"Expression too complex"

[Nick]

"Expression too complex"

What exactly causes this error in the expression editor, and is there any way to get around it?

Sorry, ignore this I just figured it out (split the expression into two actions in the event editor)

[LaraSoft]

You can be given this error when the expression you've typed is too long for the editor to understand all in one go. An easy way to tell this is to create an edit box and say Start of Frame > Set Text and enter about three paragraphs in the expression editor. This will result in an "Expression too complex" message.

One work around is to submit your expression in parts. For example if you were going to enter text to an RTF object then do one paragraph at a time etc. Usually splitting won't cause a problem because the events will become executed anyway

[Dines]

You can also rename your objects to smaller names. I think that helps.

EG: Value("Some Long-named Extension for Holding Data") becomes Value("Data")

That's a bad example, but you see what I mean. Often if I'm using a complicated expression where the same few objects are referred to many times (like using a Bézier curve) then I'll use letters for the object names like "p1", "p2", "p3", etc.

Another useful trick is to rename alterable values. Something like "health" is much better than "Alterable Value A".