Controls?

[mmtbb]

I also bought the ASprite control before it was freeware 24.99 I think. I was sad when spritehand released it as freeware because I bought it to give my small software company an edge. Oh well.

It's funny that you mention the limitations of Asprite like Fullscreen. I was actually the one who helped George Henne finally incorporate specific changes in 5.0 to allow the average NS Basic user an easier time using ASprite.

I have read the frustrations of many ASprite/NSBasic users, and have felt bad that I don't have more time to share my knowledge with the other users. I tried to help George fix his fullscreen problem, but somehow it fell through the cracks. I wrote a fullscreen Rogue clone in nsbasic/aspritece that did many things most are unaware ASPrite could do. It was really fun at first, then after a few months of development, I began to get frustrated with all the code I had to write just to do something that an OOP language could do in a few lines. I nixed the game and never released it. I since learned C#, which has great promise, and was porting the game when I found PPL which also has great promise.I hope to someday port my games to a new language.

[PointOfLight]

Have you considered releasing any of your NSBasic / ASpriteCE code to the forum? I'm sure you put a lot of work into it, and probably wouldn't want to just give it up, but it could be a big help to the community. It's just something to think about. In the mean time, I still see the GameAPI as the simplest game development tool with the most features for the PPC. I've tried other routes like eVC and GapiDraw, but while they might be more feature rich (might), the ease of use isn't there. I've also looked into the .NET route, but again I think PPL is easier to use.

[mmtbb]

I agree. GapiDraw is complicated and PPL (which is really PocketHAL at it's roots) is a step above ASprite and easier to learn than GapiDraw.

As for code, This may sound funny, but nonetheless it is the truth: I used to program heavily with NSBasic/ASprite. I released a piano program, a feature-rich asteriod game, card game and was even working on a religious action game . Then in May of this year, my toshiba e805 was stolen with all the religious action game's code on it. I lost a PPC and months of work. I was devistated. I was begged by many of the beta testers to redo/finish the game. However, (this may seem funny to people who have not lost a valuable item) I can't explain it, but I just can't get myself to pick up Asprite/NSBasic anymore. It just makes me remember losing my old PPC. It was put away about 6 months ago and hasn't been touched.

Perhaps, sometime if I get up the gumption, I'll dig up the old tricks I used and post them.

PS. boy this post has sure gone off the path I intended

[webba]

Yes, but we've all learned a little bit more about each other - and that's got to be a good thing.

[TT]

Yeah, and maybe a dozen years later we'll find ourselves sitting in a penthouse chair in "PPL corp." skyscraper and reading a book "Guys that started pocket revolution" with our names in it Heh, dreams, dreams... Errr... What was this topic about? =))))

[kornalius]

PPL Corp.! HEHEHE! That one was funny! I just wish it could become true one day!

I have tried NS/Basic with ASpriteCE in the past. While NS/Basic is a terrific package, it is a lot slower than PPL in most cases, PPL already as a hard time keeping up with complex games or demos without all the integrated features of the GameAPI, I wonder how NS/Basic can create professional games that are fast.

ASpriteCE is an activex component if I remember. It obviously doesn't come close to the PPL GameAPI in terms of features but does a decent job. The PPL GameAPI has been designed with a desire to provide simplicity to the developers. Using PocketHAL / PocketFrog at it's roots, it is very powerful and pretty fast too.

While writing the GameAPI, I had to incorporate a lot of features into the engine because it was just too slow to do in PPL on the actual PPC's. This leaves developers with a lot less to code and an engine that renders very fast.

Don't forget that when fullscreen and multi-resolutions on the PC works, PPL would be a great solution to writing 2D games on the PC and fast at it too and without code changes!

Boy this thread is nice, thank you all for supporting PPL with such passion, I just want to let you guys know that, without you, PPL wouldn't be what it is today and just imagine what it will be tomorrow...

PS: I have huge respect for the other packages out there and don't really want to start a war, PPL vs ... When I compare PPL to other packages they are just facts and I am not trying to put down the other products. It's obviously that I have to compare PPL to other packages internally to see how PPL can do on the market.

[kornalius]

mmtbb: Visual activeX controls are not yet part of PPL but will be integrated at some point in a near future. The more I think about it, I might do it in version 0.9 and make sure the possibility is there before the official release of PPL.

[PointOfLight]

Kornalius, I'm just curious: did you ever figure out how to respond to events triggered by ActiveX controls? I can see that being a big issue if people start using controls like a grid, for example, that has click events and the like.

[kornalius]

The event system for activex is not implemented yet. That is one of the reasons why activex controls are not functional yet.

[mmtbb]

Kornalius: I am glad to hear that it is on a list of "Things to do"
NSBasic was very wise to incorp a system to support 3rd party controls (I have only found few controls that do not fully work with NS Basic). I believe that if you took away the 3rd party controls, and 3rd party controls they have wrapped right into NSBasic, you would find NSBasic a VERY weak program