Mac terminal replacement - iTerm

If you ever use the command-line on the Mac, the default system terminal works, but having colour syntax highlighting and better presentation makes things a lot easier to read.

An alternative is iTerm:

iTerm history: Version 0.10 iTerm still works if you want simpler version. This was mothballed when the lead developer became a brain surgeon! (almost). It has been patched for OSX Lion. iTerm2 is still under active development. You can also get it with tmux support (but I don't use this).

Xcode 4.3 Complaints!

Just downloaded and trying Xcode 4.3.1. Quite frankly, after 4.0 and 4.1 I gave up and went back to Xcode 3.2.6. I'm sure this has been said in other places, but I think Apple have deprecated Xcode 3 too quickly and moved to something which was at best alpha quality (4.0), and is now beta quality (4.2+). That said, Xcode 4.3 does have a more "solid" feel about it.

Other people also have taken issue.

My issues with Xcode 4.3 are:

Key maps

The keys still clash with system defaults. I like Command+N for swapping desktops. Single-step etc clash with functions on laptop keys. Why not add the Xcode 3 mappings as an option? Why did you need to change them? You can use the Xcode 3 keys on a laptop or desktop keyboard quite happily. And not having to remember a whole new set of keys is a big win.

Editor

Simple things, like, which column am I in? Where is this displayed? This is basic stuff for a code editor.

How do I compile a single file? Seriously. Come on.

UI

You cannot drag any of the side panels around. What about making the sidebar items (project browser, objects, errors, etc) dockable/moveable so that you could have some on the right? E.g. file browsing on left, but then error list on the right. Or top and bottom of the sidebar? Should remember layout between sessions. Same for debugger features. -- If you have used Eclipse then there are lots of solutions and alternatives with a more flexible approach like that.

This is more of a minor one, but the toolbar at the top occupies too much space. It hardly displays anything. Maybe merge it into the title bar? Make icons smaller?

Top toolbar takes up too much space.

Version Control

I haven't really used these features because I use Mercurial. It's just what I use. Why not add Mercurial support, it is not going anywhere. It is a good DVCS. You have also removed Perforce support, please re-add.


Summary

Apple: I haven't used all of the features of Xcode 4, and I'm not a full time Apple dev. I know Microsoft are making Visual Studio worse, but do you have to try and compete with them? Xcode could be so much better if you didn't try and change everything at once. Leave the Xcode 3 key maps. At least then people can turn a blind eye to the other shortcomings of the IDE. I'm sure in a year or two it will be a better IDE, but right now please address the day-to-day usage issues instead of trying to cram in more functionality.

Development's ups and downs

Game development is sometimes testing! You get stuck on things, you go through boring phases, you wonder if you are going in the right direction. Often you have to fight though it to get that little reward that keeps you going.

Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after another. - Walter Elliott

I do not think there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature. - John D. Rockefeller

The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking places. - Author Unknown

It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer. - Albert Einstein

And I guess now I ought to stop reading quotes and do some work. :o)

UI for Allegro 5

I found a nice UI system called GWEN. It has lots of advanced features and is very easy to embed. It sits nicely on top of your application and can just be wired into its resources, to save competing systems, e.g. input or texture management.

Example of Gwen UI from the Gwen site.

I ported it to Allegro 5, which was quite easy as the renderer and input abstractions are well designed. I did it on the Mac, but it also works just fine on my old Windows XP laptop. Gwen also provides rendering backends for OpenGL, DirectX, SFML, and Windows GDI.

[Note] I have forked GWEN in order to fix various issues with Allegro 5, etc. There are notes in the readme and on the wiki. You may want to prefer this version if you are using Allegro 5. Please report any issues in the Github issue tracker for Gwork.

If you have used Delphi, or Windows Forms you'll probably find it quite easy to pick up. There are unit test examples from which to learn, but other than that you have to plough through the code at the moment. Hopefully more docs and comments will appear soon to ease the learning curve. There is a small tutorial on doing layout with docking.

One of the things that is really nice about Gwen is the skinning system. It is all laid out in one bitmap, along with the colour scheme at the bottom.

The default skin for Gwen.

Notes on using Allegro 5.1 on Mac

This is some notes I made whilst setting up Allegro for use on my Mac. I'm fairly new to Mac, having been a Windows programmer for a long time, so these notes may change as I learn more about the correct way to do things on the Mac.

Dependencies

Get all the libraries and tools that Allegro5 needs from Macport. This saves a lot of time. Very nice system. You can check what you have installed using:

port installed

You will need the following:

sudo port install zlib freetype jpeg libogg libvorbis libpng physfs +universal

If you have libraries installed that aren't 32 bit, and you get the "different system not i386" link error, they need to be recompiled with "+universal" (i.e. i386 and x86_64) . i386 is needed by the iPhone simulator. OSX desktop apps will use x86_64. You can force MacPorts to recompile any libraries using the following (and replace LIBNAME!):

sudo port upgrade --enforce-variants LIBNAME +universal

cmake should have been installed by MacPorts, but if not:

sudo port install cmake

Note: you will need at least version 2.8.8 of cmake if you are using Xcode 4.3 or newer.

Build 

make

Easiest way to build and install Allegro for OSX is use make. Get the Allegro source and in that directory:

• mkdir build
• cd build
• cmake ..
• make
• sudo make install

Add "-D WANT_FRAMEWORKS=1" to cmake if you want frameworks.

Add "-D CMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES=i386" if you want 32 bit libs. - I had to do this initially, I think because some of the ports wouldn't compile 64 bit. No longer necessary.

I don't use frameworks. Default install directory is "/usr/local".

Xcode

You can generate Xcode project files for Allegro and build using Xcode. I do two builds of Allegro. One for OSX and for iOS.

• mkdir build_osx
• cd build_osx
• cmake -D SHARED=0 -G Xcode ..
• xcodebuild -project ALLEGRO.xcodeproj -target ALL_BUILD -arch x86_64 -sdk macosx10.7 -configuration Release
• cmake -D CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/my/install/path -P cmake_install.cmake 

I turn sharing off so I get static libs. You'll need to do this for iOS as dynamic libs aren't allowed.

Using

Don't use Xcode 4.0, it isn't ready. Use Xcode 4.1 or Xcode 3.2. Xcode 4.3 seems okay, still needs work. Stick with Xcode 3.2 if you like, I do on my laptop.

I create a Cocoa application and removed what I didn't want. If you followed make build instructions:

• Add "/usr/local/include" to header search paths.
• Drag in the Allegro libraries that you want to link to in "/usr/local/lib".
• Go into Interface Builder and delete the default Application and Window. Allegro supplies these.

Linking

The frameworks you need to for OSX are:

• AudioToolbox
• IOKit
• OpenAL
• OpenGL
• Cocoa

The frameworks you need to for iOS are:

• CoreGraphics
• Foundation
• OpenAL
• OpenGLES
• QuartzCore
• UIKit

The following error means you have the wrong "main" declaration:

dyld: Symbol not found: __al_mangled_main
Referenced from: /usr/local/lib/liballegro_main.5.1.dylib
Expected in: flat namespace
in /usr/local/lib/liballegro_main.5.1.dylib

It should be:

int main(int argc, char **argv) 

Other Info

There are other notes on the Allegro wiki on how to build Allegro from Git.


[16-Jul-11] Note about Xcode 4.0.
[27-Oct-11] Xcode 4.1 is fine. It doesn't crash and is faster than Xcode 3.2.
[Mar-12] Xcode 4.3. Compile 64-bit.
[29-Mar-12] Added +universal to "port install" so we get i386 and x86_64 libraries. I also updated the notes on the Allegro wiki.
[8-Jul-12] Added frameworks to link for Allegro 5.1.
[19-Dec-12] Notes on Xcode building.