Revision of Demos on BRL Site?
Miscellaneous Forums/General Discussion/Revision of Demos on BRL Site?
Just a little question about BRL site's product demo.
A few friend tried the demo and got a wrong/outdated impression of the Blitz Products.
You can see the products here:
http://www.blitzbasic.com/Products/_index_.phpEspecially BlitzMax demo version is rather old, that's big difference between 1.12 and current.
Who purchased the full version should already know how to make demo version by tweak a few trigger and remove resources, strip examples...etc, BRL should take half an hour to update this if they have time.
I know that may involves a few considerations, but I do hope those demos can be more current ver and reflect recent changes.
I'm all for this. I don't doubt the quality of the blitzmax demo is quite poor compared to what it should be- IE version 1.26
Yep they should really update it! Imagine my demo framework was only V0.98 or whatever instead of V1.04. It would be missing 1.5 years of development (Blitz demo is missing MORE!)
same with the B3D demo. Especially now it has fixes in the way it does alt-tabbing etc...
I'd like to see the demo updated too. Its still at 1.12 and none of the flow3D examples compile with the demo version. Looks like 1.12 was released in 2005!
We currently have gotten more Ogre3D domain visitors to our non published website, 12,000 v's 10,000 blitz domain ones and hope to interest them in Flow and Bmax.
Can't sell one without the other.
Yes it's a shame they don't update the demo. It's not the first time this has been mentioned. I predict the outcome will be the same a previously.
Yup well TBH its blitz that suffers because of it, so its BRL that looses sales in the long run. Thier competitors know the use of good upto date demos and they are the ones that the put off customers are going to.
Marketting has never ever been BRL's strong point it has been mentions for years.
Yep. If I had such products as BRL, I'd pimp them so much I'd need a purple, fury hat, zoot suit and a huge white Cadillac.
BRL don't seem that bothered, for some reason.
Maybe Mark doesnt want the beast to run away from him, if it became mega popular then maybe they would have to either hire someone to do stuff to support it or hire more programmers to keep all the bugs etc at bay.
What would be wrong with that?
It's weird. The demo is REALLY important. I had the demo before I bought the full thing. It's the window to sales and sales = MORE MONEY for all of them. Why wouldn't they want that? All the work they do on the actual language is great, but none of it will make as many sales as getting a bang up to date decent demo with some really nifty source code examples...
A generic user who purchased BlitzMax knows how to whip up a demo under half an hour.
Blitz was once to the hit on Amiga, but in today's PC world BRL seems knows nothing about marketing at all....
Yeah, I never really thought about it much. But with all those other languages freely avaliable. C#, C++, Java, Python with professional quality tools like Visual studio for free. TONS of game dev solutions and very tough competition competing for the same customers.
The Bmax is more important than ever with the demo needing to demonstrate why people should use their product over lower cost or more feature rich ones that may cost more but also provide extensive easy to use tools and faster workflow.
It probably doesn't take a lot of effort to prepare a demo version alongside a regular release.
What would be wrong with that?
Imagine for example every person who sees the demo doesnt like it and buys the competitions product, BRL doesnt get the sales it wanted and then stops working on the product. Simple marketting would improve that they could just build a new demo, upload it to as many download sites as possible and that would 'improve' sales no end.
I came to Blitz because I used to use Blitz on the amiga but this version is a pale comparison to be honest.
No, I mean what's wrong with employing others? All businesses have to grow.
Yes it's a shame they don't update the demo. It's not the first time this has been mentioned.
As you can tell, because this thread was posted over 5 months ago :o>
I came to Blitz because I used to use Blitz on the amiga but this version is a pale comparison to be honest.
That's not entirely fair. First of all BlitzMAX is by far the best and most complete Blitz product ever.
Secondly, the Amiga version of BlitzBasic was mainly successful because of Red When Excited, not Acid Software.
No, I mean what's wrong with employing others? All businesses have to grow.
Or die.
As you can tell, because this thread was posted over 5 months ago :o>
Damn, flamed by the Duck! :)
This explains the eerie sense of Deja-Vu I was feeling.
That's not entirely fair. First of all BlitzMAX is by far the best and most complete Blitz product ever.
I agree, Mark should be proud of BlitzMax so why not pimp it to as many sites as he can with an updated demo :)
I agree, Mark should be proud of BlitzMax so why not pimp it to as many sites as he can with an updated demo :)
I don't know. What I do know is that Mark seems a reasonably intelligent guy, and I'm sure he has a perfectly valid reason for it.
The only reason I can think of is that the demo isn't as great a sales tool as everyone thinks.
BRL + PR never really was something like a "symbiotic relationship" ... more like a particle of same current coulomb relationship.
Only reason I can see for keeping the demo out of date is as another form of copy protection lol. Bit like shooting your own foot though. I also think not promoting blitz products actually hurts the community a little. Some decent marketing would bring Bmax some recognition and credibility, especially for developers looking to do jobs under contract.
I'm mostly concerned about the demo because of our future business plans. I'd like people to be able to test flow without being forced to cough up $80 for some language they probably have never heard of and know nothing about. I was sceptical about Blitz3D when I first used it, actualy nearly dropped b3d within a week of using it except Brad from Unwrap3D added all the .b3d features I requested and it then became viable for making games so I stuck with it :).
We're seriously considering releasing flow as a time limited full featured demo, so people can try before they buy and actually create an app they can share with friends and play for a few minutes at a time before restarting.
But if people can't compile flow apps because the bmax demo is too old, we're not going to be able to market flow to people outside of the Bmax community very well.
I guess the best course of action might be to simply port flow to other more mainstream languages that are freely available. Much of the work has already been done and then we can reach a broader audience.
Here is a list of the changes noted in
Versions.txt since 1.12 (there are quite a few changes), not to mention the major improvements such as reflection which isn't even mentioned on the product pages:
***** 1.30 Beta *****
+ (MaxGUI) Moved to maxgui.mod.
***** 1.28 Release *****
+ (BMK/BRL.CocoaMaxGui/Pub.FreeProcess) Fixed various Leopard issues.
+ (BRL.Blitz) Fixed array downcasting.
+ (BRL.GLGraphics) Reverted mac version to fix windowed/fullscreen swap problems.
+ (BRL.FileSystem) Implemented 'FixPath' fix to allow for 'incbin::' style paths.
+ (BRL.Win32MaxGui) Fixed textview flicker issue.
+ (BRL.Reflection) Fixed issue with array TTypeId losing type desc byte ptr.
+ (MAKEDOCS) Fixed missing examples.
+ (BCC) Added check for concatenation of multidim arrays - not allowed!
+ (Brl.CocoaMaxGui) Implemented Brucey's fixes.
+ (BMK) Implemented Brucey's modifications.
+ (MaxIDE) Got rid of console text stream.
+ (BRL.DirectSoundAudio) Fixed premature release of sound buffer.
+ (BRL.OpenALAudio) Fixed faulty detection of 'finished' channels and handling of channel exhaustion.
+ (BMK) Added experimental speedup hack. Some issues with deleted bmx files, so off by
default for now. To enable, create an env var called BMK_SPEEDUP set to 1. See bmk_make.bmx for details.
***** 1.26 Release *****
+ (MaxIDE) Fixed debugger =$ in strings causing crash.
+ (BCC) Added 'Not' to conditional compilation system, eg: ?Not Debug
+ (BCC/BRL.Reflection) Reflection support added
+ (BRL.Win32MaxGUI) Clamped selection length to actual text length
+ (BCC) Souped up auto arrays.
+ (BCC) Added array concatenation.
+ (BRL.Blitz) Added String.Join$( bits$[] ) and String.Split$[]( separator$ )
***** 1.24 Release *****
+ (BCC/BMK) Added ".mm" import filetype.
***** 1.24 Release *****
+ (BRL.Blitz) String.Find now converts start index <0 to 0
+ (BRL.D3D7Max2D) Updated to work with d3d7graphics rewrite
+ (BRL.D3D7Max2D) Removed buffered driver
+ (BRL.GLGraphics) Implemented Brucey's linux window title fix
+ (BRL.Max2D) Fixed TImageFont.Draw so it uses float translation
+ (BRL.OGGLoader) Added Function SaveOgg
+ (BRL.FileSystem) Fixed RealPath breaking win32 //server paths
+ (BRL.GNet) Object id's now unmapped ASAP
+ (BRL.Map) Fixed MapKeys/MapValues functions to return enumerators
+ (BRL.Map) Restored KeyValue enumerator
+ (BRL.Map) Added Copy method
+ (BRL.Map) Fixed Clear memleak
+ (BRL.Pixmap) Added new GL compatible pixel formats
+ (BRL.Stream) Fixed 'excpetion' typos
+ (BRL.System) Fixed unretained object issue with mouse tracking
+ (BRL.System) Fixed windowed mode HideMouse issue
+ (BRL.System) Fixed win32 requestfile default extension bug
+ (BRL.PNGLoader) libpng update to 1.2.12.
+ (BRL.PNGLoader) Extra load error handling.
+ (Pub.ZLib) Updated zlib to 1.2.3
+ (BCC) Fixed same type names in different modules causing problems.
+ (BCC) Fixed Null in Data statements failing silently.
+ (BCC) Fixed Object to array cast not returning an array of references.
+ (BCC) Fixed abstract methods overriding base methods with different sigs.
+ (BCC) Fixed exporting of private Type's - still not technically 'safe'.
+ (BCC) Fixed debug info in New() field initialization code
***** 1.22 Release *****
+ (BCC) Extern type method params now accept default values.
+ (BCC/BRL.AppStub) Fixed Var params nuking debugger.
+ (Docmods) Added Brucey's Import/Include fixeds.
+ (BCC) Fixed debug statement location with ElseIf.
+ (BCC) Changed toker so spaces now allowed in array decls like [,] etc.
+ (BCC) Changed 'ForEach' errors to 'EachIn'.
+ (BRL.Bank) Added Lock/Unlock to replace Buf
+ (BRL.Retro) Cleaned up Mid$
+ (BRL.Blitz) Changed ReadStdin so it can handle any length input
+ (BRL.Blitz) Fixed leak in WriteStdout and WriteStderr
+ (BRL.Blitz) Added LibStartUp stub
+ (BRL.Blitz) Added GCSuspend and GCResume
+ (BRL.Blitz) Added experimental dll support
+ (BRL.Blitz) Added Nan and Inf keyword docs
+ (BRL.Blitz) BCC extern CString fix
+ (BRL.D3D7Max2D) Modified TD3D7Max2DDriver.SetGraphics for new dxgraphics commands
+ (BRL.D3D7Max2D) Fixed BufferedD3D7 vertex color errors
+ (BRL.D3D7Max2D) Changed DrawImage tristrip to trifan to fix subpixel cracking
+ (BRL.Event) Added EVENT_GADGETLOSTFOCUS
+ (BRL.Event) Added EVENT_KEYREPEAT
+ (BRL.EventQueue) Fixed CurrentEvent being retained in queue array
+ (BRL.FileSystem) Rebuild for StdC chmod_ linkage
+ (BRL.GNet) Some doc fixes
+ (BRL.Graphics) Mouse repositioned only in fullscreen mode
+ (BRL.Graphics) Flip mode for attached graphics changed to 0
+ (BRL.Graphics) Fixed softsync period init bug
+ (BRL.Graphics) Fixed softsync routine to prevent overflow
+ (BRL.Graphics) Graphics exceptions now caught
+ (Pub.FreeJoy) Added JoyHit samplejoy fix, thanks to HamishTheHystericalHamster
+ (BRL.JPGLoader) Changed ReadBytes to Read for loader
+ (BRL.JPGLoader) Added SaveJPEG function, thanks to Jeffrey D. Panici for the writefunc `fix'
+ (BRL.KeyCodes) Removed KEY_NUMSLASH from docs
+ (BRL.LinkedList) Changed Reverse to maintain TLink stability
+ (BRL.Map) Finally changed to red/back tree!
+ (BRL.Map) Added procedural interface
+ (BRL.Map) Fixed TMap.Remove:TNode not returning node
+ (BRL.Max2D) Fixed collision bug with non alpha/masked images
+ (BRL.OGGLoader) Fixed reading past end of stream with some short files
+ (BRL.GLGraphics) Added GLDrawPixmp
+ (BRL.GLGraphics) Trapped Win32 WM_CLOSE
+ (BRL.GLGraphics) Added extra check for use of flip sync extensions under Linux
+ (BRL.GLMax2D) Fixed filtered image min filters
+ (BRL.Pixmap) Added _source:Object field
+ (BRL.Stream) Fixed resource leak in CasedFileName
+ (BRL.System) New Linux implementation of OpenURL
+ (BRL.System) RequestFile now adds extension to filename on Windows
+ (BRL.System) Added EVENT_GADGETLOSTFOCUS handling
+ (BRL.System) Added EVENT_KEYREPEAT handling
+ (BRL.System) OpenURL now attempts to fully qualify file / http url supplied
+ (BRL.System) Fixed MacOS RequestFile to respect wild card filter
+ (BRL.System) Fixed mouse hidden by default
+ (BRL.System) Fixed HideMouse causing mouse to disappear when in non-client areas
+ (BRL.System) Fixed Linux MoveMouse to be relative to the origin of the current Graphics window
+ (BRL.TextStream) Modified LoadText to handle stream URLs
+ (BRL.TextStream) Added LoadText, SaveText
+ (BRL.TextStream) Fixed UTF16LE=4
+ (BRL.TextStream) Added TextStream module
***** 1.20 Release *****
+ (BRL.FileSystem) Added CopyDir/CopyFile.
+ (BCC) Fixed export/import of longs.
+ (BRL.Graphics) Fixed soft synced Flip so it doesn't overflow after 4+ hours.
+ (Bank) Added Lock/Unlock semantics to replace the direct buffer access. See LockBank/UnlockBank/TBank.Lock/TBank.Unlock - please use these instead of BankBuf/TBank.Buf in future.
+ (BCC) Fixed Incbin so it doesn't matter where it is in code.
+ (BCC) Tidied up $z and $w again. These can now only be used with extern functions AND function pointers!
+ (BCC) Fixed imports of const Nans/Infs.
+ (BRL.Math) Added IsNan, IsInf
+ (BRL.LinkedList) Added optional CompareFunc parameter to SortList
+ (BRL.Graphics) Added DefaultGraphicsFlags() Function
+ (BRL.Hook) Added Context parameter to RemoveHook function
+ (BRL.MaxGUI) GraphicsFlags removed from CreatePanel, panels now use Graphic's DefaultGraphicsFlags
+ (BRL.MaxGUI) Added range checking on gadget item parameters
+ (BRL.FLTKMaxGUI) Fixed ClearListItems
+ (BRL.FLTKMaxGUI) Fixed some keyboard focus problems
+ (BRL.FLTKMaxGUI) Fixed case sensitive shortcut keys issue with fltk1.1.7
+ (BRL.FLTKMaxGUI) Fixed Canvas depthbuffers
+ (BRL.CocoaMaxGUI) Fixed DisableGadget for TextFields, Sliders and Menus
+ (BRL.CocoaMaxGUI) Stopped TreeViewNode with iconstrip crashing with no icon (icon=-1)
+ (BRL.CocoaMaxGUI) Stopped stepper Slider value from wrapping around
+ (BRL.CocoaMaxGUI) Fixed TextField to scroll single line correctly
+ (BRL.CocoaMaxGUI) Added out of range error checks for TextArea commands
+ (BRL.Win32MaxGUI) Fixed menu problem with new const cstr() implementation
+ (BRL.Win32MaxGUI) Fixed memory leak in cstr() implementation (should be const)
+ (BRL.Win32MaxGUI) TextArea gadgets now use unicode
+ (BRL.Win32MaxGUI) Fixed SLIDER_STEPPER sliders reporting decremented values
+ (BRL.Win32MaxGUI) Fixed GadgetHidden()
+ (BRL.System) Added Linux X11 import to remove glgraphics.mod dependency
+ (Pub.Lua) Moved to Axe.Lua
+ (BCC/BMK etc) Added macos x86 support.
+ (BRL.GNet) Fixed low level send/recv leaks.
+ (BCC) Added $w support for 16 bit wide chars.
***** 1.16 Release *****
+ (BRL.GNet) Now uses Pub.Enet
+ (Pub.ENet) Added.
+ (BCC) Fixed object->ptr conversion causing GC problems.
+ (BRL.Win32MaxGUI) Fixed panels with PANEL_GROUP style client child clipping problem
+ (BRL.Win32MaxGUI) Fixed incorrect index handling for ModifyGadgetItem on combo and list boxes
+ (BRL.System) Fixed win32 clipboard glitches with QS_ALLINPUT bbSystemWait mod
+ (BRL.System) CGSetLocalEventsSuppressionInterval fix for MacOS bbSystemMoveMouse
+ (BRL.Map) Fixed TMap.Remove:TNode(key) not returning node
+ (BRL.CocoaMaxGUI) Fixed NSRequestFont behavior with null default
+ (BRL.CocoaMaxGUI) Fixed Disable on Panel and Canvas NSGadgets
+ (BRL.Win32MaxGUI) Fixed MenuText and SetMenuText crashes
+ (BRL.D3D7Max2D) Fixed lost device from fullscreen tabbing
+ (BRL.D3D7Max2D) Fixed MIPMAPPEDIMAGE flag effect on FILTEREDIMAGE setting
+ (BRL.MaxGui) Fixed some broken examples due to new 1.14 strict rules
+ (BRL.MaxGui) New common maxgui.h header file for use by native drivers
+ (BRL.MaxGui) Documented TEXTAREA_ALL, TEXTAREA_CHARS and TEXTAREA_LINES constants
+ (BRL.MaxGui) TreeView now uses EventExtra to specify node involved
+ (PUB.FreeJoy) Added MacOSX joystick axis Rx,Ry,Rz (JoyR,JoyU,JoyV) and Wheel
+ (BRL.D3D7Max2D) Added flush to BufferedD3D7Max2DDriver for SetBlend and SetViewPort
+ (BRL.Win32MaxGUI) Fixed lost focus during TextArea formatting
+ (BRL.Win32MaxGUI) Fixed ActivateWindow freezing when trying to find first tab stop
***** 1.14 Release *****
+ (BCC) Fixed 'unrelated types' error when comparing extern type objects.
+ (BCC) No more implicit object<->handle conversions in strict mode! Use: HandleToObject and HandleFromObject to perform explicit object<->handle conversion.
+ (BRL.Stream) Readint -> ReadInt!
+ (BCC) Fixed GC bug with auto arrays
+ (BRL.Data) Removed TDataStream.NewObject, modified TDataStream.ReadObject.
+ (BRL.TextStream) Read/Write methods now use pure text (experimental!)
+ (Pub.StdC) Fixed getsockopt
+ (BRL.MaxGui) Query renamed QueryGadget
+ (BCC) Fixed incrementing precolored reg degree regallocator bug.
+ (BRL.Blitz) Removed printf in 'Throw'.
+ (BRL.D3D7Max2D) Replaced texture factor with vertex colors for improved driver compatability
+ (BRL.Win32MaxGui) Fixed vertical trackbar problems with -ve ranges.
+ (Pub.FreeAudio) Fixed freepool sounds Not resetting parameters - thanks To Fetze
+ (Pub.DirectX) Added TnL GUID.
+ (BRL.DXGraphics) Tries TnL device first.
+ (BRL.Win32MaxGui) Fixed SelectedTreeViewNode crash and TreeViewNode GetText method.
+ (BRL.AppStub) Removed unused debugger sources.
+ (BRL.AppStub) Fixed debugger not showing base type info.
+ (BCC) Fixed 'Var expr' causing 'internal error'. 'Var expr' has been removed - use 'expr[0]' instead.
+ (BCC) Fixed SuperStrict int import bug.
+ (BRL.GLGraphics) Changed capture display to capture all displays for MacOS.
+ (BRL.AppStub/BRL.CocoaMaxGui) Fixed missing app menu under latest Tiger.
I'm not sure why Mark doesn't want to update the demos (especially Windows - at least OS X is v1.20) as it benefits not only him but the entire community if more licenses were purchased for BlitzMax.
Or maybe he's waiting for the big v1.30!
I guess the best course of action might be to simply port flow to other more mainstream languages that are freely available. Much of the work has already been done and then we can reach a broader audience.
Indeed. Let me know how that turns out, will you?
it benefits not only him but the entire community if more licenses were purchased for BlitzMax.
How does it benefit the community? There was a much greater sense of community back when it was a small, tight-knit, mostly homogeneous group of people, using a single product, than there is today.
How does it benefit the community?
Isn't it obvious - more sales = more revenue = more reason to improve BlitzMax = more updates = more sales etc. Also the bigger the community, the more contributors there will be to community projects such as MiniB3D and BlitzMax IDE CE, which in turn will make BlitzMax a better product. Like it or not, BlitzMax has a lot of potential to be a great language.
We "officially" stopped supporting Demo Users question on the german boards quite some time ago as it is impossible to answer questions to a language that has nothing to do with BlitzMax anymore at all.
Especially as most questions are Max2D related that was dead end broken in 1.12 (got fixed with 1.16 on Windows).
I / We would be really happy if BRL invested the time to get Current Demo Versions out at latest when the new MaxGUI will become stable and non SVN available so the community can start to grow again. Currently its even getting more and more impossible to write Tutorials that work with the StoneAge windows demo at all. Leopard has no compatible demo as well.
All broken.
Isn't it obvious - more sales = more revenue = more reason to improve BlitzMax = more updates = more sales
You forgot "more forum noise, more troublemakers, more repeated questions, more complaining about DX9".
Got to agree with FlameDuck. Blitz forums were much nicer seven years ago when there wasn't so many people here.
Sorry for invading your space.
If BRL were my company I would (re Blitzmax):
- Update the demo version. This would include running a competition for the best new demo game under x Mb. The top 5 or so would then replace those currently looking rather tired in the existing demo.
- Stop patching up from 1.18 just to install the latest version
- Update the latest stable install packages quarterly
- Include up-to-date installation instructions in all install packages
- Pay for Chinese and Indian localisation.
- Rewrite the IDE
Blitzmax is such an excellent language. I see no reason why it couldn't become a very, very strong revenue generator for BRL.
BM does not run at all on non US ASCII basing Windows.
The core filesystem is ANSI-ASCII, not even fully ASCII compliant.
@The core filesystem is ANSI-ASCII, not even fully ASCII compliant.
O, dear - really? That would need changing then.
Ah! Just found this thread again.
I found myself Emailing Mark yesterday regarding the Demos, and put forward some of the points mentioned- Mainly that the demo is presently a good example of why NOT to buy BlitzMax.
I am glad to say I got a good response, short but sweet:
To Damien Sturdy
Hi,
I am planning to update the demo soon.
Bye!
Mark
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 9:17 AM, Damien Sturdy
wrote:
Pay for Chinese... localisation.
That would be the death of BRL.
I am planning to update the demo soon.
Ah so within the next couple of years then :)
Are we going to have a sweep on then, £1 to buy a month, months available up until April 2013! ;)
Winner wins the newest demo of BlitzMax, and I keep all the money! :P
Hehe, great news about the demo being updated soon, was a bit worried earlier this week when I downloaded the demo to my wifes puter to make sure it compiled.
I noticed the demo has MaxGUI integrated. Flow can use MaxGUI too which is kind of cool, but we need to make sure that those without can still compile with the flow demo.
The demo is a demo of BM and MaxGUI yes ... helps them to see what BM + MaxGUI is capable of.
But I doubt that that many people actually dive into the MaxGUI part ... most likely BlitzPlus users thinking about "getting crossplatformness" or "OO" and the like ... the broad majority uses it for its 2D programming simplicity.