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AppGameKit Classic Chat / App Game Kit 108 Beta 16

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swissolo
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Posted: 29th Jul 2013 03:19
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Quote: "@swissolo, how did you come to that conclusion? The help for the command says that it includes all the time spent swapping the backbuffer, including time it takes for the GPU to catch up. That sounds pretty legitimate and a good way to get draw time, since it takes into account the speed (or lack thereof) of the GPU."

I'd have to put the code back together, as I've since removed it, but I was attempting to calculate the "would-be" FPS of my program. Discluding the time from getDrawingTime() I got a pseudo-FPS around 4000, but including it, it matched my FPS cap of 60. When uncapped, the program runs at ~3700 FPS (as reported by AGK).

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Space Dream Studios
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Posted: 29th Jul 2013 15:34 Edited at: 29th Jul 2013 15:36
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@Ancient Lady: Thank you very much for your suggestions! After doing some more deeper tests, it turned out, that all GetHTTP commands are working great!!! It's actually no issue of that command set. It's an issue of using editboxes in my app!!!! Because I'm using a password type editbox, I coudn't see the problem. Actually almost all editboxes on iOS, in my app, showing a strange behaviour during typing in the first 1 to 4 chars. Actually the editbox inverts the order of the chars...
Mostly after the 4th char all other chars lining up correctly. But it also looks like that's not all the time happen with all editboxes.
I wasn't aware of that issue because of the password asterix chars So everytime I typed my password in, to connect to the server, it was messed up
It looks like, that it only applies to editboxes in iOS environment.
Any ideas???? Thanks!

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Ancient Lady
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Posted: 29th Jul 2013 16:33
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I will look into this. They 'fixed' a problem with not being able to move the input cursor in v10816. But it introduced an issue with not being able to do upper case characters the usual way.

I will check to see if the 'fix' also messed with the returned values.

Cheers,
Ancient Lady
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Space Dream Studios
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Posted: 29th Jul 2013 17:23
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@ Ancient Lady: Thanks a lot! Hope that's going to be fixed soon, since i have promised my customer to come up with a final app today

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Ancient Lady
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Posted: 29th Jul 2013 17:33
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It won't be fixed today.

Can you show me the code you are using to set up and retrieve the text?

I haven't been able to reproduce the issue in Tier 2 (I had a test already set up, so I just added the password command). It might be a Tier 1 issue.

If I can reproduce your problem, I might also be able to help you work around or fix it.

Cheers,
Ancient Lady
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Ancient Lady
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Posted: 29th Jul 2013 18:12
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Okay, I just took my Tier 2 EditBox test and made it into Tier 1 and broadcast from v10816 IDE to v10816 Player.

When I started typing in the edit box, it kept the input cursor on the left and all my input went in backwards.

But that only worked when the app was freshly started.

If I moved the input cursor or pressed 'Done' on the keyboard and then typed in the field again, it worked properly (except for the shift key making the next typed character capitalized).

I have to go for an appointment. I'll write this error up in the google list when I get back.

Cheers,
Ancient Lady
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Space Dream Studios
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Posted: 29th Jul 2013 18:31
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Thanks Acient Lady for investing time into that issue!!!

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Ancient Lady
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Posted: 29th Jul 2013 20:42
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I just posted the issue and started a new thread here about it.

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Ancient Lady
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Santman
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Posted: 31st Jul 2013 00:50
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I think I've found an issue with text objects, but not sure. Put simply, they don;t seem to resize to take account of aspect changes. My program is primarily tested on a PC with a res 1280 x 720. I've created buttons that have text object markers on them that position in the middle of the button, looking fine. I've broadcast to my phone (I should point out this is using setvirtualresolution for 1280 by 720) and then I SetDisplayAspect(-1) so that the entire screen is always used. My phone has that native screen aspect so no problems. Swap to tablet - text objects overrun everything as it has a more square aspect ratio.

My understanding is that the SetDisplayAspect(-1) should adjust everything to fill the entire viewable screen, however text objects appear to be left out of this calculation in the width/height stretching.

Is my understanding wrong, or is this an issue?

P.S. I've no idea at all when this became an issue, I'm still on beta 14 as I never had any issues with that, and these buttons are new, I've just added them. I'll test beta 16 tomorrow.)
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Ancient Lady
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Posted: 31st Jul 2013 00:55
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Do you by any chance have a nice simple sample of code that could be tested?

Are you sure that all your Players are the same version as your AppGameKit IDE?

Cheers,
Ancient Lady
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Santman
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Posted: 31st Jul 2013 01:06
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I don't have a stand alone example but I could make one if needed. Basically, creating a blank sprite under these conditions with a text object set to just fill it, then broadcasting to the tablet will cause the width of the sprite to "squash" correctly, but not the text object. I will try making an example tomorrow, however without a device that doesn't match that aspect ratio it wouldn't show up.

The tablet has the matching AppGameKit player (the one released with beta 14) as it was never updated, the phone I think auto updated. I will try updating that now....

A sample of the code creating a button from a loaded image...

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Santman
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Posted: 31st Jul 2013 01:12 Edited at: 31st Jul 2013 01:13
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@AncientLady,

Just updated the player, made no difference. I did notice one other thing though. At another part of code a long description is typed on the screen, using a maxwidth so that it wraps around. It still does this adhering to the maximum length aloud, however it's wrapping much sooner and thus using more lines. This is further indicating that text objects are not being subject to the aspect ratio alteration done within AppGameKit I think.

This will make it really very difficult to code text based on the unknown aspect ratio of a target device. I could go back to using plain images for buttons, but that will significantly increase my graphical content. :-(

EDIT: Paul, this I think gives further credence to my suggestion about allowing text objects be turned into general images in memory perhaps, to be sized like any other sprite?
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Ancient Lady
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Posted: 31st Jul 2013 01:37
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You want to make sure that you are using the same version v10814 or v10816, in both your IDE and Player.

Sometimes the minor version doesn't matter. But when you see something not working correctly, we need to make sure it is a version compatibility issue.

We need a nice, simple example that displays the issue. Your posted code is for the function that is creating a lot of stuff and doesn't show the basic display setup or what might be happening in the main loop.

It's also not a very good idea to use numbers 10000 or over for your own sprites. The auto id generation stuff starts with id 10000. It might not be an issue, but you can never tell what odd things might happen. This is a general comment, not specific to the current issue.

Cheers,
Ancient Lady
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Santman
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Posted: 31st Jul 2013 03:26
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Yeah, I already had big issues with the internal generated stuff using constants or variable names, now I only use numbers and nothing else and I've avoided such issues ever since.

I'll do a simple example tomorrow, though in this function if you set It up and extend the length of the text objects, it does work fine.

To be honest, I've come across about another three or four bugs but I forget to post them. Using the value command to extract a number from a string array that you in turn are using as a reference element in another array kills the compiler with an error (-191 if i remember, but splitting it into steps works fine. Similarly, I've come across cases where multiple embedding of arrays fails for no obvious reason. I would assume the old compiler struggles with more than two levels deep of array referencing at once. Not an issue, it just means what was a single line of code needs split into three. There also appear to be cases where values from token grabbed strings don't appear to be recognised as such, again forcing a breakdown of code.

None of these are issues though unless you are trying to compress lots of functions into a single line.... I've learned that rarely works!!
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Ancient Lady
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Posted: 31st Jul 2013 05:17
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Have you ever had to build something that parsed code written by a number of different programmers?

I have and it is extremely hard to think of all the things that someone might do.

And I was working in Perl which has great string parsing capability. Not in C++, which really doesn't (regular expressions make life much easier).

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Ancient Lady
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Greenster
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Posted: 31st Jul 2013 06:10 Edited at: 31st Jul 2013 06:12
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Quote: "Have you ever had to build something that parsed code written by a number of different programmers?

I have and it is extremely hard to think of all the things that someone might do.

And I was working in Perl which has great string parsing capability. Not in C++, which really doesn't (regular expressions make life much easier)."


This is why lexical analyzers source control exists. End-users shouldn't be given excuses.

I wonder when end-users will be left to fix bugs like with DBP?
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Clonkex
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Posted: 31st Jul 2013 16:28
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Quote: "End-users shouldn't be given excuses."


I agree.

Clonkex


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Ancient Lady
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Posted: 31st Jul 2013 16:57
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I'm not making excuses, just making an observation.

I just know how hard it is to code for the flexibility of others (and for total noobies who have no clue about programming and are learning as they go (and for whom I have total respect for learning this way, it isn't easy)). I've been designing and coding for more than 30 years now in all sorts of environments. I have a certain sympathy for a group of two or three programmers working on the kind of project that AppGameKit is.

And I won't get further into this 'argument'.

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Ancient Lady
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Greenster
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Posted: 31st Jul 2013 19:09
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Quote: "I'm not making excuses, just making an observation.

I just know how hard it is to code for the flexibility of others (and for total noobies who have no clue about programming and are learning as they go (and for whom I have total respect for learning this way, it isn't easy)). I've been designing and coding for more than 30 years now in all sorts of environments. I have a certain sympathy for a group of two or three programmers working on the kind of project that AppGameKit is.

And I won't get further into this 'argument'."


Of course you won't, that wouldn't be convenient, especially after claiming to be a programmer since the mid 80s and having old posts on these forums asking very basic and trivial programming questions on high level languages..

As I said in the kickstarter thread, this is all crossing the line of ethics at this point.. This is a product by a company that people pay money for, not a hobby project, same goes for DBP and all the abandoned TGC software still selling..
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Ancient Lady
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Posted: 31st Jul 2013 20:41 Edited at: 31st Jul 2013 21:35
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Quote: "claiming to be a programmer since the mid 80s"

Are you trying to be insulting?

I got my BS in Computer Science in 1983 and have been paid to program or help other students learn how to program since 1978.

Quote: "asking very basic and trivial programming questions on high level languages"

Really? Where? Which languages?

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Ancient Lady
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JimHawkins
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Posted: 31st Jul 2013 21:23
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Greenster - You are (possibly) a very good programmer, but your social skills might need a tweak or two. Ancient Lady, as we know her here, is a professional with a CV of the highest quality, and she has given support across the whole spectrum of user experience.

Given your penchant for criticism of AppGameKit you might want to take into account, when saying it won't run on everything, the severe fragmentation on the Android nightmare. Take a look at this:

http://opensignal.com/reports/fragmentation-2013/

To say it's "crossing the line of ethics" is, frankly, ludicrous nonsense. If you have something constructive to say, that's fine, but you seem to me merely to parachute in to drop little bombs of arrogance. We will all accept that there are imperfections in AppGameKit, but it is attempting a very difficult feat, and is almost alone in development systems in listening to feedback and growing from it.

I was probably programming before you were born. If you want a shoot-out, I think AL and I could take you on. So address the issues or keep quiet.

-- Jim DO IT FASTER, EASIER AND BETTER WITH AppGameKit FOR PASCAL
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Ancient Lady
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Posted: 31st Jul 2013 21:33
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Thank you, JimHawkins, for being a gentleman and defending my honor.

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Ancient Lady
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xCept
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Posted: 31st Jul 2013 21:34
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Personally, I feel the remaining imperfections of AppGameKit are rather trivial. It has already shown itself to be a powerful and flexible language for quickly developing games across multiple platforms. Myself and another member of this forum (Matty) have made a combined total of $30,000 through AppGameKit creations, beating out hundreds of entries developed using Unity and other "high end" frameworks. Gekko has cranked out dozens of apps and is very profitable on the App Store with AppGameKit creations. This is more than I can say for any other commercial product that I've invested so little into.

It's unrealistic to expect endless updates for free and Paul has made great strides to rid the bugs from the product. The 3D commands, social networking and in-app purchase commands were all a free bonus and were originally meant to be paid upgrades.
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Impetus73
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Posted: 31st Jul 2013 21:35
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AL, don't listen to them!, you are a programming queen/goddess!

As fast as the market is changing nowadays, no one can make good solid programming platforms, before they are obsolete. TGC should be praised for not sticking with obsolete system, and for jumping on the new systems at just the right time. The hardware market is changing faster than they can program and adopt the system, and sometime they have to rewrite alot of the old stuff to adopt to new hardware, and that takes time.

----------------
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Did Amiga / AMOS programming in the 90's.
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Ancient Lady
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Posted: 31st Jul 2013 22:24
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**blush**
Thank you, Impetus73.

I think TGC was pretty bold to take on the multi-platform one-tool market and succeed. Not only in one language, but two.

And, they have been great at listening and improving and fixing things when given enough information.

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Ancient Lady
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Santman
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Posted: 1st Aug 2013 00:10
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Just catching up with this thread, and noticed that war broke out in my absence!! I'm not getting involved though, other than to say that I wasn't directly having a go at the work of the AppGameKit crew, or by no means AL. Greenster is entitled to his opinion same as anyone, but I think you do owe AL an apology, that was a touch personal I think.

Anyway, onward and upward. I have taken this screen grab to show the problem in action, which I think shows it pretty clearly. The top is from my PC, obviously looks fine. The middle is my phone, which just so happens to conform to the 16:9 style screen aspect, so again it looks fine. The bottom image (excuse the quality, it was a photo as I don't know how to screen grab on that tablet) is from the tablet. Exact same code, but it's 8" by around 5.5, so it is closer to a 4:3 aspect ratio. Everything, the button sprites for example, have scaled perfectly, but you can easily see how the text object labels now overshoot the boundaries and clearly aren't scaling to match the aspect ratio the way everything else is.

Hopefully this is clear, but I'm about to post a simple code example too, but as I said, unless you have multiple devices, some not in the standard 16:9 aspect ratio, they won;t show a problem, hence the image. I felt that was the clearest way to show it.

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Santman
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Posted: 1st Aug 2013 00:29
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As promised, here is a simple code example of it happening, along with a series of screen caps for this example again showing the tablet not scaling the text object.

Oh, and even though the grab of the phone is exactly 1280 x 720, that's because that is it's native resolution, part of the reason I started at that res and why I never became aware of the problem before now.

All yours Paul (and co), assuming I'm just not doing something wrong!!

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Santman
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Posted: 1st Aug 2013 00:38
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And BTW, especially for Paul and ONLY because I know re-doing the compiler is on his list, this is one of the examples that I said killed it (as in the windows "blablabla has stopped responding" errors) with the message "Process terminated with status -1073741819 (0 minutes, 7 seconds)":



however calculating a part of the expression seperately first works fine, such as:



Please no-one start arguing again, but as FB says he's starting AppGameKit V2 I thought it worth mentioning. As I said, it took about 5 seconds to fix and is likely down to the fact I perhaps condense code too much in my head (I do this for a living too, of a more simple sort), once I'd worked out what the issue was. Perhaps something as simple as a more explanatory error message is sufficient.
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Clonkex
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Posted: 1st Aug 2013 03:27
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Quote: "excuse the quality, it was a photo as I don't know how to screen grab on that tablet"


If it's an Android tablet of version 4.0 (I think) or later you should be able to press and hold the Volume Down and Power keys together and it'll take a screenshot.

Quote: "I think TGC was pretty bold to take on the multi-platform one-tool market and succeed. Not only in one language, but two."


Yes, definitely. Would've been a huge decision to make.

Even though I have signed almost every single one of my posts since I joined (May 2010) with "Clonkex", I've just realised that it looks kinda dumb with my signature there as well, so I might have to take the plunge and break a tradition. Terrifying, I know, but it's probably for the best.


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Santman
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Posted: 2nd Aug 2013 02:52
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Cheers for the tip Clonkex, but it doesn't seem to work (the tablet is Android 4.1, but it's an Archos so god only knows whats they took out!!!). I'll look for some screen grabbing app or something instead. Why I love my Note 2, the pen makes grabbing caps easy (oh, and as a side note, it works perfectly with AppGameKit and makes the apps you code AWESOME).
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Mobiius
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Posted: 2nd Aug 2013 17:48
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Quote: "Quote: "excuse the quality, it was a photo as I don't know how to screen grab on that tablet"

If it's an Android tablet of version 4.0 (I think) or later you should be able to press and hold the Volume Down and Power keys together and it'll take a screenshot."

You can also swipe with the edge of your hand left to right if it's of a sufficient version. (Or is it only a Samsung thing??)

3D Bang Bang 2, check it out!

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Clonkex
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Posted: 3rd Aug 2013 08:53
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Quote: "Or is it only a Samsung thing?"


I think that's just a Samsung thing (though I'll try it later on my Nexus 7).

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