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Zach wrote:Good to hear some more from you Chris.

No problem

Zach wrote:Is this V2 part of the same update work you mentioned earlier? (wondering if I missed an update)..

Yes the new update will officially be V2 now (don't worry you haven't missed an update ), what started out as a PB V5.10beta userlib compatibility update has now morphed into the huge V2 update, finally combining the months of previous work developing the core new technologies

Zach wrote:Wondering if you have a time frame ( won't hold you to it exactly) for the V2 and what that means feature-wise, and PB version wise. As you know we've been getting a lot of Betas lately.

Once I get the border code completed I'm hoping that it should be 'plain sailing' so I reckon 2 weeks, give or take. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiKpEvUShtY hehe). It's kind of like all the shiny new bits of ProGUI are laid out on my virtual workbench ready to be assembled but a few small integral pieces remain

Feature-wise V2 will be pretty awesome The whole rendering inside ProGUI will be replaced with the new Img subsystem which is based on an easily update-able driver model. This means that drivers can be quickly added for different low level rendering APIs and operating systems without the rest of the higher level parts of ProGUI having to know the specifics of the actual rendering (making the eventual transition to cross-platform pretty straight forward). The Img API is also made directly available to the programmer and is very simple and elegant giving you awesome power at your finger tips without having to worry about back compatibility and your code working on different OS's in the future. V2 will initially be released with just the accelerated/improved GDI drivers (the Direct2D drivers will follow shortly) but are extremely fast none the less (game quality at 60fps) including full alpha transparency and alpha masking, realtime-scaling, borders, border alpha masks etc..

Zach wrote:I guess I'm mostly curious what the state will be of progress towards Full GUI Skinning and the new DirectX/Direct2D rendering system (assuming this is what you've been working on based on previous comments).

As I mentioned previously the Direct2D drivers will follow shortly after the initial release and then I'll probably work on adding the full window skinning as that will need to be done before the Direct2D to DirectX interoperability (rendering to texture etc..). I'll also be adding support for developing Windows 8 Metro apps thanks to the Direct2D drivers

I'm also just wondering how your finances are going. I know you had to slow down work on ProGUI to concentrate on other revenue generating projects. Do you still get ProGUI registrations? Its kind of hard to tell, since there isn't a lot of activity about it here on the PB forums, or your own forums.. I'm wondering if its just really self-sufficient people buying licenses, who don't need a lot of help. Cause that would be better than no customers!

It's been very poor the past few months with hardly any registrations and I've found it tough but I think people may be waiting for the new update and be holding off purchasing right away. I'm very excited about V2 though and think it will bring unrivalled power when combined with PureBasic to any application

Chris.

Hey Chris after reading your great progress report, what can I say other than

I am sure once you release V2 there will be a lot of interest, what we die hard ProGUI users need to do is start writing some cool demos and stuff, to show show it off.

Sounds great Chris. I really hope more people get interested in ProGUI in the future, so you can keep developing it and really make something of it.

Yes the new update will officially be V2 now (don't worry you haven't missed an update ), what started out as a PB V5.10beta userlib compatibility update has now morphed into the huge V2 update, finally combining the months of previous work developing the core new technologies

Looking forward to it.

electrochrisso wrote:Hey Chris after reading your great progress report, what can I say other than

Thanks mate!

electrochrisso wrote: I am sure once you release V2 there will be a lot of interest, what we die hard ProGUI users need to do is start writing some cool demos and stuff, to show show it off.

That would be awesome actually! It would be a lot of fun making the demos too (the Img API is really nice! to work with ). Once V2 becomes more release ready could I interest you sir perchance in a pre-release beta to work with in creating some cool demos using the new Img API? ehy? ehy?

Zach wrote:Sounds great Chris. I really hope more people get interested in ProGUI in the future, so you can keep developing it and really make something of it.

Thanks mate! it means a lot to have your support

DoubleDutch wrote:Looking forward to it.

Yea me too man hopefully it should kick bottom!

Chris.

That would be awesome actually! It would be a lot of fun making the demos too (the Img API is really nice! to work with ). Once V2 becomes more release ready could I interest you sir perchance in a pre-release beta to work with in creating some cool demos using the new Img API? ehy? ehy?

Yep! no worries mate, I will give it a go and see how I can get.

electrochrisso wrote:Yep! no worries mate, I will give it a go and see how I can get.

Sweet! thanks man!

Chris.

Hey Zach,

Sorry it's taking longer than I expected, I've been very busy lately. I should have another tech demo ready soonish for you guys to beta test, it's the new auto border code and I'll need to see how well it performs with all manner of different border images. The good news is, all-though it's taken some serious programming/mathematics the new border code supports asymmetric borders, rounded concave borders and odd shaped borders with a new real-time 'merge' render mode that merges the sides into the corners. All of this automatically tiles the sides seamlessly too with ProGUI deciding the best points to repeat. All you have to do is pass an image into the CreateImgBorder command and voilà! no trial and error messing around with coordinate offsets and the like It's been important for me to get this working right and making it as versatile as possible because borders are the backbone for all ProGUI controls.

Anyway I appreciate your patience but it will be worth the wait I promise!

Chris.

PrincieD wrote:it's been important for me to get this working right and making it as versatile as possible because borders are the backbone for all ProGUI controls.

Good borders are very important and can make an application look so much better, it is well worth the wait, keep up the good work Chris.

Thanks for the update. As long as you are still working on stuff, that's all I needed to know

electrochrisso wrote:

PrincieD wrote:it's been important for me to get this working right and making it as versatile as possible because borders are the backbone for all ProGUI controls.

Good borders are very important and can make an application look so much better, it is well worth the wait, keep up the good work Chris.

Thanks mate, yep definitely! practically every control already makes use of borders, a button for example is really a PanelEx with border, background image and some kind of fill. Splitters and ExplorerBars are made similarly.

Zach wrote:Thanks for the update. As long as you are still working on stuff, that's all I needed to know

No worries Zach and thanks guys for being patient!

Chris.

Hi guys, it's been a while since my last update due to me being very busy. However, I've managed to knock another tech demo together showing the border 'merge' effect as promised: http://www.progui.co.uk/downloads/MergeDemo.zip

The demo only shows the top horizontal part of the border for the moment as I'm in the middle of re-coding parts of it but does show the new render mode nicely!

Cheers!

Chris.

Looks fast - is the directx radio button supposed to work - it was disabled for me.

DoubleDutch wrote:Looks fast - is the directx radio button supposed to work - it was disabled for me.

Thanks Anthony, no the directx button is temporarily disabled as some more work needs doing on the drivers. I'm concentrating on getting the border code and alpha masking complete for the GDI drivers first (finishing off the Direct2D drivers will be fairly easy once all working properly with GDI).

Chris.