementation and make getResourceDependencies and getCoreDependencies use it.
 - These methods are called often and cause allocations whenever they are.

I shouldn't crash the app when a managed exception happens

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Multi-resource saving
 - Modify Font so it doesn't contain a texture, but instead keeps a handle to it
 - Register it in its meta file
 - When saving such a resource with dependencies save the contained files to a sub-directory with the same name as top level resource
   - If it already exists in the manifest at a different location do it anyway, keep the other copy as-is in case user wanted it that way
   - I'm not sure whether to do this for all Resource::save calls or only ones originating from ProjectLIbrary?

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Mono notes

I can get mono errors by checking g_print calls in goutput.c
 - Calling thunks incorrectly can cause those weird errors with no real callstack

Running embedded mono with VS attached causes managed null refs to be registered as access violations

There seems to be a bug in Mono when passing complex structs from C# to C++. e.g. passing Rect3 as a parameter
will corrupt the parameter after it, even if layout and size is exact as the C++ version. 
Rect3 has child structs (Vector3) which could be the reason. Be aware of other similar problems.

Mono cannot marshal structures? Taken from their documentation:
 Internal calls do not provide support for marshalling structures. This means that any API calls that take a structure 
 (excluding the system types like int32, int64, etc) must be passed as a pointer, in C# this means passing the value as a "ref" or "out" parameter.

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MenuItem

LATER: Add keyboard controls to GUIMenuBar (left/right arrows should move between entries if user is not browsing a sub-menu)
 - esc should cancel out of the menu bar
 - alt should focus the menu bar

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VisualStudio integration

VS integration will likely not work with VSExpress or Community edition
 - VSExpress doesn't support EnvDTE so the only option is to open it using a shell command which doesn't seem to offer precise parameters
 - Community edition should work similarily to Pro, but might have a different executable and/or registry paths

For later:
 - Make sure that 3rd party assemblies can be imported in the project, and that they are properly referenced in VS project generation and compilation

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Script compilation

For later:
 - I need to hook up script compilation with assembly refresh, and the build system.
   - e.g. when recompiling inside the editor it should automatically start compiling when changes are detected,
     show some kind of visual indicator and refresh assemblies when its done. When publishing it should recompile
	 assemblies for release. Also hook up console to compiler output?