Extension system flaw in multimedia fusion 2

Quote:

---

From Clickteam.com:

Products that are easy to install and use
Products that are considerate to your machine

We feel this is very important. Are you tired of programs that install DLL files all over your hard disk, save dozens of INI files and don't uninstall properly? Well, we're certainly tired of this and we aim to do everything we can to avoid having DLL files (whenever possible). In fact we aim to build our software into just one EXE file.

---

The most annoying thing about Clickteam's multimedia fusion 2 is the extensions. I just bought developer and I had to install all extensions back. So now my computer is full of files and I don't even know which one should I save or delete? In this post I list all the flaws of the system. In my opinion they have to be fixed and organised, not in mmf3 but in mmf2 already!


Okay here is few flaws, which I think to be fixed:

- The download

Now where we find our extensions
1. Clickteam forums
2. Extension list (neatware)
3. Extension view (Clickteam)
4. Extension updater (Gwerdy soft)
5. Developer website

So all the extensions are shattered into different places.
Forums are like extension soup where is very hard to find extensions also it doesn't have all extensions. Neatware's list is pretty much organised, but it has same flaw with clickteam's forums and problem is it isn't controlled by Clickteam.

Solution mayby, Clickteam making same list like in Neatware's, where is also added new feature (in beta). And adding it into website. And why is this. The forums are easy to edit, but there is too much stuff. If I would buy mmf2 for the first time and would go into forums, first thing I would ask would be: "Wait what???"

In my opinion the best solution would be Extension view's and - Updater's compining and controlled by Clickteam and mayby applying into multimedia fusion 2. Why? Because Gwerdy soft is not part of Clickteam they don't have all the extensions in their updater. And the problem of extension view is the downloading and updating. You don't know which extension you have and is it old version or current. And pressing download link it could give error 404. And also it would make my deskop look like it have been hacked 20 times... In extension view I would add "in beta" to the application also. Also commercial extensions could be added and they have the link to the netsite where to buy

Last solution which I think of is Clickteam would make more bonuspacks and adding a button on their website's frontpage like: "download bonuspacks." But the problem of it would be the new versions, because if they got patched the all bonuspacks get patched. Also the new versions must be informed in forums news page. The extensions would be in Clickteams website, so they would always be downloadable.

For the forums I would also do changes. There would be "extension requests", "in beta extensions", "extension news" (f.ex. New version of...)and extension talk of the biggest extension (Like subforum of Lacewing). These would ease the newcomers, so they won't be asking anymore: "where to find?" -questions.


- Documentation

Now this is also a problem. Most of the big professional made extension has a good documentation. Now I'm not meaning to create documentation for noobies, but I think there should be documentation even if you have example file. Still the idea of the application is to be used by non-programmers as well programmers.

As for the solution documentation could be written by Clickteam or forum helpers. But what I am looking for is the fact that Clickteam would not add the extension into their database (if there will be one), if there is not any documentation and only then they would make the documentation.


- Amount

In click convention 2010 there was talk about releasing the extensions open sourced. Now this is pretty good point to extension developers. Althought I didn't hear the speech because live feed was what it was, but none used the microphone. Well in my opinion I wan't all multimedia fusion 2 extension, but it is too messy. There are objects in my list what I am wondering why they are there. Now here's 3 things what I am finding weird.

1. Now I have ini object, ini ++ and ini++ 1,5. Wait what?
Also XLua, Lua, Lua++ and Lua+. Again wait what? Those are different versions of same, they mayby have different creators, but why we have so many different objects of same thing?

2. F.Ex. 1 objects cuts string from the middle, second cuts after every letter and last cuts string after every second letter. Hope you understood.

3. Old version are not deleted. I have Minimap 1 and 2, which one should I use? If you port it for example flash, do you port 1 or 2 or both? It would be nice to add feature, when making minimap 2 it delete's or replace's the first one.

Why is this so?

Solution, now I am still hoping Clickteam would start suggesting extension developers to give the open source to them or ask rights to implement someone's extension into one bigger object, that does everything considering f.ex. .ini files. Yes I understand everything can't be done and someone ask for money from their extension. But for the free extension it would be nice to have 1 big extension to cover 10 small extensions.

Example:

Array
Array 3D
Array X
AssArray
Binary Array
Byte Array
Dynamic Array

--> Array object

Others which could be implemented into one:

-Control objects
-Sound objects
-Movement objects
-Ini objects
-Lua objects
-Video objects
-SQL objects

Implementing into core mmf2:

-For each object
-If else object
-Making some movement objects to replace clickteam own movements, such as pmo.

I understand they can't all be converted into one, but as much as you can! Also now would be a good time to start combining the extensions. They have to be ported into flash, or I would like to see more extensions in flash.


- Moo

We have moo, why? Lacewing is open source and in beta, but it works already much better than moo. Why we still have it on installion of mmf2?


- Categories

When finding extension which name I can't remember is mostly frustrating. I have to find them from all objects -category. The extensions doesn't go into categories, they go into other extensions... I don't know why, but hoping this will be fixed.


I think that was all. Mostly I made this article, because I am horrified about how newcomers would be confused. And I'm hoping some progress about the matter will happen. Next time when I need to install mmf2dev again I don't want to rip my hair off again... And in the end I remind you that, I am not understanding the structure of the extensions, I'm just giving some thoughts about organising extensions and mayby also shaders as well.

Quote:

---

From clickteam.com:

save dozens of INI files and don't uninstall properly?

---

Should this btw be:

"save dozens of INI files which won't uninstall properly?"

MMF3 will feature an extension manager/updater (Was announced at Click Convention).

Quote:

---

Also XLua, Lua, Lua++ and Lua+. Again wait what? Those are different versions of same, they mayby have different creators, but why we have so many different objects of same thing?

---

There is no Lua++.
Lua was made ages ago. Lua+ was an improvement, by Jamie.
However, Retriever2 made XLua, which is in fact the best Lua extension available and much more powerful.
Nothing wrong with that.

Quote:

---

2. F.Ex. 1 objects cuts string from the middle, second cuts after every letter and last cuts string after every second letter. Hope you understood.

---

Developers tend to create extension for their or other people's needs. That's okay. It gets messy with all those one-expression objects, but what's wrong with it? We shouldn't prohibit it. It doesn't make sense.

Quote:

---

Old version are not deleted.

---

I fail to see your point. You can still download them if you need to open old files... there's no point in terminating them.

Quote:

---

Implementing into core mmf2:[...]

---

You don't know how much work it would be to add something to MMF's core. It will change a lot in MMF3, but MMF2 will not feature inbuilt For each or if/else conditions etc.

Quote:

---

We have moo, why? Lacewing is open source and in beta, but it works already much better than moo. Why we still have it on installion of mmf2?

---

Lacewing didn't exist in 2006 when MMF2 was released. They won't just remove it now. MMF3 will change that, probably.

EDIT: Oh, and the SQL objects all do a completely different thing. Just because they all have SQL in the names that doesn't mean they're the same.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Looki

MMF3 will feature an extension manager/updater (Was announced at Click Convention).

---

Okay now I didn't know that. Live stream wasn't working most of the time.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Looki

There is no Lua++.
Lua was made ages ago. Lua+ was an improvement, by Jamie.
However, Retriever2 made XLua, which is in fact the best Lua extension available and much more powerful.
Nothing wrong with that.

---

I did a fast look and didn't get the lua++ sry. But now we have lua, xlua and lua+, how do I know which one to use? Okay I make all with lua, then I go into forums and then wtf comes. There should at least be some information which should you use! I know it is problem to have different people in making extension of same things. But if it would be released open sourced, next would "patch" the extension, so there would be only 1.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Looki

Developers tend to create extension for their or other people's needs. That's okay. It gets messy with all those one-expression objects, but what's wrong with it? We shouldn't prohibit it. It doesn't make sense.

---

It makes mess into computer and mmf2's list. Also there could be error 404 on the download, and then someone needs to make new extension. Now but implementing after while the one event extension into larger extension would take the all problems of this much smaller. Also it is fact that you need to open your example and make it with the other object. But instead of a new extension it could be one of the big extensions. It seems you have missed the point of my post!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Looki

I fail to see your point. You can still download them if you need to open old files... there's no point in terminating them.

---

I didn't think about this. But mayby in mmf3 there won't be this problem anymore, because extension developers would co-operation mayby?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Looki

You don't know how much work it would be to add something to MMF's core. It will change a lot in MMF3, but MMF2 will not feature inbuilt For each or if/else conditions etc.

---

Yes I don't know, but in mmf3 mayby.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Looki

Lacewing didn't exist in 2006 when MMF2 was released. They won't just remove it now. MMF3 will change that, probably.

---

Point taken, but if moo will be on mmf3, I will lose the faith to Clickteam.

Basicly there is no problem if the mmf2 would have automatic updater, but it doesn't have. And I hope in mmf3 when making extensions, they would take the extensions and add them into bigger, so I still doesn't get million different extensions unless I want to.

I agree with Neomonkey's point about there being too many extensions which similar causes, which should be unified.

I hope we (= the community, extension developers) can sort this out before MMF3's release. In fact, CBs idea mentioned at the convention would be a great help to this. (Extensions in MMF itself. For example, we spoke about Ini++ which is essentially a hash table and the rest can be done in MMF itself if there was a nice interface for it)

Use XLua - the other objects are practically useless, unless you want to open old files.

Of course, all those extensions are a mess, but with so many developers and a big community, organization is hard. I hope we will see improvements there, but I have my doubts. I guess the new extension updater will help a bit.

Moo will not be in MMF3, I'm sure ;)

Yes, we all agree the extension situation is pretty dire and I definitely look forward to any forthcoming improvements that are managed by ClickTeam.

It's confusing to have multiple objects addressing the same problem, but without a central extension repository, there's no clean way to say "Hey, this is the premiere extension, the others are deprecated and available for compatibility only". When previous extension authors disappear, or source code is lost (as is the case with the two previous Lua extensions), they cannot be unified any more than just saying "use this one".

Outdated 3rd party extension repositories e.g. Neatwares and FusionUpdater only further exacerbate the problem.

I agree with NeoMonkey, Retriever2, and Jax for extensions. I think everyone is aware of the mess, and why wait on MMF3 to fix the problem.

It would be great if CT would grab all the up to date extensions (that is permitted) and list them under Extensions in the forum, without all the mumbo jumbo. Just link them and be done. When an extension gets changed, delete the download link and put up the new download link.

CT staff make changes to the forums. Why not make changes for the extensions.

Just a thought, because the fiasco has gone on a long time now.

Marv

Right, there was quite a bit of discussion about this at the convention which will hopefully make it onto the forums soon.
It is a problem we're aware of and one we feel is important should be fixed. So don't worry about that one. (But I can't give you timescales or any ideas on what to expect, other than the user experience will be MUCH better)

Thanks Chris.

Marv

I don't think extensions should be combined necessarily. There are some people who struggle with keeping file sizes small and they would rather have a small, focused extension than a big, broad extension.

I think there's bigger fish to fry in the realm of extension file size, like the practical requirement that new extensions have an entire C/C++ runtime embedded in them.

Well, that's a choice on the part of the extension developers; you can link to the runtime libraries separately, but you must get the users of your MMF program to install the runtime themselves, or get the user of the extension to distribute the runtime correctly with their application.

Of course, these things are annoying, so static linking is the easy way out. (Especially if your extension is the only one to require extra distribution steps!)

MMF could make this easier if it could automatically distribute files an extension requires.

That's exactly why it's a "practical requirement" for the extensions devs (except for those who still have access to and work with VC6). Few app developers are going to find it acceptable that they have to push out an additional, annoying, heavy MSI with their product for what might be a comparably small extension.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RickyRombo

I don't think extensions should be combined necessarily. There are some people who struggle with keeping file sizes small and they would rather have a small, focused extension than a big, broad extension.

---

Hmm... Well in mmf3 there could be made extensions which has 2 options. There are the basic events. Then you open advanced tab and then you can access to advanced events. When building and you don't use any from the advanced options, mmf includes only the "lite version." I don't know how hard this is to make or is it even possible, but it rings good in my non-extension understanding head.

Also other idea pops in my mind. Instead in creating of tgf3, mmf3 and dev clickteam makes 3 version. 1 for presentation and for example flash website making. Second for pc only games, presentations and websites. And last one has lots of features, f.ex. system objects, mobile runtimes, java etc. And then the bigger versions would also have the objects from the cheaper version, so they are more lighter than developer versions.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Retriever2

That's exactly why it's a "practical requirement" for the extensions devs (except for those who still have access to and work with VC6). Few app developers are going to find it acceptable that they have to push out an additional, annoying, heavy MSI with their product for what might be a comparably small extension.

---

How big is too big for an extension?

My "Select Object" is statically linked to the (IIRC) VC++2005 runtime, meaning it should be significantly larger than an extension that's dynamically linked to the runtime (but in return doesn't require the runtime to be installed). It's only 70kB. Is that too large?

To all extension devs: Static link to the C++ runtime already. No-one appreciates having to install the multi-megabyte runtime for a couple-dozen-kB extension.
EDIT: Especially as the error message if they don't is so obtuse.

Depends how much of the runtime you use. XLua (runtime build) is over 600kB, half of which is from the VC++2008 runtime.