Hollywood Designer 5.0 now available for AROS!

[airsoftsoftwair]

@airsoftsoftwair

"That's almost 3000 pages which should give you an idea what is possible with the software so I don't think it's too expensive. Of course, if the market was bigger I could lower the price but that's not possible in a market as small as this..."

I have a few questions...

As a programmer I'd like to know...

1. Can I just read the documentation before purchase?

Sure, just take a look here: http://www.hollywood-mal.com/help.html

2. Can I try the software or do I have to purchase it first?

No, a demo version is not available. But you can check out the documentation to see if it fits your needs. Also, all plugins are available for free download so you can check out those as well.

3. I want to know how to connect existing code to Hollywood GUI's.

You can download both MUI Royale and RapaGUI plugins and study the source code to see what it's like.

4. I want to know about plugins how they work and what's available.

See here: http://www.hollywood-mal.com/download.html All plugins are available for free download so you can check them out even without having to buy Hollywood first.

5. Also if I purchase Hollywood for AROS do I have to purchase it again for Windows? Is the license good for multiple platforms? Do I have to purchase each new version or simply upgrade?

You get a single-user multi-platform license, i.e. you get Hollywood for all platforms supported. You can install this on as many machines and platforms you like as long as you are the only one who is using it. Updates are often paid updates. Once again, this is because of the small market. Development is mainly financed by selling updates to existing users nowadays. However, sometimes there are also free updates, e.g. Hollywood 7.1 was a free one.

[miker1264]

@airsoftsoftwair

That all sounds very reasonable. I'll check it out. Thanks.

One last question. For Plugins like RapaGUI and MUI Royale that you mention do the plugins work everywhere that Hollywood works? I'm especially interested in AROS and Amiga OS. Will MUI Royale work on IcarosDesktop?

I was under the impression that MUI Royale only worked with MorphOS. But hopefully it works with AROS also using Hollywood. Hollywood with plugins may be exactly the type of GUI designer that AROS and Amiga OS needs!

My immediate use would be to use MUI Royale on IcarosDesktop to make a User Interface consisting of a Drawing Area and Command Buttons with a Menu System. The Drawing Area will be used with OpenGL for Viewports to display 3D Wireframes for a 3D Rendering Program for AROS. If Hollywood is Multiplatform it would be easier to make the finished program for other platforms as well.

If Hollywood and MUI Royale can do all of this then it's certainly worth the investment. 

[Samurai_Crow]

@miker1264

You'll need the GL Galore plug-in to use OpenGL.  Check the docs for that to see if it suits your purposes.  MUI Royale lets you open a Hollywood pass-through draw frame but I'm not sure if that can take an OpenGL context.

[ntromans]

@airsoftsoftwair

That all sounds very reasonable. I'll check it out. Thanks.

One last question. For Plugins like RapaGUI and MUI Royale that you mention do the plugins work everywhere that Hollywood works? I'm especially interested in AROS and Amiga OS. Will MUI Royale work on IcarosDesktop?

I was under the impression that MUI Royale only worked with MorphOS. But hopefully it works with AROS also using Hollywood. Hollywood with plugins may be exactly the type of GUI designer that AROS and Amiga OS needs!

My immediate use would be to use MUI Royale on IcarosDesktop to make a User Interface consisting of a Drawing Area and Command Buttons with a Menu System. The Drawing Area will be used with OpenGL for Viewports to display 3D Wireframes for a 3D Rendering Program for AROS. If Hollywood is Multiplatform it would be easier to make the finished program for other platforms as well.

If Hollywood and MUI Royale can do all of this then it's certainly worth the investment. 

Yes, MUIRoyale works well on AROS, with just a few issues compared to say MorphOS due to bugs or incomplete features in Zune. It will work on Amiga OS  too, but obviously will be slower on classic hardware. However, if you're thinking of using your program for non-Amigaoid systems then go straight for RapaGUI; there's a lot of overlap between the two but also some differences, so it would save headaches in the long-run to start with RapaGUI.

@miker1264

You'll need the GL Galore plug-in to use OpenGL.  Check the docs for that to see if it suits your purposes.  MUI Royale lets you open a Hollywood pass-through draw frame but I'm not sure if that can take an OpenGL context.

An embedded Hollywood display should be able to do anything a normal display can, so I don't think that would be a problem, but if was I'd go for a multi-window approach with toollbars made up using RapaGUI and a seperate Hollywood display for the 3D content.

Cheers,
Nigel.

[miker1264]

@ntromans

"Yes, MUIRoyale works well on AROS, with just a few issues"

I've read that MUI Royale and Hollywood don't have a dedicated IDE for Amiga OS so something like Cubic IDE or Codebench is needed.

Is the same true for AROS? What type of IDE is available for AROS? How would MUI Royale run on AROS? I'm just curious.

I wonder if it's possible to use MUI Royale as a Hollywood Plugin to generate an MUI GUI and then export the MUI code to a file to be used in other applications? That would make it very useful. Although Hollywood probably has lots of useful features MUI GUI Export would be really nice! 

In that case using something like Codebench on Amiga OS 4 with Hollywood and MUI Royale to generate an MUI GUI might be a good option if there's no suitable IDE for AROS.

[airsoftsoftwair]

I've read that MUI Royale and Hollywood don't have a dedicated IDE for Amiga OS so something like Cubic IDE or Codebench is needed.
Is the same true for AROS? What type of IDE is available for AROS? How would MUI Royale run on AROS? I'm just curious.

Hollywood only comes with an IDE on Windows but it can easily be integrated into other IDEs. I don't know if AROS has any IDE but if it does, it probably could be made to support Hollywood quite easily. So far there are Hollywood extensions for Cubic IDE, Codebench, FlowStudio (MorphOS), UltraEdit, vim, Notepad++ and Visual Studio Code. Once again, see here for a download: http://www.hollywood-mal.com/download.html

I wonder if it's possible to use MUI Royale as a Hollywood Plugin to generate an MUI GUI and then export the MUI code to a file to be used in other applications? That would make it very useful.

Yes, that should be possible. With MUI Royale GUIs are simply defined in XML and so you could easily write a MUI Royale program that exports such XML.

[ntromans]

@ntromans

"Yes, MUIRoyale works well on AROS, with just a few issues"

I've read that MUI Royale and Hollywood don't have a dedicated IDE for Amiga OS so something like Cubic IDE or Codebench is needed.

Is the same true for AROS? What type of IDE is available for AROS? How would MUI Royale run on AROS? I'm just curious.

I wonder if it's possible to use MUI Royale as a Hollywood Plugin to generate an MUI GUI and then export the MUI code to a file to be used in other applications? That would make it very useful. Although Hollywood probably has lots of useful features MUI GUI Export would be really nice! 

In that case using something like Codebench on Amiga OS 4 with Hollywood and MUI Royale to generate an MUI GUI might be a good option if there's no suitable IDE for AROS.

As explained in the post above, what you do is create an xml file defining the interface and then the plugin creates this interface by you feeding the xml file into a function. You could of course use the xml file definition in another project, but it would be just that - a defintion with no actual code. What you could do is create  just the user interface in Hollywood, using the xml file and Hollywood code, and then integrate this with other code e.g. written in C via Arexx messaging, as Hoolywood supports this.

Cheers,
Nigel.

[miker1264]

Also what was hinted at above...

As for MUI Royale just use MUI Royale itself to make a Hollywood App that would translate the XML directly to MUI code and export it. 

Now that would be a good reason to use Hollywood.

[miker1264]

@airsoftsoftwair

"Yes, that should be possible. With MUI Royale GUIs are simply defined in XML and so you could easily write a MUI Royale program that exports such XML."

Could it be made a part of MUI Royale much like mui.CreateGUI but rather mui.ExportGUI ? Are the sources of MUI Royale part of Hollywood ?

If the sources of MUI Royale Plugin are available on the Hollywood SDK or with Hollywood itself that would be reason enough for me to purchase Hollywood.

Although it might take some time, using Hollywood and MUI Royale I envision a program such as similar to MUI Builder XML that allows us to graphically assemble an MUI GUI that can then output an MUI GUI and/or an XML file that can be used with MUI Royale and Hollywood to quickly and easily produce a Cross Platform Hollywood App.

I wonder if there are more advanced tutorials to show how to link real C code to MUI Royale Apps that interact with Dos and Exec and various Libraries on AROS and Amiga OS?

On the Purchase page I see Hollywood 8 for "Amiga, Windows, Mac OS, Linux" but where is the AROS version?

I use Scintilla Text Editor. It supports XML with Syntax Highlighting. Is there a Syntax Highlighting available for Hollywood for use with Scintilla ?

[Samurai_Crow]

MUI Royale doesn't have an export function, nor available source code but Hollywood can link the plugin into the executable files as long as the licenses are respected.

I've been thinking of making a RapaGUI exporter since the RemedIOS exporter for the Mac to generate iOS executables doesn't have a RapaGUI plugin yet.  However, RemedIOS does allow native GUIs using the Sketch file format.

Finally, "Amiga" plugin and purchase options include AROS and MorphOS via installer scripts.

[miker1264]

Good to know. I look forward to purchasing Hollywood before the end of next week. Then the fun begins!

[miker1264]

Using XML to represent MUI code is a nice concept. At first glance while reading documentation and looking at samples it seems that the XML is easier to understand for a beginner than full blown MUI code and it is well documented.

That is a great strength of Hollywood and MUI Royale. There is plenty of documentation. For MUI Royale I wish that the screenshots included with the samples were a bit larger and clearer. And it's great to have an introductory tutorial but there should be an advanced tutorial dealing with MUI Hooks and interaction with Library Functions. Maybe I haven't read that far?

Apparently Hollywood receives Notification from the EvenHandler of a Button Press. Then we use "mui.DoMethod(...MUIM_CallHook...)" to call the function to interact with the Library Function. How do you express a Hook Function in XML? Or does that get defined in Hollywood such as a Hook Function to Get a Dos List of Devices or Volumes? Where do include declarations for Libraries go? I wish there were better documentation for that. Maybe I missed it somewhere?

One example for an advanced tutorial would be something like DiskImage GUI and how it uses MUI Hooks and Notificatios to interact with Dos and Exec Library Functions. Another example would be an app that interacts with ADFLib to produce ADF and HDF files.

Using the XML files it seems possible to re-use gui modules to quickly and easily put together many useful apps. I look forward to using Hollywood and MUI Royale.

[Samurai_Crow]

To access internals of AROS is reserved for custom plugins.  Hollywood has one data structure called a table (as in hash table).  If you pass a list into anything, chances are it's in a table.  What "arrays" in Hollywood are are tables with numeric keys.  There are a few commands to manage that arrangement.

[miker1264]

To access an External Library such as ADFLib would that require a custom Plugin to extend the Hollywood internal commands to access those functions? So in that sense a Plugin would be a Wrapper for a Library or Custom Set of Functions?

Ah. I found the information in Hollywood SDK for Library Plugins using LUA C and Tables. Whew!!

[Amiwell]

sorry I'm not a programmer but a designer needs hollywood to be used