Allow actors drawing a shape (instead of an image)

[aoloe]

When teaching the first steps with Pygame zero, kids tend to get lost in:

• Searching the right images for their game.
• Where did they download it? Where / what is the "images" directory?.
• Move the new images to the right directory.
• Make sure that the images are correctly named.
• Resizing the images!

Would it be possible to allow the actors to also use shapes like rectangles and squares?

I'm thinking of something like

paddle = Actor()
paddle.shape = Rect((x, y), (w, h))
paddle.color = r, g, b
# paddle.fill_color = r, g, b

def draw()
    paddle.draw_rect()
    # paddle.draw_filled_rect()

[aoloe]

If there is an interest in this feature, I can work on a formal proposal and possibly produce a pull request.

[lordmauve]

This is a good idea - it's something that is already in Wasabi2D and works well (and is handy).

I'd suggest simply avoiding the Actor class though. We can create a new class like shapes.Rectangle() and expose shapes as a built-in.

[aoloe]

I also thought about creating a new ActorShape class.

Still, I'm rather in favor of adding the feature to the Actor class.
Keeping the same class would help the programmer start with a shape and later move to an image.

But I'm ok with other solutions.

If we put everything in the Actor, draw() might automatically draw a shape if one is defined... (also useful for checking the bounding boxes...)...
And do nothing if both the shape and the image are not defined.

[yonghuming]

seems you need Sprite class linke Sprite in ActionScript 3

[yonghuming]

This is a good idea - it's something that is already in Wasabi2D and works well (and is handy).

pgzero is nice for teaching kids, Wasabi2D is powerful, but need more work making it out-of-box and lower floor for newbee.

[yonghuming]

Decorator maybe hard to understand for kids

[Mambouna]

I've created a PR for this on #371. I also think this should be put under Actors, since students usually want to use images at the end, just not at the start when they are experimenting a lot. If the shape class has the same functionality as an actor, that would work, but that would duplicate a lot of stuff. The easiest workflow and way to introduce this seems to me to put it in with completely normal Actors.