Liji, these guys have been working on it for a year. Clickteam have been working on their range of products since 1996. That difference, while subtle, might explain Clickteam's stability advantage.
I think Construct was released in its current stillborn state because people were making too many MMF-based comments and suggestions. While the apps are similar, there are areas where they differ hugely, such as the Event Sheet Editor. People asked for features to be added to global events and behaviours - but there are none in Construct, since Event Sheets can do everything and more. And people kept talking about backdrops, despite the fact that Construct doesn't have any - you just use Sprites for both active and backdrop elements.
Now Construct Beta is released, the difference to the userbase has been enormous. People are now making suggestions of things they want to see in Construct, rather than things they wish were in MMF.
It should be more stable in a few months, so everyone who's annoyed that they can't actually *use* the app yet should just wait till then. It's only been out a week and they're on build 4 already. Build 5's planned for Thursday, which should hopefully see an improved anim and image editor.
I'm personally just SO in love with their event logic!
Clickteam was making Click products since 1994, Yet KNP never crashed for me (Unless it runs on a 32-bits system while it's designed for 16 bits systems).
MMF2 was recoded from nothing anyway.
A Beta stands for a version of a software which is not complete because of minor missing features and bugs, but it can be used on a daily basis. The Construct beta doesn't meet that definition.
And Clickteam announced that hardware stuff will be added after the release of Vitalize 4. Logical operators in events are under development already (B244 has OR already).
If Clickteam actually give us the updates and features we want, then I have no doubt that MMF2 will be the better application. We haven't really seen much in terms of updates regarding MMF2 lately though, and nobody really has a clue about whether we'll see any. I was expect Vitalize 4 almost a year ago, and still we don't really have any news on it.
I'm sure Clickteam will step up a gear though - maybe they'll show off new features at the click convention or something.
You can blame over-secure-in-the-wrong-places-Vista for the Vitalize 4 delay.
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DaVince This fool just HAD to have a custom rating
Registered 04/09/2004
Points 7998
17th July, 2007 at 07:30:57 -
It's true that it crashes a lot, and they should have spent more time really trying things out, but... This thing is mostly hardware accelerated, so maybe the developers didn't get all that much bugs. Releasing it to the public will make sure you have a REALLY diverse amount of computers and hardware. Would have been better to keep it as closed testing in this stage and release a public testing version later though, because now everyone's just gonna complain about that.
I don't like the ribbon (I'd rather have menus), I couldn't find a lot of stuff before (though some were added/changed after suggesting things) and I'll have to agree on the sprite editor being pretty crap. Don't get me wrong here - I don't praise it because it's all still VERY buggy, I praise it because it has so much fucking power.
You can blame over-secure-in-the-wrong-places-Vista for the Vitalize 4 delay.
It should have been released before Vista was even released in my opinion - either that or just release a version compatible with the other OS, and then release an upgrade that works with Vista or something. But yeh, I'm sure they'll get it sorted eventually.
Logical Operators in MMF is great news, and I know that OR is already implemented (and did I hear that Else is planned for the next build? Correct me if I'm wrong on that one). Remember, I'm still using MMF until Construct's finished, and I plan to use whichever ends up better.
But Construct's power's not just in the operators, it's in things like the object selection, sub events, user-definable functions, For Each Object loops (no more need to spread a value and run a fastloop, you can just do a For Each Object), while loops and lots more. I *think* you can pause loops and continue them several frames later, making it easy to spread intense loops over several frames.
And the interface for it is nicer. There's a kind of split in the condition where you insert an else function, so that just looking at the event shows that its logic is branching off in two directions. Groups automatically carry a description, which I find helps a lot. And at last we have decent line numbering! Comments don't get included in line numbers, so you can add as many as you want without messing up references to other lines. And comments are quick to add and edit, and they don't have those annoying formatting bugs you get in MMF2's list editor (because in Construct, List View is the default, with Grid View just being an option for people who prefer it).
Hopefully, they're also planning to add an easy way to toggle individual events on or off, for debugging. In MMF, we tend to insert a NEVER condition, or move the event into a deactivated group. With this, you could just tick a button next to the event line to disable it.
The UI of the editor is also less rigidly grid-like than MMF's (one thing I liked about MMF's list editor, although I still find that very buggy). I know Construct's Layout, Animation and Picture editors are buggy as hell... but the Event List Editor is seriously classy!
At the end of the day, I plan to do what everyone else'll do: Go with whichever is better! Only time will tell which one that is. But Event Sheets really seem to have me sold.
I can tell you that I'm making an advanced yet easy to use object called "Advanced Events Object" that can do If Else conditions easily and For Each Object loops.
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DaVince This fool just HAD to have a custom rating
Registered 04/09/2004
Points 7998
17th July, 2007 at 07:48:56 -
Adam, what's with you lately? Radix swears more than me...
I agree that Construct needs to be there to make Clickteam get up off their arses. Seriously, have you noticed how little the step up from MMF to MMF2 is? And they wonder why only the diehard clickers are buying it?
Well I've downloaded it and all I can say is.... Clickteam watch out!
It's got some great effects, some excellent movements, z-ordering, basically a lot that's missing in MMF now and is just as easy to use. If this is really going to be released and CT doesn't add what has been requested for years now, I can see users switch.
It's fair to say that the features in Construct are ones that we've wanted in MMF for years, but have never gotten. It's a shame that Construct is pretty much unuseable at the moment though. I just wish Clickteam would confirm whether or not they are going to implement all these features which we want so much
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