Wheres our update?
BlitzPlus Forums/BlitzPlus Programming/Wheres our update?
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| Blitz+ has been the red headed step child of the blitz family for too long. The only updates it receieved were fixes to things that shouldn't have been broken in the first place. How about instead of adding eye candy crap to B3D that no one will use, you add some much needed core functionality to B+. The B+ user satisfies a very niche market of those who wish to stay with 2D, or program apps. The way you have treated registered users of this product is a slap in the face. If you want to know where to start just take a look at the B+ bug forum (which it appears you've never entered, Mark). Agree with me? Post here and tell Mark why you dont appreciate throwing money down a dark hole on a product that he never intended to care for. |
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| Post here and tell Mark why you dont appreciate throwing money down a dark hole on a product that he never intended to care for. I don't recall anyone saying there would EVER be updates for Blitzplus? You bought a product 'as is'. Any updates you get are a bonus, and you can't really complain otherwise. |
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| You miss the point GFK. Anyone who has used B+ extensively will tell you that the product is crucially flawed. Users who try to do anything more than a simple app with it quickly run into road blocks. No "app language" should be as lackluster as B+. Im not mad I havent got updates, im mad that the product is in such poor shape and no one seems to care. If your up for a laugh just cruise the bug report forum and you'll see just how many fundamental things its missing. |
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| Anyone who has used B+ extensively will tell you that the product is crucially flawed. I know, and I agree entirely - I gave my copy away recently because it just didn't measure up and I couldn't see the point in using it. But nobody ever promised it was going to get any better! |
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| I'm not aware of any critical, even significant bugs in the current BlitzPlus release so if you'd care to elaborate... |
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| I'm not aware of any critical, even significant bugs in the current BlitzPlus release so if you'd care to elaborate... I know there are several crash bugs - I won't 'elaborate' cos it appears that Eikon is looking. But, there are scores of less serious bugs - all of which add up to a pretty nasty issue, many are by no means 'insignificant'. Again, I won't post examples as, as Eikon said, you only have to go to the Blitzplus Bug Reports forum.The one thing which annoyed me most about Blitzplus, was the total lack of control over certain components; for instance, I could find no way of changing the List View object layout, no way to add columns to it, no way to display it as icons. Might seem like a minor issue to you, but List views are widely used in the majority of applications, and such lack of control over it is... well, silly. |
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| I won't argue that BlitzPlus needs a big tidy up, I'll go over some of the above issues with Mark and see if I can help out in prioritizing what can be done for the next update. I was going to point out how trivial many of the above are but I realise that ppl have a right to expect some polish so onwards and upwards as they say... |
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| Many thanks skidracer, us 2D peeps just dont want to be forgotton is all. We're still recovering from the loss of our beloved B2D ;) *edit* updated list. |
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| Yes, thanks skidracer. I hate having to drop B+ for VB. |
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| U guys really need to fix the List View control functionality. Ibasic might be an alternative to B+ - http://www.pyxia.com/ |
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| I am actually quite happy with B+, i find any problems i have with it as challenges. |
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| I don't have many issues with B+ either.. except for the lack of classes and reference-arguements :) gadgets that aren't currently present, I'll make them myself. (that's not to say that an update wouldn't be appreciated :) |
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| I personally don't think b+ is suitable for app programming. You end up having to write your own gadgets, and that takes too damn long. It is however great for 2d and level editors (sorta, still lacks some needed gadgets). At the price its going for, it's alright. I agree it would be nice to see an update, but however, I would much rather bmax was released sooner. Either way, b+ update, no b+ update, I'm happy |
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| ditto skn3, mattvonfat |
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| My biggest gripes with b+ are: - no project option's - no explicit variable declaration option's (my biggest cause of errors are mistyped variables) other then that b+ is cool! Mr Brine |
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| ibasic isnt as cool a pure... |
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| B+ is sadly flawed. It's fine for the little apps I need to do, but speedwise it doesn't really measure up to B2D and B3D. I ported my pet project over and found out I'd wasted my time as it runs quite a bit slower than it did in B2D (about 3/4 the original speed i'd say). I'm not bitter about buying it. It IS fine for the little editors and stuff I need. But I'm pretty bitter that there was no hint about the performance differences. I guess it's down to the more multitasking friendly blitz, but dammit man, you could have warned us! |
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| If you are getting worse results then we need to know about it. Any idea in what particular area BlitzPlus is failing you on the performance front? Are you using standard flip() or some flip(0) / vwait dodginess? |
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| The vwait is fine, it runs smoothly, until it gets busy. Best I can tell is that you just can't seem to throw as much math or code at it. I wrote a whole load of particle and sprites into the B2D version (about 1800 when it's very busy, but still holding 60fps). In B+ the limit seems to be closer to about 1000. I tried out some speed tests, and found the graphics were no longer the bottle neck. B+ does as well as B2D if you're only throwing shapes at the screen so it must be the speed of the code or math execution. Check out the topic on sin/cos lookups for some interesting math speed tests. Oh and I did all the declaring images as dynamic for modified images, and to speed up the copyrects that are used. This certainly sped things up a lot, but only to the limit I described above. |
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| @eikon: Glad you made this post. I had been toying with the idea of making my own similiar post but you beat me to it(wasn't exactly eager to put on my flame retardant suit) :D Since the last update, theres no bugs that come to mind. I have'nt really done any speed comparos, but it seems plenty fast for anything I've thrown at it. My gripes are all in the GUI area. It's just too limited. Even for map editors and such, it squeaks by but just barely. I don't feel like adding another big list of features/issues, but I definitely have my own list of items... *wishes for some good news on the status of bp* |
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| B+ needs more gadgets, that is for sure. It's no coincidence I am adding custom gadgets to my form editor... |
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| A couple of other additions to improve BlitPlus: * TabOrder for the gadgets * Clipboard (especially for images) * Trackbar gadget * StatusBar separators [Mode: Painting |Coords: 120,50] I suppose the whole event system could be with a major overall. Probably based on what gadget is 'focused' at the time .. So, currently 'focused' gadgets respond to whatever the user does: a) pressing RETURN key is the same way as clicking with LMB. b) clicking RMB - generates a unique event EventAction() value (see example) c) Tab key - sets focus to next gadget d) SHIFT+Tab - sets focus to previous gadget ev=WaitEvent() If EventSource()=mytextfield If EventAction()=2 ; right mouse button clicked over gadget ; show popup menu options for mytextfield gadget Endif EndIf That sort of thing. |
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| Mr Brine, - no project option's - no explicit variable declaration option's (my biggest cause of errors are mistyped variables) Both these features can be handled eloquently by a decent IDE, such as www.proteanide.co.uk |
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| I've given up requesting features for BlitzPlus. There are ways to improve it yourself and that is to use the userlibs functions. The Blitz*** thing has now taken priority so I suspect this is the reason for its neglect. Pitty. |
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| - no explicit variable declaration option's (my biggest cause of errors are mistyped variables) My preprocessor does this. |
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| Mistyped variables are the least of the b+ problems. Here is my list (I know I said I don't mind about an update, but here they are anyway). No registry support No tooltip support No clipboard support No popup menu support No image buttons No table control No Multi line listbox No Multi column listbox No drag and drop No trayicon (notifyicon) & traymenu support No Direct access to the event stack No event based access to "real" incoming wndows messages No way of implimenting 70% of windows features (no callbacks) No activex support (ineternet explorer, but thats it) Unfinished browser gadget Inability to set window style after creation(userlib i know :P) Inability to set gadget style after creation(userlib i know :P) Buffer bug when using graphics in non graphics mode limited, and sometimes buggy keyboard / mouse input events No MDI interface No non blocking networking commands Un finished command line support Missing windows styles Missing gadget events Missing gadget set/get properties No form designer (not esential but hey if it wants to be an app language) No pack-media-into-exe option Broken font support (I had to make a userlib to do this) Now Im sure there are more, but here are the most glaring ones in my eyes. |
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| My preprocessor does this. Have you tried your preprocessor with Protean? It seems to work until there is a syntax error in the code. Once the Blitz compiler trips on an error, you can't compile anymore until you restart the IDE. Without your preprocessor in the chain of events, it all works fine. Just FYI. |
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| I agree with the hotkeys, very buggy. An example would be pressing Ctrl+O, after this if you have any hotkeys without a modifier key you need to press the last modifier key without an addition key in order for non modified hotkey events to work again. I could mention no real gadget tabbing and movement, no extended events, but, these have already been mentioned above. Oh well, I guess the reason is "wait for BlitzMax". |
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| Agreed. Since BlitzPlus is really just a "beta version of some BlitzMax features", if you will, I'd much rather grab BlitzMax ASAP instead of having it delayed for BlitzPlus-specific updates. I can make do and work around many other B+ limitations (though it is a pain... until you get what you want working through userlibs and such, then it becomes kind of cool, in a strange, satisfying sort of way). |
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| As for image buttons: within a day you can make your own with plain B+ code.. no libs needed, no TYPES needed.. |
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| Have you tried your preprocessor with Protean? It seems to work until there is a syntax error in the code. Once the Blitz compiler trips on an error, you can't compile anymore until you restart the IDE. Without your preprocessor in the chain of events, it all works fine. Just FYI. Hmm. I would love to investigate this one, but I don't use Protean, I don't want to use Protean, and I can't justify spending that much money to troubleshoot a free product. Were you using #Profile at the time? There is a bug which makes it report non existant line numbers when an error is tripped, which Protean mightn't like. |
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| I can't justify spending that much money to troubleshoot a free product. So grab the demo... I'm pretty sure it allows compiles. Can use the trial period to nail it? Were you using #Profile at the time? There is a bug which makes it report non existant line numbers when an error is tripped, which Protean mightn't like. Protean used to trip easily on certain error codes but because the compiler itself gives crappy errors sometimes Rob worked to make it a LOT more accepting in that department... so that's probably not the issue. Sounds to me like when the compiler process quits out due to an error, maybe it returns with some sort of code that Protean is expecting? That your preprocessor doesn't pass along? Just a wild stab in the dark. |
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| I might take a look through the pre-processor source to see if I can get it working with Protean. Might even be possible to implement it as a plugin. |
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| In regards to my speed problem in Blitz+, one unusual thing my game does it delete and create a lot of types every frame. This might be fine under the old blitz, but perhaps B+ allocates it's memory in a different way (being more windows friendly and all). Anyway I'm going to experiment by making it create a maximum list of types at the start that are always in memory and see what difference that will make. |
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| Though I plan to get pretty much any product that Blitz Research releases... I gotta admit that my disappointment with Blitz+ is pretty high. I expected it to be worked on and worked over like B2D and B3D were and it got few bug fixes and even less updates. When I want to make an app I used VB, so app creation really isn't an issue. And 2D games I use B3D for anyway. So THAT isn't really an issue either. It's just the principle of the thing. I bought it thinking that I was going to get the kind of gem we got with the first two products. I thought that it was going to "beat the snot" out of purebasic. And truth to tell, Paul has really shined PB up a lot while B+ has kind of fallen between the cracks and gotten lost. Or that's how it feels anyway. And customer perception makes up a lot of the buying decision. Kanati |
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| *BUUUUUUUUUUMP* Any news on the status of blitz+? It would be nice to have some kind of official word on this. I gotta admit that my disappointment with Blitz+ is pretty high. I expected it to be worked on and worked over like B2D and B3D were and it got few bug fixes and even less updates. ditto. |
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| Any news on the status of blitz+? It would be nice to have some kind of official word on this. I think the lack of anything speaks for itself. |
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| Unfortunately I agree. I don't know why Mark hasn't posted here in so long. I don't know why he's decided that his community can exist on a single worklog update every month or two... or longer. But it's definitely not the same as the old days. :( |
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| I have my fingers crossed that things will return a bit back to normal when BMax is out - possibly a year later or so, to compensate for bugfixing and such... And that's one thing only time can tell. Will be interesting =] |
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| BMax is the future, I for one hope he focus on that. I use B3D for 3d stuff and it's fantastic. Anything else is VB I figure. |
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| Okay, Hotcakes... You say explicit variable declaration can be handled by the Protean IDE. I have the latest version of Protean and yet I can find nothing about explicit variable declaration. Where? How? |
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| Apologies is I'm mistaken. Looking into it... Bump this thread in a couple of days if I seem to have forgotten about it =] |
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| I believe protean handles case on variables (somewhat... doesn't appear to be very good at it really), but I don't think it handles explicit variable declaration. |
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| My mistake. Apologies to all. 'Coming to a Protean IDE near you!' It seems it was on the 1.2 todo list but got put off cuz Rob was in feature overload mode. I expect it will be seen by the time 1.3 is released, but don't quote me on it! K, so long as all your variables are declared using Global or Local, it *should* work fine..? |
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