#VB vs Toolbook?
6 messages in this thread
I'm getting ready to select an authoring tool for putting together
Multimedia apps. I've looked at both VB and Toolbook.
Does anyone have experience with these two tools? Any opinions or
pointers to opinions would be greatly appreciated. Here's what I
know.
Toolbook is kind of a nice language – I like the feel of it. And
they've gone out of their way to put in powerful Multimedia support.
My concerns are that it may not be "industrial strength" – would it
run too slow, are there serious limitations (for example database
support or device support), or perhaps a lack of third party support
might keep it from suiting all my general needs?
VB looks like it's got full industry support (magazines, third party
add ons), and it's certainly "industrial strength" – I doubt I'd find
limits to what I could do.
My concerns for VB are that they havn't paid as much attention to
Multimedia as TB, and I'd be doing a lot of things from scratch that
might otherwise "come out of the box" from Toolbook.
Also from what I've seen it's more abstract and ruthlessly
programming-intensive than TB.
Cross-platform support can't be a deciding factor, since (as far as I know)
neither one works outside of Windows.
Any input would be appreciated. Thanks in advance, Jerry
Jerry,
I worked with Toolbook years ago. I've heard it has improved alot since then.
It was adequately fast on a 386/33, so unless it has gotten much slower, it
should be fine on any 486.
The think I liked about it is that we were able to write DLLs in C and then
call functions in those DLLs from Toolbook.
We did the user interface in Toolbook and the data crunching and the MIDI
interface in C. It worked well.
Anyway, I guess what I was getting at is that if you can code DLLs in C, then
you can work around most shortcommings you might find with Toolbook.
Bailey
Howszitgoin Jerry & Hi from DownUnder
RE: VB vs Toolbook
I assume VB = Visual Basic – Yes?
It would seem from your comments you are
(a)person with some programming knowledge
(b)committed to a WINDOWS authoring package
(c)interested in POWER authoring tools via a scripting method
Assuming the above is true.
I would rank the WINDOWS packages like this
**Authorware Professional – very powerful & very expensive
Macromedia in San Fran – about $5000 (lookout for additional
runtime costs, I think Macromedia likes to charge a fee if you
are selling YOUR runtime app's – check it out with them!)
**Icon Author – very powerful & not as expensive
AimTech (Nashua, Nh 03063)
VB & TB (scripting)
**HSC InterActive – powerful & relatively cheap
HSC are in Santa Monica (310-392-8441)- about $400ish
**ImageQ – powerful and cheap
Image North (ph 519-570-9111/800-363-3400) – about $400ish
**Action – Ok and cheap
Macromedia – about $200ish
**Animation works – Ok and cheap
Gold Disk Inc in CA – about $150ish
The above are mostly ICONIC – use a drag'n'drop method to pull
images/graphics/animations/text/sound etc in. The choice
between VB & TB is not so clear. It depends on how well and
how quick you program and how productive you want to be (a
beginner can be productive very quickly on a iconic system,
yet would take days to have the same demo going using a
scripting app'.)
So VB vs TB?
If you are a gun programmer, I'd go for VB (it's non
intuitive) but it's powerful…If you want an "out of the box"
solution chose TB..
If you want to get really productive quickly chose one of the
above (**)..how much money do you want to spend?..Best value
for money seems to be Image Q (cheap, easy to use) and SHOULD
handle your power requirements..If money's not an issue (is
this ever the case?) buy Authorware Pro (power) and VB..and
use both!
The above is ranked considering: power, cost and
productiveness
Two good books are "A Guide to MULTIMEDIA" (NRP)(comes with a
TB authored example) & "MULTIMEDIA – Making it work" (comes
with crippled TSHOW-DOS).
Just a comment about WINDOWS authoring systems: 1. Not every machine
has Windows (yet?) but every machine has DOS 2. Windows authoring
software is good but EXPENSIVE when compared to DOS authoring
software (ie: Authorware Pro $5000 vs Media Master $700) 3. The good
thing about Windows is that it is a defacto standard – and that's
good. Windows has a certain look (palette) about it, (ie: grey
buttons & menu bars etc) and that's good also. HOWEVER try to import
a graphic file or FLC file in and Windows will try to change the
color palette of the incoming file to maintain that standard look of
Windows…That's a drag…YES, you can reserve the first 16 colors &
YES you can NOT allow Windows to change the color palette info of the
incoming file but then Windows will change it's look – defeating the
purpose of all Windows App's looking the same..
If you digitise the face of say a girl and use all 256 colors (the
palette will be mostly brown's for the skin and black's hair) to
truly represent that image and it will look good (check Thresea.Gif
Ani Pro) If this image is imported into an environment that doesn't
have those 256 on screen (ie Windows) it will:
Change the incoming graphic and won't look as good Change the menu
bar palette.
Yesterday I imported a FLC of a Viewpoint (human Skeleton)
model breathing into Authorware Pro, it changed ALL the colors
to GREEN ???$%^&*##@$%…Darn it, skeletons don't have green
bones (well not humans ones anyways)
Moral of the story is screwing with any palette info is time
consuming (and you've got to think ahead) DOS based system
don't look a certain way. Make the interface any colors you
wish even to suit the current palette info..
SOLUTION:
Windows start up rez and color depth is 640x480x16 colors
(Like your clients) WHY don't we run in Windows in HICOLOR
mode (256, 32000, 16mill)…you think Windows is slow now.
This is like an exercise in seeing just how slow can you get
your PC to go. It will grind away………yawn…..snore
zzZZZZ. And it rasies some more questions about this defacto
standard. Can your clients run their clone video card in Hi-
re? Are they run in Hi-re now? Do they how to get it into HI
COLOR mode?
4. Try to import some digitised video into Windows. Yes you
can use AVI but try to UP-SCALE the window size from it's
postage stamp size (200×160 pixels) and watch it video tear
all over…WINDOWS does suffer from a lot of overheads (DOS &
WINDOWS together) DOS based authoring dosen't have anywhere
near the overheads of WIN3.1 (use mem and check yourself)
Maybe NT will save us (ie: no DOS at all) JUST NT —->YES
But I don't have 16Mb of ram yet just to get the dam thing to
run. Do your clients
Anyway, I'm not WINDOWS bashing (windows is very convenient)
and I use windows and Dos authoring sytems. BUT DOS is
cheaper, faster alternative that retain a lot of power. I
think Windows will take over BUT for now DOS can do it better
….It intresting to note, that a company in OZ is using GRASP
to illustrate windows app's like Corel Draw, words etc. The
GRASP demo looks like and acts like Windows and runs
faster…and run from c:>
Let me pose two short Questions:
Questions: FLIGHT SIMULATOR IS A MICROSOFT PRODUCT, WHY DON'T
THE CLEAVER PROGRAMMERS AT MICROSOFT HAVE FLIGHT SIMULATOR
RUNNING UNDER WINDOWS??? WHY ARE THEY STILL (at the moment)
RUNNING UNDER DOS?
WHY DO AD's for "WINDOWS ACCELERATOR CARDS" FILL OUR MAG's?
Cos' everyone is trying to get some speed out of it.
When everyone has blazing 786's with 32Mb of RAM and super
accelerated video cards, Windows will be great, Although
software developer will probably be writing app's to outstrip
that hardware as well.
Anyway hope it helps:
There's lot of info you probably didn't want here, but I feel
much better now, I'm going to take my medication now. – bye
Jerry,
What you have said about windows is somewhat true. (Though I am running my
Windows machine at 1024×768 at 65k colors and rarely experience speed problems
that make me yawn.) The biggest advantage, period, to windows is that you
don't have to worry about the hardware they are running it. Getting drivers
for their graphics card, sound card, etc. is all handled by the manufactors of
the boards. Once the drivers are set up the people can forget about them, and
most systems now come pre configured. We have gotten very few calls from people
having problems running our CD-ROM title, yet I have 5 Multi-media DOS CD's
sitting on my desk now that took reconfiguring my whole system to get them to
run because some arrogant DOS programmer felt that I should dump all of my TSRs
and reconfigure my system to be able to run one game. I returned one the other
day because it wouldn't reconize my new high end sound card. Bottom line, DOS
stuff is a lot faster in some cases, but for the general public, who doesn't
want or know how to play with their config.sys and autoexec.bat file, Windows
is the best solution for the general public. (Also figure that almost every
new machine sold comes preconfigured with windows.)
Andrew McClary
Graphic Alchemy
Good to talk to you Andrew. This type of discussion is certainly
advantageous to all parties concerned, swamping ideas and
opinions is also very healthy and is basically what C'Serve is
design for.
Some comments about your response if I may:
AMc>"What you have said about windows is somewhat true. (Though
AMc>I am running my Windows machine at 1024×768 at 65k colors and
AMc>rarely experience speed problems that make me yawn.)"
[Running Windows, or any package, at 1024x768x65000 color is
good, however you must have a decent machine to do so and not
have any speed degradation..Are you probably running a 386/486
with some (8ish Mb) RAM and obviously a hi color card . Since we
are talking about Authoring, do you author in that res and at
that color depth? Probably not cos' you then your clients would
need to have a comparable machine…and card that can drive in
that resolution/color.
Does'nt this sound familiar, WINDOWS did not change things
dramatically. See, you still have to ask the same questions a
DOS authoring person does . Questions like what resolution and
what color depth can my client access? If I stick with
640x480x16 it doesnt look photorealistic – but anyone running
Window can run it. If I try for 640x480x256 and above it looks
good but can clients access it. SO MUCH FOR A STANDARD?]
AMc>The biggest advantage, period, to windows is that you don't
AMc>have to worry about the hardware they are running it.
AMc>Getting drivers for their graphics card, sound card, etc. is
AMc>all handled by the manufactures of the boards.
[Yeah your right, but windows still has to be set up. How many
articles do you see about getting the best out of WINDOWS? And
why do people write such articles if it's such a standard?
..WHAT's the difference configuring WINDOWS (alter win.ini) to
run in Hi reZ/HI COLOR OR configuring DOS (choose a
different Config.sys).????
AMc>Once the drivers are set up the people can forget about them,
AMc>and most systems now come pre configured.
[I hope so. The single best thing WINDOWS has done…IS TO FORCE
MACHINE MANUFACTURES TO DESIGN FASTER CHIPS & MACHINES…to give
windows some performance] S3 video card is a perfect example –
It's been especially designed (accelerated) to get windows to
perform.]
AMc>We have gotten very few calls from people having problems
AMc>running our CD-ROM title, yet I have 5 Multi-media DOS CD's
AMc>sitting on my desk now that took reconfiguring my whole
AMc>system to get them to run because some arrogant DOS
AMc>programmer felt that I should dump all of my TSRs and
AMc>reconfigure my system to be able to run one game.
[Once again, the reason you don't have to worry is because
author's of the CD thought about questions like what start up res
what color depth..Chances are they were authored in 640x480x16
mode cos' if they go to hi res/hi color they have the same
problem's a DOS authorer has…What is my TARGET machine. Does
the person have the drivers, are they loaded, does s/he now how
load addition drivers.] So what's changed again?
AMc>I returned one the other day because it wouldn't reconize
AMc>my new high end sound card. Bottom line, DOS stuff is a lot
AMc>faster in some cases, but for the general public, who doesn't
AMc>want or know how to play with their config.sys and
AMc>autoexec.bat file, Windows is the best solution for the
AMc>general public.
[faster in ALL cases]
[The public who don't wish to choose a different startup
configurations are the same people who will be overjoyed to
reconfiging WINDOWS loading and unloading drivers to get the best
look out their application.
QUESTION 1: Why doesn't MicroSoft run Flight Simulator under
windows?
QUESTION 2. Why is there even a WINDOWS SETUP icon if it's dosn't
need reconfiguring?]
AMc>(Also figure that almost every new machine sold comes
preconfigured with windows.)
[I hope your right, because if the machine is high powered enough
to get some performance out of windows then my DOS programs will
run even FASTER]
[There is a perception among the public (and some computer
software developers) that they are old fashion if they don't
release a WINDOWS version of their product. Even if what they
release is INFERIOR to their DOS version. WordPerfect is a prime
example…The typist at work who use DOS WP 5.1 have just changed
over to WINDOWS and all bitching – my am I waiting so long for
spell check, printing, etc etc..
Do you think AUTODESK will force YOST to bring out a windows
version of 3DSTUDIO???? I think the important word here is
FORCED!]
For beginners WINDOW is good (no obscure character commands) BUT
at some stage the user will want to know more…I hate those
annoying little messages…Do you want to print ..YES…are you
sure…YES…Choose YES to continue…ERRRRRRR!
Is WINDOWS the future? Look MicroSoft makes both, why would a
smart man like GATES just stop production on a money earner?
The main problem with windows is while people are watching the
HOUR GLASS ICON they are not being productive. (and let's not
even talk about that multitasking farce)
Anyway good talking to you.
Though we are in the wrong forum for a WINDOWS LOVE/HATE FEAST –
Once again I'm not a WINDOWS BASHER, I have windows and use
windows – but only when I've some time to kill! <grin>
CU GH
Jerry,
I haven't worked with Toolbook but I have completed commercial stuff with VB.
It worked quite well. Any missing components from the boxed product can
usually be found in VBs extensive third party add on list. Make sure you get
the profesional version if you want to do MM.
Andrew McClary
Graphic Alchemy