Hi all,
I know Designer can be used for presentations but can it be used for creating full blow applications?
I have just decided to get back to the software I was developing after a few months away from Designer.
Things like an open requester and common buttons like Open, Cancel and the like can these be created in Designer.
Applications in Designer?
Re: Applications in Designer?
Look at Jack on OS4Depot. Current version in queue, Jack2.lha. Sorry no source code attached.. however... also on OS4Depot is:
http://www.os4depot.net/index.php?funct ... _funcs.lha
Some common functions I have written. Take a look.
With a little effort you can create buttons, text gadgets and other stuff. Also check out the drawer titled Text Gadget for a working example.
Sadly Hollywood doesn't have any sort of GUI Builder, Reaction or Gadtools support at present - hopefully it is something Andreas will be working on in the future. Probably a mammoth task tbh given the multi-envionment nature of Hollywood.
http://www.os4depot.net/index.php?funct ... _funcs.lha
Some common functions I have written. Take a look.
With a little effort you can create buttons, text gadgets and other stuff. Also check out the drawer titled Text Gadget for a working example.
Sadly Hollywood doesn't have any sort of GUI Builder, Reaction or Gadtools support at present - hopefully it is something Andreas will be working on in the future. Probably a mammoth task tbh given the multi-envionment nature of Hollywood.
Evolve - Rapid GUI Development tool for MUI Royale and RapaGUI
http://myevolve.wordpress.com
http://myevolve.wordpress.com
Re: Applications in Designer?
As far as I have looked designer, especially the version 3.0, it seems to me that you can do anything that you can do with hollywood.
however, what is practical to do with it and what is better do with basic Hollywood is different matter.
But I try to give couple of ideas on what you can do with Designer, and what I think would be better to do with Hollywood only.
I am mainly using Hollywood for games, so my examples will be like that too.
Game Menu: Deisgner is very capable for this, and since 3.0, you can also add things like Sound Volume setter with slider. (2.1 isnt very good for things like Volume 1-100 with slider)
In game menu you can have all the usual stuff that you want to be in game menus, things like, load game, continue game, options, and options menus volume sliders, screen mode changers etc. (But do notice that you do need some hollywood programming experience for some of that stuff).
Thing is that especially game menu is very fastly done with designer, since you just move the buttons where ever you like and then you put that small piece of code attched to your button.
Basically I would say that when ever there is something like button that needs to do some specific mainly one thing, designer comes very handy.
Im giving you one example about the usage of desigenr vs hollywood.
I have this program i use to make map tiles.
if i would do it with hollywood, heres what i would need to do:
- Start of the program (Ie. Enable Layers, screenmode etc. start stuff, variables etc.)
- I would basically through trial and error need to try get the button layers at theirright places and then also set the text on buttons at their places, and this would happen through trial and error method meaning that i would hoose some x and y values and try if it works out, on top of that, i would also need to adjust some font size, and basically i would be restricted to only one font size, since changing font size for each button would be lot of trouble. (This alone would propably take mroe time than making the whole thing with designer)
- Then I would need to make each of the buttons and their commands.
- Then i would need to make the loop and possibly take care of some variables here and there.
that isnt terriblle amount of work, but main issue is that i would waste lot of time on trial and error in finding the buttons and text places/sizes and if i come to conclusion that the last button i add, makes all the rest need change the place, then its back to beginning again.
With Designer:
- I draw couple of boxes (the buttons) drag them to their places and resize them the way i like with mouse and see in real time hat it looks like. Then i write the texts, moe them inside boes and can just change the font size from deisnger itself seeing the change in real time (there can be slight difference between compiled program on different platforms),
- Then i click on those boxes(buttons) and choose "Action" and for action i choose "Run Code" and write the exact parts of code necessary to do the tasks (Designer will take care of creating those buttons and handling them for me etc.). I can actualyl get soemthign like tileset maker done in maybe only 20 lines of code with deisgner plus some clicks of mouse button for graphics etc.
And its done!
In things like that Desigenr Beats bare Hollywood 10-1
But then we come to the other side of designer.
Say I want to make a game that uses tileset map for its levels. Now comes the problem. Designer would be unpractical for using for the part of making that tileset map coming to screen, or scrolling it or anything similar.
Then there is another problem too, while desigenr is good for something like Dogs of Wars Level selection Map and gun shop, it might become messy when you choose to load the level.
So when I am using desigenr, i try toseparate Desigenr and Code clearly. That for example using for Dogs of War map, when level loads, I forget the desigenr and just make it load a code that I have done with bare Hollywood.
You can easily add bare hollywoode code to designer, so as long as you can make it that way, Desigenr can be very useful. But do notice that there is huge difference between desigenr 2.1 and 3.0 in usability, there are some major critical advances don to 3.0 taht make it much much more useful and 2.1 is many times more restricted in many things.
however, what is practical to do with it and what is better do with basic Hollywood is different matter.
But I try to give couple of ideas on what you can do with Designer, and what I think would be better to do with Hollywood only.
I am mainly using Hollywood for games, so my examples will be like that too.
Game Menu: Deisgner is very capable for this, and since 3.0, you can also add things like Sound Volume setter with slider. (2.1 isnt very good for things like Volume 1-100 with slider)
In game menu you can have all the usual stuff that you want to be in game menus, things like, load game, continue game, options, and options menus volume sliders, screen mode changers etc. (But do notice that you do need some hollywood programming experience for some of that stuff).
Thing is that especially game menu is very fastly done with designer, since you just move the buttons where ever you like and then you put that small piece of code attched to your button.
Basically I would say that when ever there is something like button that needs to do some specific mainly one thing, designer comes very handy.
Im giving you one example about the usage of desigenr vs hollywood.
I have this program i use to make map tiles.
if i would do it with hollywood, heres what i would need to do:
- Start of the program (Ie. Enable Layers, screenmode etc. start stuff, variables etc.)
- I would basically through trial and error need to try get the button layers at theirright places and then also set the text on buttons at their places, and this would happen through trial and error method meaning that i would hoose some x and y values and try if it works out, on top of that, i would also need to adjust some font size, and basically i would be restricted to only one font size, since changing font size for each button would be lot of trouble. (This alone would propably take mroe time than making the whole thing with designer)
- Then I would need to make each of the buttons and their commands.
- Then i would need to make the loop and possibly take care of some variables here and there.
that isnt terriblle amount of work, but main issue is that i would waste lot of time on trial and error in finding the buttons and text places/sizes and if i come to conclusion that the last button i add, makes all the rest need change the place, then its back to beginning again.
With Designer:
- I draw couple of boxes (the buttons) drag them to their places and resize them the way i like with mouse and see in real time hat it looks like. Then i write the texts, moe them inside boes and can just change the font size from deisnger itself seeing the change in real time (there can be slight difference between compiled program on different platforms),
- Then i click on those boxes(buttons) and choose "Action" and for action i choose "Run Code" and write the exact parts of code necessary to do the tasks (Designer will take care of creating those buttons and handling them for me etc.). I can actualyl get soemthign like tileset maker done in maybe only 20 lines of code with deisgner plus some clicks of mouse button for graphics etc.
And its done!
In things like that Desigenr Beats bare Hollywood 10-1
But then we come to the other side of designer.
Say I want to make a game that uses tileset map for its levels. Now comes the problem. Designer would be unpractical for using for the part of making that tileset map coming to screen, or scrolling it or anything similar.
Then there is another problem too, while desigenr is good for something like Dogs of Wars Level selection Map and gun shop, it might become messy when you choose to load the level.
So when I am using desigenr, i try toseparate Desigenr and Code clearly. That for example using for Dogs of War map, when level loads, I forget the desigenr and just make it load a code that I have done with bare Hollywood.
You can easily add bare hollywoode code to designer, so as long as you can make it that way, Desigenr can be very useful. But do notice that there is huge difference between desigenr 2.1 and 3.0 in usability, there are some major critical advances don to 3.0 taht make it much much more useful and 2.1 is many times more restricted in many things.