Is BLitzMax still updated?
BlitzMax Forums/BlitzMax Programming/Is BLitzMax still updated?
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| Hello, I used so much Blitzmax in the past, and now I wanted to start my new project using this great product. But since I know to master developer is creating Monkey, and I noticed that blitzmax is not updated since several months (win version is 1.48), and I see the forum is always active and friendly. I wish to know if Blitzmax is actively developed and updated, or I risk to start my project with an "old" 2d game engine. Thank you for your help! |
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| I asked this question a few weeks ago. The most accurate answer seems to be: Blitz Research is not making improvements or additions to BliztMax anymore, but we still have Mark's support if any problems arise. No one can tell Mark Sibly how to run his business, but I am disappointed that he went with a whole new language ("Monkey") instead of BlitzMax 2.0. I have said over and over that I would pay an annual subscription fee for BlitzMax to continue to evolve. |
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| Thank you for your answer. I agree with you that we can pay a fee to evolve Blitzmax. I red something about Monkey but I cannot find any info in the site (feature list?). And I think this is a bad thing (or maybe I could not find it). Is it possible to consider Monkey a kind of BLitzmax 2.0? Does it compile native code? How fast is it? Can it be used offline (download and install)? Can I load and use dlls? etc... |
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| Monkey <> BlitzMax 2.0 I have very little experience with Monkey, but what I do know is that it is not directly code compatible with BlitzMax. The initial release lacked a lot of features that were needed to make it commercial-game worthy. Ultimately, Monkey is designed to be a lightweight language which can be compiled for many difference devices. I have yet to see any robust games made with it- mostly just demos and simple casual games. |
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| So I can say we really need blitzmax 2.0!! Is there any way to contact Mark to "pray" him to make blitzmax 2.0? :-) |
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| I have said over and over that I would pay an annual subscription fee for BlitzMax to continue to evolve. So would I, but I think we're in a minority.I've nothing against Monkey, it's great for mobile stuff. But for Windows - forget it. It does not yet come anywhere near Blitzmax in terms of capability. You can't even change the screen mode at runtime which is an insta-fail for submission to any Windows games portal. |
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| Ok, understood, maybe this is the reason Mark changed BM licensing terms. So, can you suggest me if it is good that I start a new (long-term) project using blitzmax? |
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| Here's one of the more recent discussions on this topic: http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=99175 I guess it depends entirely on your definition of "long term", though. |
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| BlitzMax is stable, has a good feature base, and is a solid platform to use with lots of modules for just about any given purpose and overall is still my favorite language by a long way. It's stable and the community support when facing a problem is excellent. The 3D engine issue: Xors is almost great - but isn't quite. The new Leadworks 3 is not out and so we can't say for sure what that will be like or when it will arrive. MiniB3D is okay for simple stuff but is not that quick and lacks shader support and realtime shadows. BlitzMax is limited to 32 bit, no problem in most cases (although does concern me over the future). There really is nothing wrong with BlitzMax, but the lack of a solid and widely supported 3D engine is a source of frustration - even more annoying than setting up GCC :) I too would be happy to make another BlitzMax purchase if I was promised 64bit. I was startled and really happy that we got multi-threading without forking out more cash which I would happily have paid. I cannot fault Mark for his decision to do Monkey though. The thing is a subscription BlitzMax would not have gotten me into the language in the first place, if I was a youngster starting out then BlitzMax would not even be the right tool. BlitzMax sits in that awkward spot between beginner and C++ - and Mark obviously feels there is more potential for him in the beginner sector than in the middle which BlitzMax currently fills the void of. I personally have no interest in Monkey and would only invest if I had a commercial need for such a tool - in which case I would be skeptical of the benefits it might bring as it seems "too BASIC" from what I have seen, but fair play if that's where there is money to be made. It doesn't change the fact that BlitzMax still works, is still a good product, and has more power, features and support from modules than any other 3rd generation language. |
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| Ops... my post arrived too late :-) I understand your concepts and I agree with you. I think Mark had to request a fee to improve blitzmax instead of starting from ground up again. However... Last edited 2013 |
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| One question more: since I like BM but I;'m afraid about the future, I wish to know if someone ever worked with FreeBasic to make games. Anyone can give me hints? Performance, functionalities, etc.../ THank you! |
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| I think Mark had to request a fee to improve blitzmax instead of starting from ground up again. I think it's a common misconception that Monkey is some sort of "sequel" to BlitzMax. It's not - Monkey was only started from the ground up, because it is a completely different product and intended to co-exist with Blitzmax rather than replace it. |
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| I agree with you @gfk, in fact I didn't say that monkey was a sequel of bm. But I think mark has different targets, so I don't think Monkey and blitzmax will go in parallel. My dream is blitzmax 2.0. but for Mark? |
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| My take on this: in a long term, regarding Windows, you should think about WinRT - Blitzmax only generate desktop apps, and accordingly to Microsoft they are now considered "legacy". The only BRL product that can generate WinRT (still in test for what I could read from Monkey website) is Monkey. So if Win8 becomes a success, or even if Microsoft keeps with WinRT (degrading more and more desktop apps) - the safest bet would be Monkey. For Win7/Vista/Mac - there's no doubt about it, BlitzMax is the way to go - even without 64bit support. |
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| Thank you @SLotman, I really appreciate your point-of-view. I think that, even if win8 will take place (it will replace WinXP and Win7 in a long time I think :-) ) I will definitively make my project in bm :-) |
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| >>>Blitzmax only generate desktop apps, and accordingly to Microsoft they are now considered "legacy". Where does it say this? |
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| mm everywhere. Desktop apps are now considered legacy apps, but I'm sure this will change as there is just too much enterprises using "legacy" apps and willing to keep on using them. Office 2013 is a legacy application and has not yet been officially launched, so take this "legacy" adjective with lots of "caution" |
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| The only thing certain right now is there is a ton of uncertainty and a possible move to ARM CPUs within a few years. Windows 8 in general has flopped worse than Vista, and WindowsRT even more so. I'm more worried about Windows being replaced altogether. |
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| We are living in a mess. There are a ton of competitors, a ton of devices and there is not explicit winnner, either for hardware point of view, or for software and OS> By my side, I'm not yet interested in mobile (there are a ton of development tools there), so I can even avoid ARM & co. I wish to get focus on WIndows, maybe on Mac and Linux. I don't care about console also. But many players (companies that make development tools) are confused also, and they go here and there in order to get the right way and get the target. By my side, I only need a good 2d system. Blitzmax is an option but, as I said, its future is not bright. I found only feasible alternatives only in PureBasic, FreeBasic, and some more. I cannot spend too much time in C++ since this is not my main job, and my time is so limited! |
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| Windows 8 in general has flopped worse than Vista IMHO it's too early for a conclusion, but latest news from december seems to start proving windows 8 is raising a lot of market share, slowly.http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-8-Takes-Off-Very-Fast-New-Data-Shows-322752.shtml It 60 million of licenses in two months, wich is in the same numbers as windows 7, but this time we're not desperate to leave Vista, so good numbers in my opinion. http://www.eweek.com/enterprise-apps/windows-8-licenses-reach-60-million-mark-microsoft/ All in all, it contrast with a slow market gain of tablets running windows. It's very early, lots of manufacturers haven't yet released proper windows 8 tablets, but all in all, seems it's complicated to get any conclussions just yet. |
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| Enterprise licenses are a red herring: companies on an enterprise agreement automatically qualify for the latest OS and Office versions, but that the does NOT mean they actually installed win 8. Our office qualified for the 'free' vista installs, but never deployed those. MS loves to tout them as $ licenses sold, though. |
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| @JoshK do you still use Blitzmax to make Leadwerks engine? |
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| @Joshk: Your data is does not match official numbers from Microsoft. Where is it from? I'm interested on seeing reading the source. Also, it is from november, isn't it? (2 months after release) Public numbers about sold licenses where published at the begining of december AFAIK, and it was the famous 60 million licenses. So not sure what's your graphic is based in? (just being curious) EDIT: Josh: Don't worry, I've found the source and its based on net share from early december, but numbers I have from last week, show a market share of 2.25, wich is, in my opinion, good news for Microsoft. MS loves to tout them as $ licenses sold, though. That's why they explicitly said that number was not including licenses sold to thirdparty manufacturers or unredeemed activation codes to msn suscribers. They were actual updates wich match the increment seen on december on the net share numbers, wich are a lot les accurate, but show the trend. Windows 8 was behind Mac Os 10.8 and this changed during december, but Mac Os 10.8 has been out for a lot longer (just as an example)Last edited 2013 |
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| Yes, there's not really anything else out there for writing cross-platform GUI applications. |
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| PureBasic, GTK (and C++), LiveCode (www.runrev.com), Lazarus Pascal, etc... I don't know what you need, but some alternatives are available :-) |
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| Yes, there's not really anything else out there for writing cross-platform GUI applications. Qt is several orders of magnitud better for writing cross platoform GUI apps, but BlitzMax still rocks a lot. |
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| That's why they explicitly said that number was not including licenses sold to thirdparty manufacturers or unredeemed activation codes to msn suscribers And? The MSN packs allow you a certain number of licenses, pretty much for testing/development purposes. The 3rd party manufacturers cover preinstalls on computers, not counted until the machines are actually sold. The corporate enterprise agreements are separate from both of those categories. They boil down to a company signing a contract with MS, paying them $x a year for three years in a row, for a fixed number of computers in their fleet, and any windows/office (and optionally sql/exchange/etc.) updates released in that timeframe is 'free'. Everything I've seen is that MS -does- count those among their sold licenses, because they /did/ sell them. Whether they are actually -installed- doesn't really matter in that scheme. |
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| Alessandro mentioned PureBasic. Um...cross platform, 64bit, built-in 3D based on Ogre, active updates, active forums. Has anyone used this? This looks like....like BlitzMax 2!! |
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| Has anyone used this? Yes, it is extremely buggy, especially if you are wanting cross-platform. The 3D side is based on OGRE and I do not like it. |
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| Purebasic is awesome! I've seen some incredible things done with it and for applications it's extremely powerful. |
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| there's not really anything else out there for writing cross-platform GUI applications ...this is so untrue it's silly. There are literally hundreds, probably thousands, of cross-platform GUI libraries. Finding one you like is always hard but they most definitely exist. Cross-platform GUI bindings are a pretty basic requirement for any language or tool to even have a hope of becoming mainstream: a tool that can't be used for this is pretty much the definition of a tool that's not mature enough for real-world work! The 3D side is based on OGRE and I do not like it. Is OGRE bad? I never got around to trying it out, but it looks impressive enough on paper - what are the gotchas? |
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| Is OGRE bad? Only PB's implementation. There used to be a good 3rd party wrapper for OGRE, but I think that was eventually abandoned. There are a couple of other 3D solutions for PB floating around in the community, how good they are, I don't know... |
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| @Tachyon PureBasic is a VERY good language: complete, fast, and with a nice GUI designer. I really like it. The bad side is it is not suited for games. Ogre is a very good engine for my opinion. It is true that there are some functionalities in Pure Basic that are not available in every OS, but this is normal: every cross-platform language support some specific features of an operating system and not supported by another operating system. It is up to you to decide if using those specific features (with lesser portability) or making a true cross platform program (with lesser specific features). |
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| No one has a GUI lib that actually uses the native UI. I consider wxWidgets and QT to be so badly designed they're unusable. |
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| I consider wxWidgets and QT to be so badly designed they're unusable. Ha ha... |
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| wxWidgets is really nice. It's a different beast, that true though. I made some stuff with it but decided in the end that it's overkill for me; maxgui is enough for the kind of apps I am making. |
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| No one has a GUI lib that actually uses the native UI. I consider wxWidgets and QT to be so badly designed they're unusable. Yes, that's why everybody in industry is using MaxGUI for their cross platform GUI development. Mark is the new Bill Gates, and I'm selling 1000 BLIde licenses a day, etc etc etc.... erm... You may like it, but in my honest opinion, considering it the best or even the only native GUI library out there is just absurd. There are tones of alternatives, and lots of them are better.And, from my point of view, QT is very well designed, specialy in its resources/mem management wich is just genius in its internal tree-like structure. If you haven't took a deep look to it, I can only recommend you to do it. |
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| Yes, that's why everybody in industry is using MaxGUI for their cross platform GUI development. Almost no one is making cross-platform desktop applications. Everyone's doing web development nowadays. |
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| Almost no one is making cross-platform desktop applications. Everyone's doing web development nowadays. And those who do use BlitzMax then, no? Wow, there must be a very very small market share. I can't believe seriously that you've used QT in a real project long enough and considere it badly designed. What's so bad about QT comparet to BlitzMax? |
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| I can't believe seriously that you've used QT in a real project long enough and considere it badly designed. What's so bad about QT comparet to BlitzMax? I haven't, so I can say in depth, but right off the bat they start talking about XML templates and video playback, so it's not even clear to me how it works or what it does. Why the heck would a GUI library need its own IDE?: http://qt-project.org/wiki/Category:Tools::QtCreator Why would I need to use this to create a new project that uses this lib?: http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-5.0/qtdoc/gettingstartedqt.html Code generation? XML? I want some command to call, not a visual designer that takes over my life. Bloat bloat bloat. What commercial applications use QT? I can't even find any. Last edited 2013 |
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Okay, they used it in Maya, Photoshop Elements, VLC, and Skype. None of those look like a native UI application.   Last edited 2013 |
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| I want some command to call, not a visual designer that takes over my life. You and me both. But the unfortunate reality is that most people who write GUI apps want to use visual designers. Hence the market pressure to produce abominations like Interface Builder. The cool kids are doing it. |
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| Some that come to my mind: Mathematica, MythTV, Skype, Google Earth, KDE, KDELibs, Adobe Photoshop Album, Avidemux, Doxygen, Gadu-Gadu, Amarok, K3b, KDevelop, KOffice, Last.fm Player, Aunchi, LMMS, LyX, TeamSpeak, TOra, VirtualBox, VLC Media Player... Qt is written in C and you don't need to use the visual designer and XML but you can benefit of it if you use them. Last edited 2013 |
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| If you want to have a ritch graphical user interface, you're out of luck as this is not native in any OS. From my point of view, making a complex GUI application and pretending to be native is impossible. you always end making your own controls by using the underling APIs, or creating OpenGL context and faking native controls (wich is worse IMHO), or inventing the wheel and making a usually worse QT or wxWidgets like approach. But each to its own. |
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| I love GUI editors - I just wish blitzmax had something like VB4-5 GUI editor - I could wip a whole business app in a matter of hours! Lot's of controls available on a click of a button. Took away the very tedious work of building a GUI by hand! |
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| Apparently some people like building GUIs by hand… it's a funny old world ! |
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| @Alessandro Take a look at these 2 alternatives : Libgdx - http://libgdx.badlogicgames.com/ It's Java but if you are into BlitzMax then it should make no big differences. Plus there's tons of documentation on Java. Unity3d - http://unity3d.com/ Of course Unity :) It's becoming a real standard in the whole industry. Plug a few assets like NGUI (for the UI part), 2D Toolkit (for the 2D API) or/and smooth moves, iTween (tweener), Farseer (physics), etc. And you got your BlitzMax 2.0, filled with plenty of Editor and best documentations out there. Don't like unity Editors? Make your own or don't use any, everything is possible. Don't think because it's a 3D environment that 2D is more difficult in Unity3d, this is just a question of getting used to it. Anyway, I wouldn't go with Freebasic, Purebasic, GLbasic,... Add Freeimage, Odd2D, Box2D, CEGUI, LibXML, LUAjit, Locale, raknet, regex modules to the current version of BlitzMax and you can achieve pretty interesting 2D games with it. After searching for a long time about the most interesting 2D solutions, I came to the conclusion that the 3 above are the best suited to my need. No yet perfect, but pretty close through. I also keep an eye on GameMaker Studio roadmap : http://wiki.yoyogames.com/index.php/GameMaker:Studio_Roadmap May sound stupid but when they will reach the v1.4 with Network support, and if you omit the poor editor design choice, this may become potentially a good solution for quick 2D games. The rendering pipeline is already very impressive. Hope this help. |
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| Apparently some people like building GUIs by hand… it's a funny old world ! Depending on how you define "by hand", it can be pretty hands-off: http://wiki.tcl.tk/4326 (I wouldn't recommend actually using that particular system, but it illustrates a really cool idea: using the source as a GUI editor, rather than having to choose one or the other. Obviously only really practical for small apps, but depending on your taste you could scale it pretty well.) |
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| Apparently some people like building GUIs by hand… it's a funny old world ! In my experience, writing the actual GUI code is not 1/20 of the application code. So a visual GUI designer is just a waste of time, for me. If you want to have a ritch graphical user interface, you're out of luck as this is not native in any OS. From my point of view, making a complex GUI application and pretending to be native is impossible. The only place I've had to deviate from the native UI is I wrote my own multiselect treeview, and I used Scintilla for code editing. Other than that, the native UI has served me well. It feels a lot nicer when you're using a native UI application. I don't know exactly why, but I enjoy it a lot more. Last edited 2013 |
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| Thank you @Armitage 1982. I know those programs (I worked so much with unity free). The problem is unity pro is too expensive (and I don' like its rendering engine). GameMaker? Not so bad, I own Game Maker Studio. Probably I will make my 2d engine, using newLisp as scripting language. |
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| I don't know exactly why, but I enjoy it a lot more. I understand you very well, I feel more "at home" with them. But, in the other hand, I love to have a tabs-based internet browser that allows me to close tabs. This is not native, but an example that shows sometimes the extra funtionality you get being not native is worth it (the multiselect tree view is a good example). Tree control implementations is very different on different OSes too, so it is a good example of why sometimes a self-generated non native component can be useful. But when you can stay native, it's usually better, as everything in the look and feel of your app is properly integrated into de OS.When I was designing some skins for BLIde, I decided to use the system colors for the parts of the GUI that where non native, so using the defined system colors to draw buttons, tabs, etc, helped a bit to make the application GUI a bit more integrated. BLIde looks a bit different (in some skins) when used on XP with luna enabled, than when used on XP with Luna disabled, and when used on Vista or 7. Also, the fontmachine editor tool, looks different when used on Windows or on Mac (using mono). EDIT: That said there are sort of levels of "non-nativity" (sorry for the word). I have never felt "at home" with Java applications using Swing, but I feel quite well integrated with lots of QT applications. So, to say, some non native GUIs are much more native-like than others. wxWidgets can look and feel very native too, when used with this intention in mind while designing apps. So a well balanced non native GUI that brings the extra functionality you may need, preserving cross platofm nature, and allowing your app to intregrate nicelly on the potential host OSes, is a blessing. From my point of view QT is a bit like this. If you happen to need some ritch GUI for your app, it is a very very recommended option. Last edited 2013 |
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