I just discovered classes, how do I move my projects to use classes without breaking everything.

Zing

I just found out about classes but I don't know how do I approach it. I have a player, some levels, coins, etc... I want to add a bot enemy to attack the player, but I don't know how I should implement it, should it be a new class? Should it inherit a different class? Should my player and my bot both inherit an actor class? (for setting health, speed, etc...).

Binsk

What exactly do you mean by "found out about classes"? Every node you add a script to becomes its own class so any project you've made would have already been using them?

Or are you moreso wondering how to structure your project? My personal general rule when doing inheritance is pretty similar to my rule for function definitions. If I'm using the same piece of code in more than one place, it can be a function. So with inheritance if I am defining a level of functionality in more than one place it can be a parent. That's just me, though.

cybereality

As @Binsk says, every object in Godot is already a class. When you make a new object, and attach a script, you will see at the top is says "extends Node" or whatever, that is inheritance (it takes all the logic and parameters from Node, and then you can add additional functionality on top).

If you are starting out, it is best to experiment and get things working in a "hacked together" kind of way, because it is easier to change things and learn with that mindset. After you understand the API and the editor, you can start refactoring to get the architecture you like.

For example, hacking together a quick prototype it will be easier to iterate and change thing. After the prototype is working, you can start a new project and port over the stuff that works into a better design. And as you get more experienced, you'll be able to use better designs from the start.

ee0pdt

Also, as a general rule, when changing anything in code it’s a really good idea to use version control (e.g git) so you can easily rollback anything that breaks and work out where you went wrong

Git is command line based but there are good UIs for it if you’d prefer (Sourcetree etc)

Zing

@cybereality I've gotten a stable prototype, but now I have no idea how to port everything over to object oriented design.

cybereality

The basic idea is to compartmentalize objects (classes) with their own data and member functions that process that data. By default, Godot kind of points you in this path, but you can still have one huge global script run everything (and that will work, even if ugly). It's probably too much to explain OOP in full, but if you can isolate an object so that it does not need much or any outside "glue" (in the form of external scripts, global variables, etc.) then it will be OOP. For example, if you can copy one Coin object into another scene or even another project and it still basically works, then that is the idea.