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AppGameKit Classic Chat / Documentation is REALLY BAD

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Paul_S
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Posted: 10th Sep 2012 04:50
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You can check my purchase history. I have purchased many products from the The Game Creators. I am sorry but the documentation for the AppGameKit is really pathetic. It is missing in so many areas. I do not want to or expect to take weeks to try to figure out how to compile the product to all the targets that I want to target and yet her I am trying to figure out how to take a game to my android and my iphone.

I think you guys should have a step by step from any platform to all platforms targeted. If you do and I have missed it then I am sorry. If you do not then Shame on me for being stupid enough to buy another product that is lacking on documentation.

Paul
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Hodgey
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Posted: 10th Sep 2012 11:59
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Here are the publishing guides (you'll need to scroll down to "Tier 1 Publishing").

I've also made a few vidoes (windows & iOS) on the matter. I haven't made an Android one but Daniel TGC has made one here.

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bjadams
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Posted: 10th Sep 2012 12:09
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The documentation is ok.

I found it easy to follow. no complaints from my side here, which is a really big thing!!!!
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JimHawkins
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Posted: 10th Sep 2012 13:14
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Erik's docs for the Pascal are very clear and easy to follow. Even I followed them, and I'm 328 years old in a few weeks!

-- Jim DO IT FASTER, EASIER AND BETTER WITH AppGameKit FOR PASCAL
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baxslash
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Posted: 10th Sep 2012 13:33
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I'm sorry you think the documentation is really bad, personally I've only found a few areas where I couldn't find the information I needed.

If you expect to be able to create a game for multiple platforms without spending a few weeks learning then I'm sorry, that's just not likely or advisable. There are always a certain amount of platform specific hoops to jump through.

TGC are making it easier all the time and the new Freedom Engine will make it simpler still when it is fully up and running but even then you will need to get used to using Android / iOS specific tools and verification processes which are also changing all the time. I hope you understand and don't get discouraged as it's worth the extra work, trust me.


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MarcoBruti
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Posted: 10th Sep 2012 15:19
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@Baxslash
Sorry, but the documentation is not really bad, it is simply lacking completeness and examples. It started well with guides and sample, but the good tradition has been discontinued.
Some commands are not documented, some are very poorly described (see category and group, and in fact very little people understood how to use them).
Apart forum and dedicated books (we cannot rely only on forum or expensive books to achieve a minimum of information), a good documentation (reference guide), is a vital part of any IT product, and without it, a product generally does not enjoys an easy life. No one is asking to create games without spending a feew weeks on the product, but at least a well-written doc is a good starting point. I started writing my first AppGameKit app after 2 week, but I had the DBPro experience, and the DBPro doc maybe a little better. I hope that with FE, the documentation standards will be upgraded a little, otherwise AppGameKit and FE will become a "niche" product.
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baxslash
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Posted: 10th Sep 2012 15:37
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I guess it depends what you are comparing it to. I found DBPro was not as complete as AppGameKit in terms of documentation. Perhaps other mobile SDK's have better documentation but I haven't tried them personally.

What would you suggest was a better role model? I'll take a look and if I think we are missing something the competition does better I'll certainly suggest investment in more documentation.

Personally I've always seen the forums here as the best learning tool and one of TGC's greatest assets. I've always learned better from someone showing me how something can be achieved here than reading documents and even looking at examples (which very often don't relate exactly to what I'm trying to do). Here we can find someone (90% of the time at least) who is willing to help and knows a few different ways of doing the same thing.


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MarcoBruti
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Posted: 10th Sep 2012 16:31
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@baxslash.
The problem that you are thinking from YOUR very special point of view. You are a VERY VERY advanced user, people writing in this forum are VERY ADVANCED USER, I am simply an advanced user, but many people that should buy the product are beginners or average users that want to enter the world of game creation...or at least it should be (schools, kids, hobbists, etc)
So a good documentation is THE STARTING POINT. Fora are more a tool to be used by people already accustomed to the product, or to acquire some basic info about the product in order to choose if to buy or not.
I do not think that one would spend a lot of money in the AppGameKit book only because there is no decent documentation. Do you think that on-line documentation or fora are enough for beginners?
Being you part of TGC staff, I think that you'll help your colleagurs to do the right choice to invest or not in additional documentation. I may only give you some suggestion as a customer of your product.
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baxslash
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Posted: 10th Sep 2012 16:39
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You're forgetting that I have been a customer of TGC since about 2006 and have spent a lot of money on their products long before I started working for them only a short time ago. I was a beginner then and learned what I know about DBPro (as well as almost all of the plugins) and AppGameKit purely from online documentation. Before that I was a blacksmith

I am actually talking from the standpoint of someone who was a beginner before picking up a TGC product. I'm not saying that the documents or forum are perfect but I did find it a very easy way to learn.


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DVader
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Posted: 10th Sep 2012 17:11
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I thought the original documentation released with AppGameKit was fairly good in the main. There are a few commands missed out though, that don't affect me, but to a beginner could be a pain. For instance try typing gosub or include in, selecting it and hitting F1 for help. You will find nothing listed. There are probably more examples like this, but those two are the only ones I can think of offhand.
True, the compile instructions are fairly confusing. One problem being that you visit the sites mentioned and the version of a lot of things you need has changed, so you are never 100% sure if you are doing something wrong or if the newer version of the software you are using is causing issues. When I purchased AppGameKit the advertising blurb pretty much gave the impression that this was a pretty automated process. I was wrong, and TGC lost a few brownie points at the time. It never mentioned that the few clicks needed were only when testing, and you couldn't do that for creating final builds.
The help files could do with a little once over, a few more examples for some things would be nice. The HTTP commands could do with more info for one, I personally have been struggling on and off with them since they were released. Not everyone are experts on HTML and it's intricacies, so a little more basic info would be good. A little info stating for instance you cannot send a file via HTTP unless you use php script or such would be nice for us not in the know. I noticed the only example with HTTP was receiving a file for instance. Things can certainly be improved, but I wouldn't agree that the documentation is REALLY BAD, just has room for improvement.

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Rich Dersheimer
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Posted: 10th Sep 2012 18:00
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The help files do tend to lag behind the language updates, for instance, there's no help for GetCurrentDate() or GetCurrentTime().

But the thing that really bugs me, is how hard it is to USE the help files. Okay, you put your cursor on a command or function and hit F1.

The help opens in a browser window. Wait a minute, that command is not the one I want, I want a command from the same family, but not that one.

But there's no link to the "family" of that command, in fact the family is not even shown. Do I want the sprite commands, or the image commands?

So I hit HOME and start looking. Wrong family, so I hit the back button. Or at least I think I do, but I don't because the back button is now in a different place. It kind of shifts around from page to page.

Okay, I find the command I'm looking for, and switch back to AGK. Ten minutes later I hit F1 again, and a NEW browser window opens, with the same limitations as the old one. Lather, rinse, repeat.

All these things are minor annoyances, but they are also easily fixed. I mean, how hard is it to put a link to the index of Sprite Commands at the bottom of each sprite help page?

dersheimer.com
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baxslash
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Posted: 10th Sep 2012 18:06
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Yes, I agree it would be nice to have these improvements in the help files. I'll definitely suggest them.


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basjak
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Posted: 10th Sep 2012 19:15
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personally, I found AppGameKit very straight forward. even the help files were clear enough for me. It took me less than one month to cover T1 and now am revising c++ to make apps with T2.

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Mobiius
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Posted: 10th Sep 2012 21:49
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I found AGK's help files quite good. I even found DBP's help files good too.

Granted, compiling to Android was a bit fiddly, but you only need to follow them once and your set up.

I live for video games! (And beers, and football, and cars!)
See what I live for here: [url]http:\\www.TeamDefiant.co.uk[/url]
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The Zoq2
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Posted: 10th Sep 2012 23:18
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I find the AppGameKit docummentation pretty usefull to, the android compiling is a bit hard thoug, and random changes (the media folder in the assets folder) has made it even more difficult. (This isn't included in the vide either)
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bjadams
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Posted: 10th Sep 2012 23:32
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i think that people might get the impression that AppGameKit is one-button click deploy to all appstores tool!

this might be because of the way the players for t1 are advertised.

i think that having a magical one-click button detracts a lot from the "power" of being a programmer. part of the fun in being a programmer is having the knowledge to do "complicated" tasks "normal people" cannot do.

if submitting to the appstore was an easy task, we would all be jobless as people who hire us to do a job specifically seek someone with appstore distribution experience.

For me, it's good the way it is, i want to learn bits of xcode and eclipse and visual studio to feel like a real programmer!!!
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BatVink
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Posted: 10th Sep 2012 23:41
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Quote: " i want to learn bits of xcode and eclipse and visual studio to feel like a real programmer!"


Agreed, programming is not for the feint-hearted and understanding some more complex is essential. The days of...

10 PRINT "HELLO"
20 GOTO 10

...are long gone, but the things that can be achieved are now incredible.

In my day job, the systems we sell to our customers need a minimum of 5 or 6 servers, and 3 months to implement. Some sites have dozens of servers and takes a couple of years to implement. So a couple of hours to learn how to deploy to Android is a breeze, believe me!

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Hodgey
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Posted: 11th Sep 2012 00:09
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Quote: "but many people that should buy the product are beginners or average users that want to enter the world of game creation"

From an average user's perspective, I always found the documentation to be quite good. Sure, it's not perfect but in most cases it does its job.

The only complaints I have are the ones Rich mentioned and they're not that serious either.

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basjak
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Posted: 11th Sep 2012 00:28
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Quote: "
"but many people that should buy the product are beginners or average users that want to enter the world of game creation""

True but everything starts with first step. Beginners need time to understand the concept of programming before blaming the programming language. Agk or dB pro are very good languages to start programming yet, you get professional results.

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DVader
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Posted: 11th Sep 2012 01:59 Edited at: 11th Sep 2012 02:06
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Quote: "10 PRINT "HELLO"
20 GOTO 10"


Why? That would still work today :p

Edit - Oh you forgot POKE 23658,8 at the start, plus a message to the store in question At least on the Speccy

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IronGiant
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Posted: 11th Sep 2012 02:11
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The Docs are ok, would be better if they were in chm form, but I do have to agree that the level of Basic level 1 to Android deployment is a bit much for beginners, but probably be hard to set all that up with one click.
So the best bet is to watch any video, read any article and practice. Oh and you can still use .
10 Print " Hello"
20 goto 10
On a Windows or Mac machine.
just gettin it to run on a droid is gonna take a little effort.
But just about any Basic Language will let you program simply on a Windows or Mac Machine. Its when you take it mobile that a whole new level of "what the hell!" occurs.
But AppGameKit at least makes the game development part easy. Just try some of the stuff AppGameKit does in Java and you'll wanna pull your hair out.
Just ordered me a droid pad, so here's hoping I don't find it such a nightmare deploying AppGameKit on it, up until now its been all PC.

It's Bird! , It's Plane!, No its a rocket powered Squirrel holding some acorns and a smile!
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Auger
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Posted: 11th Sep 2012 02:23 Edited at: 11th Sep 2012 02:25
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I found the documentation was adequate. It's not bad but could be improved here and there.

I wished some of the Box2d joint and limb commands would be documented a bit clearer. There are some commands there that use degrees while others take radians and it's not documented.

As for transferring to Android( the only one I attempted so far) , the video was pretty good at explaining things and I managed to get it done.

I took a few hours though and it would have been nice just to hit and button and have it done. I'm hoping this is where FE will come in handy.

Lastly here's a site that will help anyone that's a beginner and wants to really learn how to program.

http://norvig.com/21-days.html
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erebusman
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Posted: 11th Sep 2012 03:56
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Quote: "The help files could do with a little once over, a few more examples for some things would be nice. The HTTP commands could do with more info for one, I personally have been struggling on and off with them since they were released. Not everyone are experts on HTML and it's intricacies, so a little more basic info would be good. A little info stating for instance you cannot send a file via HTTP unless you use php script or such would be nice for us not in the know. I noticed the only example with HTTP was receiving a file for instance. Things can certainly be improved, but I wouldn't agree that the documentation is REALLY BAD, just has room for improvement.
"


I agree with this.

The help files and documentation and templates have not aged well.

*******I WISH THEY WERE IN A WIKI THAT THE COMMUNITY ESPECIALLY THE TESTERS COULD HELP MAINTAIN!************

Clearly TGC has little to no interest in keeping these resources up to date - but the community does!

Digging through forum to make my Tier2 iOS project & template work for 3 days was not a pleasant task. It definitely came off as unpolished, unprofessional, poorly documented and buggy.

I had to copy things out of the Tier1 interpreter folders to make my project work? I could go on but this is a primo example.

Theres lots of very intelligent and hard working community members that would be glad to help keep living documents up to date. TGC needs to utilize the community as a resource!
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Dar13
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Posted: 11th Sep 2012 04:09
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Quote: "I WISH THEY WERE IN A WIKI THAT THE COMMUNITY ESPECIALLY THE TESTERS COULD HELP MAINTAIN!"

What's stopping the community from creating a github repository that holds all the templates and keeping them updated from there?

Or creating a wiki on something like Wikia?

Follow WTLD's progress on Twitter
Git repository for WasTeLanD
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erebusman
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Posted: 11th Sep 2012 04:33
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@ Dar13

I've considered doing it myself a few times -- just I can't do it all by myself and I'm hardly the best person. If TGC provides the resource and / or officially endorses it I think we'd see a community surge of support for this.

I'd volunteer to help enter / port pages from the AppGameKit Documents over myself for starters.
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Paul_S
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Posted: 11th Sep 2012 05:02
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First. Let me apologize. I am sorry for my initial post that started this thread. I have a lot of personal things going on including a death in the family and my post and attitude was completely out of line. None of this is an excuse to my post which I am sorry to the entire game creator’s forum and developers.

My frustration is out of trying to get everything configured. I currently program in C# (2003, 2005, 2010) and Delphi from Version 7 through XE2. I have never created a “real” game but I have messed with different products from the game creators including dark basic pro and FPS creator.

What I would like to do is work on a game that eventually will be deployed to the Android and IPhone and I am having trouble getting my environment configured to do what I would think is fairly simple.

I guess I expected a guide including with the 11 downloaded files included with my purchase as to what I would need to install and how to configure for deploying applications. I can compile a game and run it on windows but I do not know how to begin to get the game to my android phone.

That is where my frustration is. Possibly I am missing the guide and if so I apologize. I just finished downloading a 3 gig video file for working with the android and I will start to watch it as soon as I post this. I just thought there would have been a guide to configuring the AppGameKit for all the supported platforms. Possibly I installed the wrong applications but I am not seeing this document and as I said I can compile and play a game on windows.


Again, I apologize for my attitude and any help would be appreciated or if anyone can point me to the right location to get everything configured.

Thank you,
Paul
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Hodgey
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Posted: 11th Sep 2012 06:51
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Quote: "What's stopping the community from creating a github repository that holds all the templates and keeping them updated from there?"

Thank you for volunteering Dar13.

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erebusman
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Posted: 11th Sep 2012 07:46
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Wikia seems to do 'game' wiki's but unclear if a 'game development kit' would be allowed...
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baxslash
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Posted: 11th Sep 2012 09:24
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If there was a community run wiki I would gladly add to and improve the current help files there. In the meantime I'll ask Rick how I can edit / improve the ones that ship with AppGameKit / FE and try to improve the commands I already know are lacking.

Hopefully that will plug some leaks


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JimHawkins
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Posted: 11th Sep 2012 09:45
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It's hard to win with documentation.

I wrote a 25-page technical manual for our language lab system. It covers everything. It's a complete description of the system. But still IT staff phone up asking questions. Why? because they can't be bothered to read the manual. One even told me so!

-- Jim DO IT FASTER, EASIER AND BETTER WITH AppGameKit FOR PASCAL
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baxslash
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Posted: 11th Sep 2012 10:50
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I think the problem is that different people learn in different ways. My old boss learned languages by sitting and reading manuals for days on end until he had a good understanding, I learned be having a go and when I didn't understand something I looked at the help files. If I couldn't find what I needed there I would search on the forums and finally ask on the forums.

Horses for courses...

Ideally I would like to see enough information to suit everyone's learning method but practically it's better to have a few fairly concise methods available that are kept updated.


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BatVink
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Posted: 11th Sep 2012 12:11
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Quote: "I WISH THEY WERE IN A WIKI THAT THE COMMUNITY ESPECIALLY THE TESTERS COULD HELP MAINTAIN"


This has been tried a couple of times in the past, and it didn't work. Everybody said what a great idea it was, they would all get involved, and when somebody created one, it just died.

Creating and maintaining help files is a mammoth task. The ones who write the programs are generally not the right people to write the help files. They make big assumptions because they are so familiar with the product.

I find people don't like to read help. For general Windows/PC problems that people ask me about, 90% of them can be answered with "Have you pressed F1?". Unfortunately when it comes to understanding programming commands and methods, reading is the only way.

I agree with Rich, and I think I posted it on the bugs board. Every command should have a link back to its family homepage.

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JimHawkins
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Posted: 11th Sep 2012 17:06 Edited at: 11th Sep 2012 17:08
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My personal view is that small, well-targeted examples are worth many pages of abstract description. Most programmers really learn from studying examples, rather than BNF or whatever. Even heavyweight language manuals contain copious small examples.

I know only too well that in a rapid development phase (RDP) the documentation gets left behind. Guilty, I'm afraid.

To some extent we, the AppGameKit community, are also guilty for screaming for various goodies and 3D. TGC are adding new commands at an incredibly fast rate.

Lee will remember the early Amiga days. The manuals were to some extent produced using an autodoc system. This meant that when new stuff was done, with proper commenting in the source, updated manuals were fairly quick to output. Such a system would be a first-stage point of call for experienced programmers.

I would like to see things presented this way:



I do think TGC may need to delegate somebody to keep the docs reasonably up to date. I wish I had one!

-- Jim DO IT FASTER, EASIER AND BETTER WITH AppGameKit FOR PASCAL
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BatVink
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Posted: 11th Sep 2012 17:18
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Quote: "My personal view is that small, well-targeted examples are worth many pages of abstract description"

I agree. When coding in languages I use only rarely,I will hunt through masses of detail to find the source code example. In fact, my bookmark bar at the top of Chrome here is full of links to source code examples

Quote: "The manuals were to some extent produced using an autodoc system"

Rather like the current day JavaDoc...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javadoc

I have tried multiple times to discipline myself to do this. I wrote my own for DBPro, for my own projects. Then, I failed to maintain my own standards

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MarcoBruti
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Posted: 11th Sep 2012 17:57
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are we talking of AppGameKit as an hobbystic/hacker stuff to take as is, or a commercial product? In the former case, I totally agree (documentation is enough), in the latter (apart price is really low), I don't. Fora, help-on-line and volunteers are useful, but on-top of a good documentation base. Otherwise it is like Linux and man pages. You hacker and advanced hobbyst can survive well, beginner doesn't. If TGC is happy with this approach, well...no problem for me.
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IronGiant
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Posted: 11th Sep 2012 19:09
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I learn all my programming languages by various ways, depends on the language. If it's like AppGameKit, I play with the Examples, then when I see something I dont quite get, I go to the help files. Most basics allow this. fuddle with the Examples, then reach for help when needed. Others like AS3 and Java, I read many books first. And we all understand frustration Paul. I was the same way when tryin to grasp Classes in Java, Javascript and AS3. Drove me to the point where I wanted to throw my damn Kindle, ( I read programmin PDFs on it). On side note, be nice if we had a PDF help file . My Kindle and my New droid pad I have coming would like to learn AppGameKit also, ; )

I take My Programming reading on the go, Makes for something to do while waitin in the car, while my Girl friend shops. With the new Droid I ordered, I got a few Basics lined up for experimental programming. Gekko's GG basic, written in AppGameKit was lookin good, till I saw it was Ipad only. I dont wanna advertize any other basics for droids, since I like Lee and company and want them to get all the press they can. So if you're interested in mobile (while on the go) programmin for fun, Google is your friend.

It's Bird! , It's Plane!, No its a rocket powered Squirrel holding some acorns and a smile!
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erebusman
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Posted: 14th Sep 2012 07:19
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Quote: "
This has been tried a couple of times in the past, and it didn't work. Everybody said what a great idea it was, they would all get involved, and when somebody created one, it just died.

Creating and maintaining help files is a mammoth task. The ones who write the programs are generally not the right people to write the help files. They make big assumptions because they are so familiar with the product.
"


You say a community driven wiki has been tried in the past?

Do we have permission to reproduce the current documentation so I can use that as a starting point?
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Kevin Picone
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Posted: 14th Sep 2012 08:02
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Quote: "You say a community driven wiki has been tried in the past?"


Yep, there was at least 3 or 4 attempts in the Dbpro community.


Mobile Platforms Are Coming
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BatVink
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Posted: 14th Sep 2012 11:40
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Welcome to the Wiki graveyard, these are just a small selection...

DarkGDK

DBP

FPSC (deleted)

Another dead DBP Wiki link

DarkGDK

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erebusman
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Posted: 14th Sep 2012 19:10
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@Batvink thanks for the references

Do you know or have a resource for TGC's stance on copying/duplicating portions of the existing guide into my proposed wiki?

I refuse to let other peoples tapered off projects to demotivateme .

But I do want to make sure TGC won't try to shut me down if I go through the work of creating and transcribing and updating a AppGameKit wiki
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kamac
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Posted: 14th Sep 2012 19:24
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It'd be good if TGC hosted their own wiki for each of their products.
Editing it's contents would either require the user to be logged in & have that product bought / let users edit it freely / make every change require approval & give the job to approve these to some qualified people

Follow me on twitter! @MotionStruct
Motion Struct blog
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Rich Dersheimer
AGK Developer
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Posted: 14th Sep 2012 19:26
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Quote: "I refuse to let other peoples tapered off projects to demotivateme"


erebusman, I applaud your attitude!

Three questions, though.

Are you in school? (high school, college, university?)

Do you have a job?

Do you have a family?

Any of those conditions can be the downfall of enthusiastic wiki builders. Real life concerns certainly outrank making a wiki for a hobby like AGK.

Having said that, if you DO make a wiki, I promise to visit it, use it, and help update* it.










* Some restrictions apply, limited to time available due to schoolwork/job/family requirements.

dersheimer.com
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bjadams
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Posted: 14th Sep 2012 20:10
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suggestion: since there are a couple of interested people to do this documentation, why doesn't tgc set up a team or 3-4 people like they did with the testers?
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erebusman
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Posted: 14th Sep 2012 20:31
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@rich: I have a job and family, and while not in school I always have a learning book assigned to my reading list

However my personal argument is the time I've spent digging through forums and hundreds of posts to find issues and fixes could have been much less with better documentation ... Most especially with documentation that gets updated.

Additionally I learn by doing. So documenting AppGameKit will greatly increase my knowledge of AGK. Therefore I plan to allocate half of my weekly learning time to this wiki project until its complete. Probably take me one month once I get the framework set up!
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Hodgey
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Posted: 15th Sep 2012 03:07
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Quote: "But I do want to make sure TGC won't try to shut me down if I go through the work of creating and transcribing and updating a AppGameKit wiki"

I highly doubt TGC will try to shut you down if your intentions are to improve/expand on the documentation for others to benefit from. You'd basically be doing them a favour. However, if you're unsure just send Rick or Lee an email.

Erebusman, if you want to setup this wiki (and TGC are fine with it) then I say go for it. Whilst some might be skeptical about its success, you can't succeed without trying.

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erebusman
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Posted: 15th Sep 2012 06:55
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email has been sent to lee well see how it goes , wasn't sure if he would be the type to respond or not -- but doesn't hurt to try I suppose!

will keep you posted
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bjadams
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Posted: 15th Sep 2012 10:09
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lee seems very busy with the intel challenge right now so i would take my chance emailing someone else
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erebusman
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Posted: 16th Sep 2012 20:46
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I'm busy working on the release candidate of my product to ship at the end of next weekend anyways ; I won't be actively pursing this until Pirates Treasure ships anyways. So the short delay is fine.
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erebusman
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Posted: 18th Sep 2012 17:07
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Lee responded and provided permission. Will start a new thread soon once things are set up and moving. Look for that early next week.
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bjadams
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Posted: 18th Sep 2012 17:52
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great news.
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