Vitalize future?

**twister** · 8th February 2011, 01:34 AM

I've been pondering on whether to use vitalize.

Does Vitalize have a future with Clickteam?
Is it cross platform for macs as well?
Will html 5 be an issue?

**Yves** · 8th February 2011, 06:41 AM

It's not cross platform and difficult to maintain, so I don't think it has any future. There are now the Java and SWF runtimes, that are cross platform, and there will be an HTML5 runtime in the future (a preview has been shown by Jamie last summer at the Clickteam Convention)

**twister** · 8th February 2011, 07:28 AM

thanks

That's good news about html5. I just recently read an article that ipad and iphone have not reformed to java or flash because they are moving or have moved to html5.

Is there an article here at clickteam showing the html5 presentation by Jamie?

**Fanotherpg** · 9th February 2011, 10:16 PM

The video materials still are not available online.

**ChrisB** · 9th February 2011, 11:32 PM

IIRC it was a chatroom example using HTML5 WebSockets. (And a token Active Object bouncing around in the background to prove it has animation.)
That exporter is immature though, and there still isn't widespread support for the technologies that would make the average games perform well in HTML5. So you need to wait a little longer yet...

**Fanotherpg** · 10th February 2011, 08:34 AM

So we can understand that you and Jamie are working over it?

**ChrisB** · 10th February 2011, 12:39 PM

An HTML5 exporter is still a possibility, but other runtimes come first (iPhone, Android).

**Kimera** · 13th February 2011, 03:45 AM

Is there any chance that we will ever see the long awaited edit box object in the mobile run times now that all these others are being introduced.

I ask this so pointedly as this post points out above that the Vitalize platform, most likely, has no future, yet I use this plug in currently on a web site with paying customers. It's the core of what the clients use to maintain the services they pay me for.

Originally Posted by Yves

It's not cross platform and difficult to maintain, so I don't think it has any future.

I think you mean for you guys but as your customer, I have had some quarks with the development in Vitalize but have always been able to work them out. The worst experience I have ever had in MMF is Flash development. The process has been slower for me than any other development I have done in MMF and I hate it. A project I could have had finished in 2 weeks has taken me 5 and I am still not near finished, it was much easier just telling clients I don't do flash development and giving them a long, long list of valid reasons why starting with the sandbox it keeps you in.

I have used MMF for over 15 years and have been very happy over all with what Click Team has done with the software. It has come a long way and I have made very good money with the program but I have never had to worry about one of the core products within the program dropped. Having said that I have to say I am a bit concerned that now that there are new APIs available, the ones I have supported in MMF all these years may end up screwing me now.

I always had hope that we would see an an edit box added in the run times it was missing in. Now I can see that will most likely never happen. Never in the entire time I have used MMF have I ever seen Click Team just drop the ball on something but I feel that in the case of the mobile run times, the app developers were just left in the cold and will now stay there until new run times can provide what they need. Personally, after spending the last 5 weeks developing a SWF application, not game, in flash via MMF I have come to the conclusion that my companies will never use anything other than the standard scripted code we have always used in the past. As a code writer I can do that, but for people who don't know VBScript, .Net, PHP, Java Script, or even HTML, they have a long road ahead of them. HTML5 will give me a ton more control and functionality and I am already doing things on the web without HTML5 that people will tell you can't be done.

What will happen to the flash run time I have paid for if HTML5 takes over as some experts expect. Will the objects currently in production for Flash then stop because everyone is to busy to focus on what they started?

Even though Vitalize never gained the market share it deserved on the web it works great for use in a closed environment, I can do more with it than I can with Flash, or can ever expect to with flash based on it's restrictions.

While Flash is a great, and I mean great, format for what it was designed for, it does not hold a candle to what MMF can do with the Vitalize plug in. MMF is a much better, more powerful, and an easier to use development environment. I have patents on technologies that I developed in MMF that could never have been developed in Flash, never! For that reason my company evaluated, years ago, if we were going to be a Flash shop or and MMF shop. We chose MMF, so disappointing to hear that the future for vitalize is bleak. I can assure you that when the next run time comes out I will not be as apt to jump out there as soon as I see it and pay for it like I did with the Flash run time. Who knows, in short time it may no longer be valid and it may never even get all the objects it needs to do what I want it to do. That is now a possibility I have never had to consider with Click Team but I am now faced with. Will the mobile run times become obsolete when the HTML5 exporter comes out? There will be no need for them at that point as, in a very short time frame, there will be a larger number of mobile phones that will be compatible with HTML5 than phones that are compatible with Flash, or Java. Mobile device sales have exceeded PC sales and that is not going to stop.

I thought I would share what a current customer was thinking. Sometimes, it's these types of insights from customers that help me and my teams make the right decision for the direction of the company.

K

**MikeB** · 13th February 2011, 05:08 AM

I have to agree with Kimera. I really was planning on relying on the Java runtime a while back, and pretty much have given up on porting most of my applications to Java for buggy reasons that are usually extension based. Internet Java applets easily crash, can't utilize the edit box object, and the only true way I can get a Java application to work correctly, is by porting it to a Java Web Start, which for the end-user is not something I really want to do.

I understand that everything is a work in progress, but as flash arrived, Java got thrown into the background. And now that I pretty much have to rely on vitalize because Flash is still a work in progress, vitalizes future is bleak.

I love MMF, and I will continue to support Clickteam. However, serious organization has to be done for multiple platform exporting. I know it is hard juggling 5 projects at a time, but something has to be done to ensure each platform is executed equally. I'd rather deal with 1 pristine platform, that use 4 others with limited functionality.