Q's for Blide Plus Users
BlitzMax Forums/BlitzMax Programming/Q's for Blide Plus Users
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| I downloaded the free demo, it associated itself with all of my bmx files without asking so I removed it. I don't like it when software adjusts my system without asking me to confirm it. But.....I figured I better ask if anyone is actually a paid customer and if so, could you answer a few questions? 1) When working with large files, is the editor any faster than the normal IDE? 2) Have you ever had any source files corrupted by Blide? 3) Did it configure your main blitz ide, compiler, etc, in some weird way to cause problems? 4) Do you ever use the normal BMax IDE on occasion? If so why? 5) Have you used the exe compression? Does it work? 6) Is icon and version generation stable and working? Thanks! |
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| 1) Much. More importantly, it doesn't crash every five minutes or corrupt my large source files, which the normal IDE always did. 2) No, never. I've had lots corrupted by MaxIDE and it's predecessors though. 3) It's completely independent of MaxIDE and the compiler. It has no ability to break anything there. 4) No. 5) No, but I'm sure it does. I used to use UPX to compress all my exe's for Blitz3D, so I have no doubt BlidePlus can do the same here. 6) I don't know what you mean by version generation and I haven't released anything so I haven't used the icon attaching. |
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| I'm a very new Blide customer but I only got good things to say about it so far. Blide is resource demanding, no doubt about it. On my Core 2 duo 2.5GHz laptop T9300 6Mb internal cache, it's perfectly ok but not "snappy" when started first time after booting. Being a .net application it works better after I've been using the app for a while and (i guess) the JIT compiler has done some work. But on the other side it doesn't seem to slow down at all when writing quite a lot of code. In MaxIDE there was a notable slowdown when loading a .bmx file that was 20kb+ Blide has given me a completely new level of joy when programming BlitzMax as i feel "comfy" and BLide makes the programming experience feel professional and up to date. (I don't wanna hurt anyones feelings here(about MaxIDE), but simple syntax-markup is avaliable in the simplest editors novadays, and Code completion/Intellisence is what's been expected when writing in an IDE the last 5-8 years) |
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| I just bought blide plus a couple of days ago, and i have been using blide free edition for more than 7 months, its a really good product. Im a happy customer, i had a problem login into the blide site customers area, and the creator responded inmediately resolving my problem (i was using the wrong username :P). 1) When working with large files, is the editor any faster than the normal IDE? -I never used the normal IDE on a project, but its speed is not a concern for me. I have a project of more than 30 bmx, and one bmx is more than 3000 lines of code (207kb), and there are no speed issues at all. 2) Have you ever had any source files corrupted by Blide? - NO. 3) Did it configure your main blitz ide, compiler, etc, in some weird way to cause problems? - NO. 4) Do you ever use the normal BMax IDE on occasion? If so why? - Not anymore, I dont need to. When i used the Free edition of Blide, i used the BMax IDE to see xml code highlights, but now i just Blide Plus since it includes xml code highlighting. 5) Have you used the exe compression? Does it work? - I never used it for now. 6) Is icon and version generation stable and working? - I didnt use the icon generator yet. Dont forget it also comes with a bitmap font creator. |
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| 1) When working with large files, is the editor any faster than the normal IDE? Much faster. 2) Have you ever had any source files corrupted by Blide? Never. 3) Did it configure your main blitz ide, compiler, etc, in some weird way to cause problems? No. 4) Do you ever use the normal BMax IDE on occasion? If so why? No. 5) Have you used the exe compression? Does it work? It's just using UPX, it's not some fancy BLIde specific thing. 6) Is icon and version generation stable and working? Yes. |
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| 1) When working with large files, is the editor any faster than the normal IDE? Yep faster. 2) Have you ever had any source files corrupted by Blide? Nope. 3) Did it configure your main blitz ide, compiler, etc, in some weird way to cause problems? Nope 4) Do you ever use the normal BMax IDE on occasion? If so why? Quick cut+paste of code from forums. Bmax IDE, for me, starts-up a bit quicker. 5) Have you used the exe compression? Does it work? Not used it. 6) Is icon and version generation stable and working? Haven't tried. I initially found BLIDE and BLIDE PLUS a bit cluttered but you soon get your own customised working environment. |
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| 1: yes 2:no 3:no 4:no 5:yes, yes 6:yes Blide Plus is great. well worth the money. i couldn't use an IDE without intellisense etc. anymore. Blide makes my code better, and i can write it quicker, what's not to like. Cheers Charlie |
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| 1) When working with large files, is the editor any faster than the normal IDE? If you mean faster in terms of processing speed, then I'd imagine yea...or atleast it doesn't seem anymore slower. But in terms of usability? MUCH faster to get around a large project in BLIde (because of solution management) versus the normal IDE. For example, I couldn't imagine trying to manage a 66 file, 7791 lines of code, and still growing project manually in the default blitzmax IDE. I have several of these types of projects, and BLIde makes it super easy to navigate through them with minimal fuss and much higher productivity. 2) Have you ever had any source files corrupted by Blide? Short answer: No. Long answer: Nope. 3) Did it configure your main blitz ide, compiler, etc, in some weird way to cause problems? As someone said earlier, they are independent and can easily co-exist. To this date I haven't had issues. 4) Do you ever use the normal BMax IDE on occasion? If so why? On rare occasions when I was testing out new BLIde builds for Ziggy I booted up the default IDE to help isolate problems. But that's a special case for beta testers more than normal/stable version users. 5) Have you used the exe compression? Does it work? Yes I have and it works wonderfully. I used for my Farseer.BMX demo application. It took my 1.35MB exe (with no icon support) and compressed it to 645kb (with icons and ALL assets inside the exe). 6) Is icon and version generation stable and working? Haven't messed with version generation so I can't say much, but I was pretty knee deep in icon stuff for the physics demo app, and it works. There was an issue with the icon not appearing in the title bar of the app (though this is a limitation of blitzmax itself not BLide), but Ziggy was able to fix it and now BLide published apps on my machine have fully working icons in alt+tab, taskbar, desktop/menus, and titlebar. So it's kind of a bonus to use BLIde for that. |
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| Thanks for the comments. I'm off to purchase Blide right now. ;) |
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| Ok...after a small learning curve (an hour or so) I have to say Blide seems to be exactly what I was in need of. ;) Looking forward to the forum access. |
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| Ok....ok...ok...this thing rocks. My life has changed. I feel better now. ;) |
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| I feel the same thing too. BlitzMax and BLide are by far my best investments software-wise. Being a kid from the C64 generation, my (non geek) friends sometimes ask me: "My kid want's to make own games. What language do you recommend". The last three times I've got this question I've told them to download the BlitzMax or Blitz3D demo and see if the kid likes it. (Not all kids will have the mindset and patience to do it, but the demos are functional enough to find out). If some of them learns BlitzMax I'll surely recommend BLide for him/her too (or maybe even give it as a birthday present). BLide is similar to other better known IDEs so the experience gained can be used on other platforms. The fun thing is that this hobby can provide an ok living in the future. At least this is what happened to me :) |
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| Why isn't Blide being pushed on the Blitzmax home page? Why isn't this included with Blitzmax? Seriously...Blide just kicks the whole Blitzmax experience up a notch...WAY UP. Coming from the VB family, I've been dealing with the standard IDE for quite some time, Blide finally gives me back (and more) what I was used to. ;) Ahhh..... I can go to sleep now. lol.. |
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| So you like it then :) Just out of interest did you also try Project Studio? I cannot decide which to get although it seems that BLIde seems to get more updates. One thing that bugs me is the English in the docs\program is a little dodgy in places. I realise that it is probably not the authors native tongue but maybe someone could proof read it for him as the rest of the package is really great. Nothing major. Jason. |
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| I didn't get a chance to try Project Studio. I have some serious deadlines coming up and I was in desperate need for a better IDE. Yah, the docs are a bit dogy and could use some serious proof reading, but the project management, intellisense, folding, is a welcome (back) experience. I can't imagine a better IDE, but after this project is done I'll take a look at others and see what they have to offer. note: I'm running Blide in my sub standard dev kit and it's running acceptable. :) |
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| Im stuck! I emailed a while back, but hoping for a response quicker. :) When I try to publish it says it can't find MinGW but normal IDE finds it no problem when building mods. Using the mingw 5.1.4. Thanks. |
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| Ok, so basic questions first: 1.) Have you added the MinGW bin folder to path? (usually something like c:\MinGW\bin) 1b.) Open a cmd.exe prompt. type "gcc --version" to ensure the path really works. 2.) Have you defined the MinGW environment variable? (mine: MinGW=C:\MinGW) 2b.) Open cmd.exe. write: "%mingw%\bin\gcc --version" to ensure that the MinGW variable is pointing to the right place Additional info: If you have spaces in the path to MinGW on your machine you might have to fiddle around with double quotes ["] around parts of your variable defined paths to have them work. When 1b and 2b runs (and displays correct compiler info) on your computer you're ok. BTW: I'm using MinGW 5.1.3 My memory suxx but I seem to remember I had to add the MinGW env-var to have BLide rebuild my modules. Note1: Restart cmd.exe after fiddling with the env-vars. cmd.exe reads them up at start so if you alter env-vars under "My Computer->Properties" you'll need to restart cmd.exe to try the changes out. Note2: Restart Blide after all changes when you get it to work under cmd.exe. edit: some spelling and additional info. |
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| Thanks Mahan! I had to do the following to make the publisher recognize MinGW... 1) Add to path: C:\MinGW\bin\ 2) Add environment variable: MinGW = C:\MinGW All is working! Icon, compression, etc. Sweet!!! There should be a small section in the docs to detail how to install MinGW if needed and how to add the path and environment vars. I've been creating mods with the normal IDE with no probs but I guess Blide is looking for one or both of the above settings. ;) All this stuff really gets you in the mood to code. lol... |
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| Actually Ziggy has prepared that for us too :) I found this BLide forum link |
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| Doh! There's a forum too! :) lol... |
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