I'm interested in PB.... I think?

[PMV]

There's plenty of third party frameworks for 2d and 3d, most of the more well known stuff has wrappers for PB already so that work is already done for you, it's just plug and play.

Do you have a list?

[Zach]

Oh, yes please.

A list would be fantastic. I do have the demo by the way (I chose the x64 version, as I'm on Windows 7 x64 - but are there any reasons to go with x32 instead?). I load it up and tinker with it here and there when I have some free time.

I also have a PDF of the (recently free I guess) PureBasic - A Beginners Guide to Computer Programming. Hopefully that will help nudge me along the way too.

But a list of 2D/3D or even other useful stuff that has been wrapped for PB would be great. Even if it is just a brief one.

Although I am delighted to see that PB makes using the console and doing stuff like changing colors, etc relatively easy. In DBPro I had started building my Text RPG using a sprite for the UI (just a single large image with windows pre-placed, and later with some buttons to be clicked, as the UI was designed to be "static" ) but then when I realized I'd have to code Text box (like you see in any Windows Forms app, or MMO chat window, to input data) functionality entirely from scratch I about lost all my hair.. I just don't have that kind of time and skill..

So if you know of any especially good, mature 2D GUI frameworks that have been wrapped (or near fully wrapped) for PB, that will allow me to use some button and text widgets, as well as easily skin them with custom graphics.. That would really increase the chances of my purchasing PB for sure.

The Visual Designer, or learning to do manual Win32API calls will suffice well enough for making Windows applications.. Hell I could even make the more tradional Final Fantasy style RPG/ Strategy games with nothing but a 2D based sprite GUI, but I definitely need real, good functioning widgets for my Text RPG..

The only alternative I have seen really is doing a standard WinForms application and then skinning it. Which I have been doing some forum searching on. But it looks a little complicated and it seems all the highly recommended skinning tools (at least for PB) are commercial products - I don't have a lot of money to spend unfortunately. PB will be a big enough hit to my bank account if I buy it.

Sorry of any of that comes off as negative, just trying to express my goals and the reality I have to work with.

So yeah, a list of great 2D/3D tools that have been wrapped would benefit everyone I think!

[c4s]

@Zach
Try this one: http://www.purebasic.fr/english/viewtop ... 27&t=31357

[Seymour Clufley]

Zach, check your private messages.

[rsts]

I do have the demo by the way (I chose the x64 version, as I'm on Windows 7 x64 - but are there any reasons to go with x32 instead?).

I would experiment with x86 since it creates x86 executables which will run on both 32 bit and 64 bit environments. I also find the x86 platform to be slightly easier to work in.

cheers

[Zach]

I did find the sgx library on my own the other day when searching the forums.

My only concern would be, its intended purpose seems to be for full screen applications. Right now I prefer to develop Windowed applications (my native resolution is 1080p also, which doesn't help when designing for lower resolutions)


I'm not trying to be difficult, honest

I think I am getting closer to being ready to purchase though.. I have some ideas about how to make some stuff work the way I want, but mostly I have been spending the morning reading the PDF for "PureBasic - A Beginner's Guide to Programming" and I have to say it has been a really enjoyable read so far. It discusses a lot of things in very clear and concise manner, while also making the concepts easy to interpret.

I would recommend this free book to all PB newcomers, especially those waffling between whether or not to purchase. Most books I've read have had me actively pasting code examples in and compiling to really get an idea of how they work/look, but the very brief examples have been easy to understand just by looking at them, allowing me to continue to read on without interruption.. I don't know if the fact I have some programming under my belt in DBPro and Python helps with that, but its a refreshing change from constantly alt-tabbing over to an IDE to try stuff (although I have tried some examples just to see).

It helps that it is based on PB 4.x too I think, because so far I haven't needed to fix any examples so that they will compile. I'm already halfway through the book and it will serve as an invaluable reference when I need to go back over some basic principles.

I've already learned some stuff about PB that I know I will really like. Such as how to catch errors (and creating and catching custom errors), how to turn on Explicit variable definitions, as well as some basic file reading/writing info. It's definitely a step-up from DBPro, and being able to manipulate Arrays or other structures easily with Procedures is a welcome change, as well as having REAL Linked Lists. It will allow me to go back to some previous design philosophies I had to change when moving from Python to DBPro.

[PMV]

I did find the sgx library on my own the other day when searching the forums.

You mean, when clicking on my link from the other day.

My only concern would be, its intended purpose seems to be for full screen applications. Right now I prefer to develop Windowed applications (my native resolution is 1080p also, which doesn't help when designing for lower resolutions)

You want to create a game with Hardware acceleration, so there is no difference
between windowed and fullscreen, because you need the GUI in this screen.
Or you create windows controls out of the screen, but then people with low
resolutions will come into trouble, because fullscreen would be impossible.

MFG PMV

[Zach]

Haha, you were right.. It was your link on Page 1 that I found it through. Oops.

At any rate. I went ahead and made my purchase. Got the paypal confirmation, just waiting on an e-mail from the PB site with my account details

[Seymour Clufley]

At any rate. I went ahead and made my purchase. Got the paypal confirmation, just waiting on an e-mail from the PB site with my account details

Good. You (probably) won't regret it.

[Zach]

Hmm it says online payment usually only takes "5 minutes" been around 20 hours..


See you guys made me impatient to play with my new toy

[blueznl]

Though, frankly, turnaround should be fast. If any of the devs notice they'll probably help you out.

[Zach]

I'm not sure if they noticed here or were watching e-mail.


But I sent one off, logged into a game to take care of some auctions and came back to an e-mail with my account info.




edit: Thank you Fred!

[StPaul]

Your dialog is a bit long and detailed but I think I get the drift. My brief comment is that in the areas I have tried to work with pure basic, it has proven to be fast, stable and fairly reasonable in terms of syntax, command "understandability" etc.. It has adequate features to build 2d games of a wide variety which is your stated interest. I think all languages have some aspects of "strangeness" ocassionally, but I can honestly say Pure Basic has few. Pure Basic also makes many tedious tasks quite easy (pull down menus are a snap in Pure Basic for example). It is much easier to get the hang of Pure Basic than C and is much more readable. I can't speak for others, but for me it is a great product and that has the support of a rather positive user community. If you go this way, I think you will be happy with your decision.

[Zach]

I'm hoping so too..


I'm about to start on my first attempt at making the program I need for working with VFR video, so I've got a lot of searching to do now

Gotta find an easy library for loading / manipulating AVI files (Avisynth scripts should supposedly load in any program that can handle AVI's), but first I'm just gonna do a test to see if I can capture the Win32DebugString and parse it, the way I need to... that should be fun

[StPaul]

Maybe someone out there has the same question today -- 2020.

I have a few very basic observations about the original question. There are two "nice to use" languages. They are PureBasic and Python. Both are pretty understandable languages. The syntax for both is direct and pretty logical. PureBasic is a bit easier to understand. The big difference is that PureBasic is very, very fast and Python is not. PureBasic also does "game types of things" very easily and Python is not developed for that. With PureBasic, you can easily compile your programs and distribute to other people, and it is a bit harder with Python. Now for a look at other languages.

There is a new language called Julia which looks promising but I have looked at it only briefly. Its pretty fast and the syntax is nice. As a new language, it likely does not have nice graphic libraries for games etc. I programmed some in C about 25 years ago. It was very demanding and back when I used it the debugging routines weren't very good. Java is slow and for me it is painful to use the extreme "object oriented approach". Personally, I do not like Java. PHP can do lots of things well, but the way programs and variables look is less than pleasing. With PHP, there are some problems with distributing programs to other people because they may not have php installed on their machine. PHP is really a server language, but different servers are set up a bit different, many commands don't work right when I tried to use them (graphics especially). So PHP is pretty easy, but maybe not ideal for many of the things you may want to do. That about covers languages that I have used and are currently available. Below, I offer a bit more about Pure Basic.

PureBasic examples (help screen) are very clear. Free literature available in this Forum is pretty good stuff also. In general, I would say that PureBasic is easy to use. The folks in this forum are helpful. PureBasic was created to manipulate game graphics and it does it well. Pure Basic creates pull down menus, and GUIs in an efficient, and fairly easy to use way.

I hope these few comments are helpful to someone out there.

Paul