Gernot and GLBasic developer team,
What are the plans for the future of GLBasic?
Last year you presented some screen shots about the new GUI of what could be the new GLBasic IDE (Integrated Development Environment).
Since that time things happened (hard disk crash) that had delayed or changed the enhancement of this great development tool.
I would like to know if you can publish a road map, a list of features that we can look for.
I have been analyzing other development platforms Shiva, Corona, Monkey and Unity, I like Unity but the cost does not justify the investment.
I am studding a lot and I am building my own physics library, so having the road map I can plan better the time I am investing on GLB.
Thank you,
Sorry to jump in here but I'd like to add my thoughts on the future of Glbasic and where I hope it heads...
I personally wish more emphasis was put on implementing and fixing things on the iOS platform rather than the attention on the HTML5 platform and this new IDE system.
GLBasic is a great development tool for games and entertainment apps - it just needs some updates... That way it will attract many new customers.
OK I will concede to some bias here - empahais on ios/Android preferred over HTML5 - how's that...
Just my opinion..
He's fixing some iOS & HTML 5 stuff at the moment - I did enquire about things a week or so ago actually :)
Mrplant,
I agree, so perhaps there are 2 road maps, one for fixing existing issues and another for the new features.
Yes glBasic can been a bit outdated and could been have better mainstreamed it, which im thinks was was happens around the fatale harddrive crash last year. The v11 progress is a bit slow. But anyway Glbasic is a great language and im like its very much. But its to much to ask, when only one person is behind glBasic, and im thinks he do a great job.
What im think could do for the iOS as well Android version is some sort of open source it for the RoadMap, so evntuelly remaining bugs could been fixed by some of us. Example im could try to fix the Orintation bug for Android by using PLATFORM("Orentation") example rather than uses AndroidExtras (howover im are much more experiment with Java than C++ and C#, and im did done some Java games many many years ago). Also im want to possible to have more than one API support as well. Something that could have done for a partically open source.
But of course license for glBasic should of course not change at all, so its nothing to try to save money at all, but just a service for meanstream and better doing bug report etc (etc some sort of Bonus section). Property that could been done for lesser known platforms too.
Yes, being a one-man development system does unfortunately slow things down. The re-configuring of Gernot's car earlier this year probably didn't help much either :)
It is the longest we've had between versions unfortunately - I suspect Gernot has had a lot of work to do.
This discussion is healthy but I still insist in having some visibility of what is coming and when?
I called road Map, because that is what I use for product development including software.
spacefractal gave the idea of open source were more people could collaborate in testing, fixing bug and developing
new features. I think this is a great idea.
I would like to hear from Gernot him self what he thinks of the above ideas.
Can I chip in? :-[
Like Mr.T said, this has been the longest time between updates we had on GLB, it sure used to be very very common a while ago.
There were always updates concerning new techs and specially user requests on a very common base.
Heck, GLB team added fold to subs as I and others asked even though by the time I didn´t even purchased the tool, and there is a lot more.
Tech changes weekly, new android and iphone stuff, new platforms and so on, everything needs constant work to keep up.
I see Gernot had a share of trouble, it is nice to have him some time or as much as he needs. I´m confident he is doing the best to improve, but we know it is a hard job to pull.
This is my personal opinion on the matter.
I prefer to wait for him on when he is comfortable to disclose things moving up.
Kill some bugs , add a new plattform
This is hard work because :
U need to have all devices.
U need to know most from the OS from the devices.
Also much devices have different os version ,
and every have different bugs.
I dunno how this to handle , it needs time and money!
Here one for if any help it's needed... and I can test or something.
Only I like to comment a thing, now it's true we have a lot of time without Update, but I think I'm stay here from the V7 now we are in the 10, and only pass 2 or 3 years, I remenber for a while we have Updates practically each moths, and Updtaes whit a lot of things... only it's a period of time, sure the next year we have updates and all running very quickly.
Quote from: aroldo
I would like to hear from Gernot him self what he thinks of the above ideas.
+1
:whistle:
I think Gernot is away for a short while.
Guys,
I'm a web developer and to me HTML5 is not a reason for me to use this development system.
For me ... Desktop (win / mac), console and native mobile (anodroid / iOS) development are the reasons...
I tried to build an app using phonegap and other tools but hit a wall when native features (WAKE LOCK / DISABLE SLEEP MODE) were required - HTML5 does not function like native on mobile devices - it has its limits.
So I think more focus on weaker points of the existing system could be addressed.... Competing with the many HTML5 web game libraries is probably a tough road to go down.
Maybe a poll should be done on what developers issues / needs are?
Thats where I have to disagree - HTML 5's importance is gathering at quite a pace, especially as the Firefox OS is now out
I kind of agree with both ideas.
HTML is important and I think a must happen, even if it is a bit crude to begin with.
Android and Ios are important too, they are already here and needs some tailoring and updates.
Some changes and updates on the desktop support would also come in nice.
New platforms are also welcome, Rpi or platforms derived from the already existent linux support. They may not be that hard to create in comparison with a very new one.
If I have to choose one, that would be a hard question to answer. I can´t answer for my needs only (that would be easy) I would have to take in account the needs from my fellows around here.
Quote from: erico on 2013-Aug-14
I kind of agree with both ideas.
HTML is important and I think a must happen, even if it is a bit crude to begin with.
Android and Ios are important too, they are already here and needs some tailoring and updates.
Some changes and updates on the desktop support would also come in nice.
New platforms are also welcome, Rpi or platforms derived from the already existent linux support. They may not be that hard to create in comparison with a very new one.
If I have to choose one, that would be a hard question to answer. I can´t answer for my needs only (that would be easy) I would have to take in account the needs from my fellows around here.
Dreaming.... GLB for Vita :happy:
I prefer to improve the main used platforms (Win, Mac, iOS, Android), instead adding new platforms and become a monster difficult to keep.
I respect all that has been said.
However, I would really focus on Win/Mac and android, iOS. Get everything we need for iOS under the hood like inApp purchases etc.
Perfect what we have, adding more platforms sounds like a bit of heaven but impossible to support all of them by yours truly Gernot :)
Thanks and cya.
Regards
Quote from: hardyx on 2013-Aug-15
I prefer to improve the main used platforms (Win, Mac, iOS, Android), instead adding new platforms and become a monster difficult to keep.
+1 :good:
Yes, Windowx, Mac OS, iOS and Android is the most important systems today.
On Android, the default SDK used is very outdated and need a upgrade to a newer SDK (which Im have done that), where all the fun is on (while of course trying doing backward compatible of course).
on iOS a few bugs got fixed, but breaks again in a later beta, which then never got fixed again (very annoying here).
Im thinks its could been a great help, if Gernot open sourced iOS and Android in such a way, so more people could work on tem to fix eventuelly bugs on those systems and eventuelly adding special commands (without fully open source of course, a pay license should of course been required).
Howover im do see with HTML5 support, new platforms could been supported, which have a great HTML5 support, like Windows RT and Mobile Linux distros example.
GLBasic in its current state is an awesome tool for creating games for OpenGL/c++ based platforms. But I think HTML5/Javascript is a different beast altogether because it requires a different development approach compared to native OpenGL stuff where you "just" write to the screenbuffer. You need more control over the separate canvases, and which ones you are drawing to, classes work differently (prototype-based) etc.
The way I look at it, a HTML5/Javascript tool or framework would be better off being its own separate project (which ofcourse is easier said than done). I've tried compiling my GLBasic games to HTML5 and it outputs a 10MB html file of about 300.000 lines which both Chrome and IE can't execute. I haven't looked into it but I *suspect* I would have to do some substantial re-writing before my game works as a HTML5 project.
I still have some ideas for new games (don't we all? :P) but I don't know what to do next. GLBasic is lacking some crucial things for iOS and Android such as gamecenter support or in-app purchases or an easy way to include banners. On the other hand HTML5/JavaScript has the potential to run on iOS, Android, Windows Phone and also Chromestore (and possibly even as a Facebook app). So now I'm thinking about doing just a HTML5 game, but the problem with that is I don't know how I would eventually package that as an iOS or Android app.
Quote from: BdR on 2013-Aug-17
The way I look at it, a HTML5/Javascript tool or framework would be better off being its own separate project (which ofcourse is easier said than done).
I agree, it could be a different product or an addon to GLB oriented to a differente target. Maybe they want to include or modify javascript code instead the C code.
Quote from: BdR on 2013-Aug-17
On the other hand HTML5/JavaScript has the potential to run on iOS, Android, Windows Phone and also Chromestore (and possibly even as a Facebook app). So now I'm thinking about doing just a HTML5 game, but the problem with that is I don't know how I would eventually package that as an iOS or Android app.
You can embed HTML/Javascript code in a native mobile app with PhoneGap. But, with a great language like GLBasic wich generate native code for iOS, Android ¿do you need another layer?
I only publish my games for iPhone/iPad and I love glBasic because it's easy to make great software for these devices. In my selfish opinion I prefer Gernot to focus only in this plattform. But I can understand that the goal of GLBasic is to be multiplatform. And if HTML5 brings to GLBasic more developers, the delay for other improvements is welcome. =D
Hi,
I am not that activ anymore here. But I am still a reader. I switched to corona a while ago. Not because it is better, just because glb is missing IOS stuff. I bought glb because of the possibilty to compile for IOS. Instead of adding the missing features glbasic has been added more and more platforms any non nerd has ever heard about. I was sure one man cannot go on like this forever. Updating this thing must be a monster.
For me desktop (win / mac ), mobile (android / iOS) + new IDE (sry still do not like it) + mac IDE must be the road map! And everything native not HTML5!
With glbasic I can develop fast faster games as with any other tool I tried. I would love to use glbasic again for serious projects if I would see this priorities.
Quote from: monono on 2013-Aug-25
Hi,
I am not that activ anymore here. But I am still a reader. I switched to corona a while ago. Not because it is better, just because glb is missing IOS stuff. I bought glb because of the possibilty to compile for IOS. Instead of adding the missing features glbasic has been added more and more platforms any non nerd has ever heard about. I was sure one man cannot go on like this forever. Updating this thing must be a monster.
For me desktop (win / mac ), mobile (android / iOS) + new IDE (sry still do not like it) + mac IDE must be the road map! And everything native not HTML5!
With glbasic I can develop fast faster games as with any other tool I tried. I would love to use glbasic again for serious projects if I would see this priorities.
Hmmm, very interesting comment... hmmmm :doubt:
Monono the corona sdk sounds sweet but those monthly fees are totally rip off IMO.
But the features and adding like in app purchases are vital. Therefore I personally think these should be glbasics focus and maybe gernot should charge a one time payment for this upgrade we need. I'd pay with no hesitation.
Plus let's face it Glbasic is cheap so we cannot complain about an upgrade payment, and I think this will motivate kitty too.
Thanks for reading
Quote from: Omadan on 2013-Aug-25
Plus let's face it Glbasic is cheap so we cannot complain about an upgrade payment
If the upgrade payment is for around the board features that I can make use of then I have no problem with that. If the upgrade payment is for mainly Android/iOS features then I cannot go for that for the reason of why should I pay for something I have no use of.
If GLB was sold in a modular way like for example a core package with other platforms available at a small cost then that would be ideal for everyone as they could just purchase what they needed or an "Ultimate" version which came with all. Implementing such a system would probably be more hassle than it is maintaining GLB at the moment :D
While I do not do any mobile development I can fully understand the need to bring them both up to date from the various posts I have read on the forum as people are leaving or have left GLB purely because there are other options about which provide what they need. And judging by most of the posts they prefer GLB over the system they moved to.
If users are leaving then surely the focus should be on fixing or implementing the features that are making people go elsewhere.With regards to the range of platforms GLB supports, the smaller ones like Cannoo/WIZ etc are pretty much solid & have been for a while so maintaining them should not waste much of kittys time (unless GLB has a major core overhaul then that might change). HTML5 I cannot comment on as it's not something that has grabbed my attention from the point of view of "Ohh I really must learn or read up on that", but I am aware it exists & plays better in some browsers than others.
I agree that a MAC ide should be done due to the amount of iOS people out there as it can only help with the development cycle on that platform, although I have not experienced the process something native has to be an improvement.
Features I would like to see are direct pixel access to the buffers & more or better sound control, both of which would more than likely cause problems on other platforms than the one I cater for which is Windows :whistle:.
Lee
Charging something for an update would be against the contract that we made with him when we brought our licence, free lifetime updates were part of the deal.
If he want to charge something (which i would understand and think it would be totally fine), then he needs to do more then just an update. It should be a major reboot, rewriting big parts of the code, kicking depreciated code and old platforms and ignoring backwards compatibility that keeps us from getting better solutions. Maybe a completely new code base. But since he does have a real life besides GLB (i mean a family and a full paid job) I think he does not have the time to do this.
With inline C++ we can extend GLB in several ways (same for java on android, but i dont know much about this), but glbasic limits us in several places so we cant do everything that would be possible, those barriers should be removed where possible. For example iI want to be able to use shaders on mobile devices.
In general i like the idea that we only get commands that work on all platforms and user can write library that work on specific platforms - but im not sure if this is possible for inapp payment/ads etc. btw are there no library out there that offer this and can get easily integrated into your GLB project? I dont know, dont code for mobile platforms atm.
Regrading the IDE: even if GLB stays closed source and Gernots project, i would like the idea, that tool like the IDE or the .DDD-exporter become open source, maybe some users would improve it and he would not have to spend time into this and could concentrate on the compiler. Since V11 wants to give us native GUI, it would be even better if the IDE would get rewritten in GLB so its even easier to modify it and it could easily get compiled for Linux and Mac too.
Fuzzy GLB had a modular licence in the past, but Gernot changed this to the current all-in-one-lincnce for some reason.
Quote from: kanonet on 2013-Aug-25
Fuzzy GLB had a modular licence in the past, but Gernot changed this to the current all-in-one-lincnce for some reason.
Thanks Kanonet, I was unaware of that due to only being here 2-3 years =D
Opensource IDE written in GLB using the Native GUI sounds pretty awesome if you ask me. Then people can add/remove what they like & additions could be shared on the forum :good:
Lee
If I remember correct there were these packages:
Free demo; paid: 2D GLB, 3D addon, Net addon, Premium (2d+all addons).
Everything for all platforms, no special platform x addon. I think around the time when V8 was released licence got changed to:
Free 2D on desktop systems; paid Premium (2D on mobiles, 3D, Net, Inline...).
// yes i know that was a bit offtopic, sorry...
Quote from: fuzzy70 on 2013-Aug-25
Quote from: Omadan on 2013-Aug-25
Plus let's face it Glbasic is cheap so we cannot complain about an upgrade payment
If the upgrade payment is for around the board features that I can make use of then I have no problem with that. If the upgrade payment is for mainly Android/iOS features then I cannot go for that for the reason of why should I pay for something I have no use of.
If GLB was sold in a modular way like for example a core package with other platforms available at a small cost then that would be ideal for everyone as they could just purchase what they needed or an "Ultimate" version which came with all. Implementing such a system would probably be more hassle than it is maintaining GLB at the moment :D
While I do not do any mobile development I can fully understand the need to bring them both up to date from the various posts I have read on the forum as people are leaving or have left GLB purely because there are other options about which provide what they need. And judging by most of the posts they prefer GLB over the system they moved to.
If users are leaving then surely the focus should be on fixing or implementing the features that are making people go elsewhere.
With regards to the range of platforms GLB supports, the smaller ones like Cannoo/WIZ etc are pretty much solid & have been for a while so maintaining them should not waste much of kittys time (unless GLB has a major core overhaul then that might change). HTML5 I cannot comment on as it's not something that has grabbed my attention from the point of view of "Ohh I really must learn or read up on that", but I am aware it exists & plays better in some browsers than others.
I agree that a MAC ide should be done due to the amount of iOS people out there as it can only help with the development cycle on that platform, although I have not experienced the process something native has to be an improvement.
Features I would like to see are direct pixel access to the buffers & more or better sound control, both of which would more than likely cause problems on other platforms than the one I cater for which is Windows :whistle:.
Lee
It is a hard topic to debate. I agree with fuzzy on his points. :good:
Every one man project dies soner or later but I really hope this will live on for a while. You could learn something else but GLB is so simple to learn and remember and yet functional that you can get something real done also.
It has been going for over 10 years now!
Every one man project dies soner or later but I really hope this will live on for a while. You could learn something else but GLB is so simple to learn and remember and yet functional that you can get something real done also.
Well I think sometimes in this but I think this have it's less probeble than a great enterprise, on they have millions of money and some bad movement can make the enterprise in bankrupt, in example you can see, some months ago Shiva 3D, and a lot of people pay for the 2nd version... I think never will see the light.
Another thing Gernnot will be bored and make GLBasic-Turbo :D :D :D, like Blitz Basic and Monkey.
I think GLBasic is a perfect language for beginners and people that needs to create a game/program without fight with complex languages or tools.
It is pretty because... Hey! It is BASIC! And it compiles for iOS, Android, Windows, Mac and GNU/Linux!!! It is multiplatform and you don't need to change your code!!!
I'm sure this kind of product is very hard to mantain, because of that, may be that the best roadmap could be to consolidate certain main platforms, before add new platforms to the language... the work of Gernot is impressive, but he is an only one programmer and now users/programmers have new needs that comes with each change in the OS/platforms/devices after each of these updates from big companies.
The capability of GLBasic to be extended through wrappers or inline code makes of GLBasic a real jewel for coders, but I think that the creation of wrappers to obtain certain main capabilities like Game Center, social, or iADs are starting to became more and more complex, considering the speed of changes from market, and big companies.
Sometimes you need functions that should be integrated into the language/compiler itself, if you need to fix a bug or cover a new function included (I refer, for example, to iOS 6... iOS 7... Apple and its policies and changes, etc.) and that could certainly be a "monster work" for an only one man... And people may turn crazy or impatient when this kind of problems avoid a programmer to finish/correct/publish an app.
I would not like to see GLBasic die slowly like other projects because the man behind GLB could not update the language as the tech evolves.
How to solve problems?
May be that a solution could be to open a little part of the source code that GLBasic uses to embed the OpenGL view, to let this community (us) to collaborate extending and fixing faster certain not trivial bugs or adding new features... If the platforms where this could be possible.
This is a suggestion that Gernot could think about... I hope to not hurt to Gernot or anyone because of explain my personal opinion.
Quote from: DaCarSoft on 2013-Aug-26How to solve problems?
May be that a solution could be to open a little part of the source code that GLBasic uses to embed the OpenGL view, to let this community (us) to collaborate extending and fixing faster certain not trivial bugs or adding new features... If the platforms where this could be possible.
+1 :good:
yep well writting post. Its was something the same thing im was thinking, also only open source that little part could do a big thing to solve some issues.
and yes even glbasic have its limits, its a still a great language.
Hello everyone.. just wanted to say that it's unfortunate but I would have to agree with all the posts suggesting that anyone developing for iOS is better off working with other frameworks other than GLB, seeing as how the market has moved away from the paid/lite monetization model to the freemium/ads/IAP approach. I have finally just gotten approval from the App Store for my first officially released game.. and although it's exciting (well, and annoying because I can't see it in the store yet), it's also likely to be the beginning of the end of GLB for me as I look to move towards something else that is both cross-platform, and capable of delivering either ads and/or IAP. It's unfortunate that I have built up this code base over the past few years while working on this project part-time, which I was hoping to leverage for future projects, but I guess it's back to square 1 with new tech.
If we could hear anything at all about the possibility of an upcoming update which addresses the current mobile monetization trends, then I might be able to re-consider.
Would be interesting to see what people are actually developing for with GLBasic. Since the market share is around 13% iPhone - 80% Android it would be interesting to also see what the difference in revenue for the different sides are. Is it really more beneficial to develop for iPhone still? Is the user getting tired of being tricked into installing a game that really is just a demo until you buy something ingame? Or click the ads? I see a lot of this sort of complaints when looking around in the comments on the android store.
Freemium is the way to go, nothing more or nothing less.
How over I'm do sold much more iOS versions of Greedy Mouse than Android, which got stalled. So iOS users is more will to pay apps much more than Android users.
When looking with inapp for iOS, it's seen pretty easy, but its would property only works with iOS6 today, not iOS5? That can been a kind of a problem mightbeen....
spacefractal my doughter playing your game on android non stop