OK so I joined the party
Community Forums/Monkey Talk/OK so I joined the party
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| Finally got Monkey. Expect to see me hanging around here asking noob questions :-) So what's the most important advice would you give to a noob and should I hang out on the official forum place instead? Thx! |
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| Welcome Jake :) So what's the most important advice would you give to a noob Monkey != BlitzMax should I hang out on the official forum place instead? Oh yes! Last edited 2011 |
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| Ha OK. Thanks. |
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| So what's the most important advice would you give to a noob * Debugging is mostly done via the Print() command. * The monkey docs are quite helpful (especially language and module reference) * Use a proper editor/ide (on windows: jungle ide, on mac: TextMate) Oh, and you should definetly hang out at the monkeyforums :) |
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| Hang out on the official forums - I've already asked about four million dumb questions on your behalf! :D Oh, massive bit of advice - get JungleIDE. Monkey is case-sensitive, and Monk does not capitalise things that need it, nor does it colourise keywords that live outside of the monkey module (including mojo). With Jungle's intelliprompt that's an almost insignificant worry. Last edited 2011 |
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| @GreyAlien Improved language, reduced possibilities, more platforms but less reliability. And as for a constant, doing multiple undos/redos still doesn't work. |
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| Thanks all. JungleIDE hey? OK Can try that. Does it need setting up for monkey? I've used Notepad++ before. Bit worried about not having a debugger but I guess you can put the output code into whatever compiler is handy and debug it in that. Also I used to like hitting F5 to compile but now I guess you have to save/export the source and load it up (or refresh it) in the compiler of your choice before compiling - a lengthy process. Actually I should stop speculating and try it out. Waiting for Share-it to process order. Last edited 2011 |
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| . Last edited 2011 |
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| I wouldn't be too worried. But I would also say it's geared mored towards the mobile arena. Ie. no set resolution command or changing resolutions on the fly. So, I use BMax for PC and Mac, and Monkey for mobile devices and flash. |
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| Hmm, i never used the BlitzMax debugger. I think it's the worst debugger i ever tried to use so that's not much of a change. Of course it would be nice to have a good one though but i don't think it will happen. I would be interested in seeing some OSX/Win finished projects done with monkey as in my opinion it's not ready for that, yet. So best advice, at least for now, really is to use both products according to your target platform(s). Last edited 2011 |
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| It's a shame Monkey is not ready for PC/Mac yet as I'd prefer to only write the game once. |
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| Well, the GLFW target has file access support, but it's OpenGL only (good for Mac, not so good for Win). I wouldn't say it's not ready for desktop computers. It's not as complete as BlitzMax in this area. It's maybe not even as fast as the max2d engine, but it works. Also, on windows, you could use the XNA framework to grant compatibility with the user video card. |
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| Yeah it doesn't sound suitable for commercial PC games yet. Guess BlitzMax still has some life in it yet then. |
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| I think Monkey and Blitzmax are quite similar in many respects. I've been hammering away at Monkey for a few weeks now, so next time I write a game in Blitzmax for PC and Mac, I'll have a better idea of how to structure it from the outset to make the translation to Monkey much easier. Personally, my big "I wish Monkey did that", is pixmap support, or some approximation of it. I can get around it but it'd be easier if I didn't have to. |
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| What's interesting to me is that Monkey is somewhat like a basic framework in the way it's structure. I'm going to extended it in ways that suit me of course. What's the pixmap workaround? |
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| Well HTML5 worked out of the box and Flash was easy to get running. Very pleased so far. Spent the day reading all the syntax and all the posts on this forum, will move onto Monkeycoder next. Also want to get it running on my iPhone/iPad. |
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| Glad to have Grey Alien join the bandwagon :)! |
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| What's the pixmap workaround? From what I know there is none. There is a discussion about it here: http://www.monkeycoder.co.nz/Community/posts.php?topic=1369#12373 |
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| What's the pixmap workaround? To not use pixmaps!(no, really. That's it). |
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| Glad to hear you've finally got some time to join us on the Monkey band wagon. |
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| Thanks friends. I'm pretty excited about monkey actually, feels like when I got BlitzPlus back in 2004 except it can do so much more. Shame about the pixmap thing, although I rarely used it in the past. |
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| I'm really starting to like monkey. yeah it has its shortcomings but doesn't everything when its new? I've still to get my head around matrices but I'm sure I'll get it once i actually start doing it. |
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| I did too:- http://www.denathorn-games.net/?page_id=73 \o/ Know what it is, I play that more then I play games on me XBox! :D Dabz |
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| Monkey is really good - great fun making apps for the android phones....admittedly most of my apps have not had great reviews...I've still got a lot of improvement to do... |
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| So in the last 24 hours I made a test game in HTML5, Flash, iPhone, and iPad! Wow that's how good monkey is. The iPhone (actual, not simulator) was a bit of a pain to get going, Apple don't make it easy. I'm sure if I had an Android I could have got a game going on that too. I may try out Xbox (XNA) for fun, but really the only two I'll be using seriously at first are Flash and iOS, then maybe Android later. Seems like BMax is still the choice for PC/Mac. |
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| Btw has someone written a documentation about which steps you need to do in order to successfully compile for each platform? I think this could be very helpful for people getting interested in a new platform on the monkey site, and here as well. |
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| It would have been damn useful for iPhone/iPad (actual device), although to be fair the steps weren't really inside Monkey they were in XCode because Apple make things over complicated. Actually the main Monkey docs that tell you how to get stuff running on different targets was basically good enough for me for Flash and iOS (simulator). |
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| I think what matters is describing the chain from A to Z, no matter if it's inside or outside monkey as i expect people stumbling over similar obstacles again and again. A sticky thread in each target platform which describes how to get something running really could help people. |
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| As I plan to get monkey some time this year when the money becomes avail, I would love it if some of you guys compiled some basic tutorials on how to go from code, to each of the platforms and get your stuff running. As you said Grey iPhone was trouble, what you learn and what others have learned would be brilliant stuff to pass along to those of us not able to mess with it yet so we can buy pass some of the head aches. Brave Adventurers hacking their way through the jungle so that us lesser noobs have a path to follow. :) |
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| Problem with iOS steps is they were so weird to me I don't know if I can actually repeat them as I didn't fully understand what was going on with the apple certificates etc. (nothing to do with Monkey) |
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| Problem with iOS steps is they were so weird to me I don't know if I can actually repeat them as I didn't fully understand what was going on with the apple certificates etc Cack innit! :D Dabz |
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| Cack innit Very! |
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| Pretty much everyone I know (skilled devs) say the same. Apple are supposed to be good at useability etc when compared to PCs, but their Dev stuff basically sucks. |
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| Apple are supposed to be good at useability etc when compared to PCs, but their Dev stuff basically sucks. Yes, there are reasons why Mac owners use BlitzMax or REALbasic. Somebody once wrote that Mac developers got astonishingly far with so little. I guess the guy had a point. Personally, I still think that Xcode and Objective-C are abominations and I just wish that Microsoft would port Visual C#.NET to Mac OS X. My personal favorite, though, would be an OS X version of Alaska Xbase++, but as I know Steffen and the rest of his team, this is never going to happen. Anyway. Back to business reality. I've got a "wonderful" meeting ahead of me where some folks from System AG are going to present some Sage business software. This has "Fight Club" written all over it: "Can I have that icon in cornflower blue?" "Absolutely. Efficiency is our top priority, because waste is a thief. I should this my man here already. You liked it, didn't you?" And maybe then I will show him MY teeth this morning... ;-) |
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| Me too, and to be honest there still sometimes can be hickups. This whole process isn't done well and most importantly it isn't documented and updated properly so that you most probably end up running into issues. |
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| Objective-C are abominations Hey! Objective-C is a really nice language once you get to know it a bit better. It's still pretty much the only mainstream language with "proper" OOP by default (a few others can also do proper message-passing, but most have it as a secondary option, e.g. C#). |
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| So in the last 24 hours I made a test game in HTML5, Flash, iPhone, and iPad! Wow that's how good monkey is. The iPhone (actual, not simulator) was a bit of a pain to get going, Apple don't make it easy. I'm sure if I had an Android I could have got a game going on that too. I may try out Xbox (XNA) for fun, but really the only two I'll be using seriously at first are Flash and iOS, then maybe Android later. Seems like BMax is still the choice for PC/Mac. Cool, thats what appeals to me about Monkey. I am going to add it to my arsenal of coding thingies, I would really like to finish my current project in BLitz 3D first though. End of this month.... |
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| So I read somewhere that Monkey doesn't actually create iOS apps (or Android for that matter) - is that completely true? What's the scoop here? I would like to invest in Monkey, but primarily for the sole purpose of creating native iOS apps. I fully understand that any native apps will suffer from lack of rich native functionality due to the "abstraction" that Monkey introduces, but for what I want to do I don't care as much about that - I just want to know that I'll be able to create and then publish an official iOS app. Please advise - thanks! |
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| Monkey doesn't actually create iOS apps (or Android for that matter) It's a two-stage process. Monkey compiles Monkey code to Objective-C or Java or whatever, and then the compiler for the relevant platform compiles it again into the binary (if applicable). This shouldn't really affect you unless you want to tinker with the intermediate form for some reason, except that you need to have Xcode present to do the second stage of compilation. Xcode doesn't cost anything (on top of the arm and a leg you already paid to have the Mac in the first place). I fully understand that any native apps will suffer from lack of rich native functionality Mojo is a game library. As I rambled about in a different thread, it's much more difficult to develop cross-platform applications because the look and feel for each platform is different (one of the reasons so few products even attempt to be cross-platform is because you often need to rewrite 90% of a non-game application just to make it fit in). This is something you need to think about carefully if developing an iOS app, because you'll have to match the Apple style requirements for it to be accepted. Good luck if you want to try though: it can be done. |
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| Monkey is a very good choice to develop cross platform games. I have no problems creating IOS games. |
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| I'm currently using Monkey to develop for iOS and the inconvenient truth is that you will need to delve into XCode at some point if you want to release anything on the app store. You'll need to change the application's name (from MonkeyGame), possibly add in launch screens, and you will definitely need to add correctly sized game icons, then build from XCode in release mode. Oh, and signing apps, but I haven't quite got to that part yet. Its not a difficult process, though. I have Monk and XCode open, hit Build in Monk and when that's finished, hit Run in XCode, and my game runs on my iPad or iPod - whichever's connected at the time. |
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| Great to know - thank you. |
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| I'm going to extended it in ways that suit me of course. Hows your extensions going Grey? |
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