Windowed modes, GUI
BlitzMax Forums/BlitzMax Programming/Windowed modes, GUI
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| In the documentation for the Graphics command, it says "improved support for windowed modes will be added shortly". Can I assume that if I write a game in fullscreen mode now, that it will be trivial to make it windowed (even at different window sizes)? The next question is a likely follow-up. What is BRL's priority of adding support for GUI elements and canvas-style drawing, ala BlitzPlus? Is it "top priority, soon", or is BRL leaving that up to third-party module developers, or something in between? Will the GUI commands be portable out of the box, or will we need to use separate modules for each OS/GUI Library? Thanks. |
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| All the modules so far are OS independant as far as the BlitzMAX programmer is concerned, so hopefully the GUI module will be as well. |
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| You can allready make your games run in windowed mode. Just use "0" as Depth in the graphics comand. e.g. Graphics 800,600,0 |
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| The full quote from the documentation of the Graphics command that I referred to above: A depth value of 0 enables 'windowed mode'. This special mode is currently intended for debugging purposes only and should not be used for release builds. Improved support for windowed modes will be added shortly. |
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| Oh, missed that. Thanks. Hope that windowed mode and especially GUI support will extended soon. |
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| According to comments in my correspondence with BlitzMax support staff, there are 3D, GUI and Database modules on the way to extend the functionality (and will *probably* be at additional cost - which is okay). |
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| oh er, its all gone a bit dbs... :/ i mean i know the 3d lib will not be free, but i was under the impression the gui stuff etc was going to be in. |
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| Ah, lets just wait and see what the prices are but good to know that GUI is on its way. :) |
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| I don't think any decisions have been made as to what will be charged for and what won't -- certainly not every little piece of additional functionality. I know Mark wants to add GUI support in time, but I don't know when that'll be. Not aware of plans for database stuff, though I could be wrong! BTW AngelDaniel, I just realised you're the 'Mildred' guy -- welcome back! Now to leave people wondering what the heck that could possibly mean... |
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| i mean i know the 3d lib will not be free, but i was under the impression the gui stuff etc was going to be in. Why? You had to pay for the upgrade from BlitzBasic to BlitzPlus... I just realised you're the 'Mildred' guy -THE- Mildred guy? AngelDaniel, if you're ever in Adelaide, let me buy you a beer! Mildred freakin rocked... |
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| that post had no point at all whatever your name is, it really makes not alot of difference if its gonna cost, its hardly going to be any amount worth crying over. |
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| lol... okay now my cover is blown. ;-) Yes its true I am the author of Mildred, the chunky-mode graphics library for Blitz Basic on the Amiga. How you exactly came to realize this I'm not so sure :-\ For those who don't know what we're all talking about, Mildred was a graphics library module that I coded in assembler for the original Blitz Basic on the Amiga. It was designed to replace the default graphics system of planar rendering using the blitter which was proving to be slow once faster CPU's were coming out. It could do pretty much everything that Blitz itself could do, only in uninhibited fast-ram using the CPU. And then some. :-D So it was a nice leap in performance for people with higher-end (at the time) CPU's with fastram. It proved to be very popular all round and I never really heard anyone complain about it which is nice. :-) Actually Max2D in BlitzMax at the moment reminds me a lot of Mildred and what I wanted it to do - wanted to have rotation but I didn't quite get to that, mainly because the rotation routine seemed to need too many registers in the CPU to be fast enough and there weren't enough. But otherwise with all the blend modes and so on it's pretty similar - although I think Mildred had a few other features like particles, de-res zooming, and distinguished between sprites and bitmaps. I'm sure there will be interesting updates to the 2D capabilities of BlitzMax in future. It's not something I'm planning to do at the moment because it's already pretty capable and I'm still getting used to it. Hat's off to Mark and co for creating a great product! |
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| If you're curious I'm now living in the USA having immigrated in 2000. I haven't done a single piece of coding for 4 years so it was GREAT news to hear that BlitzMax was available for the Mac (my now current platform of semi-choice). XCode and learning C programming just seemed like too much hard work. Blitz makes it all ... well, basic :-) Good to be back. Now I gotta think of what the heck to use BlitzMax to create :-) |
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| Yes its true I am the author of Mildred, the chunky-mode graphics library for Blitz Basic on the Amiga. How you exactly came to realize this I'm not so sure :-\ Because you introduced yourself as such in email earlier this year, and a search of my inbox turned that email up by accident -- your name and email address are also on the AmiBlitz site! Ya blew yer own cover! |
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| Oh :-o lol No problem, I wasn't hiding. :-P Happy Blitzing |
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| I was just taking another look at Mildred in comparison with Max2D, and I think overall the Max2D system is better and simpler. Sure there are a few features different here and there but times have changed and the Max2D graphics are better suited now. However, it could be expanded with more features, special effects, help with tiling and scrolling, etc. |
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| For those who don't know what we're all talking about, Mildred was a graphics library module that I coded in assembler for the original Blitz Basic on the Amiga. Oh, no, no, no... Mildred was THE graphics library for AmiBlitz!Nice to see you back in the game! Now all we need is the other Paul and David, and we'll be cruising! Ah, the memories... However, it could be expanded with more features, special effects, help with tiling and scrolling, etc. Bah! Tileing and scolling is the easy part. It's the clipping that's the most difficult one! |
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| Paul `shoecake` burkey was it, of Foundation fame? Ahh, memory lane. I'm guessing that since BlitzMax is targetted at people with the horsepower to run OpenGL at speed, we should all be totally redrawing the whole screen every frame anyway these days? |
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| I wrote a simple GUI lib. I forget what the link to it is. If anyone really wants it, then say so. |
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| the other Paul and David I remember Paul, who was David? EDIT : Who -is- David? ;] Unless I was right the first time, in which case RIP David. You will be sorely missed. I pine for you every day. And so on and so forth... that post had no point at all f'nar. And that's what you get when the off topic forum is... hidden! =] I'm guessing that since BlitzMax is targetted at people with the horsepower to run OpenGL at speed, we should all be totally redrawing the whole screen every frame anyway these days? That's the basic jist of Blitz2D/3D/Plus. I would have imagined 2d-in-3d would be a differant scenario? If not, well, I've been told it's still faster these days than 'Buffer'Blitting ;] |
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| who was David? This David. I think the rumours of his death are highly exagerated. I would have imagined 2d-in-3d would be a differant scenario? Erm, why? You can't really shift a 3D scene [texels] to the side the same way you could a 2D [pixels] one without having to render it all again anyway...Or am I missing the point? |
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| It's not very likely that he's dead, as he posted on the PureBasic forum only minutes ago... :p |
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| This David. Oh -that- David. I remember him. <cough>MSD</cough> =] You can't really shift a 3D scene [texels] to the side the same way you could a 2D [pixels] one without having to render it all again anyway... Aren't the 'images' all rendered in quads? Couldn't you just shift the quads? Isn't there really no 'drawing' done at all except for the renderer? I understand nothing =] |
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