Although graphics have seen a lot of improvements over the last few releases of Runrev, the graphics system isn’t really hardware accelerated. That’s where a product like Franklin comes in and solves a lot of performance issues. Even if you aren’t making a 3D game or simulation, you can use Franklin’s 2D sprite engine which is accelerated by underlying DirectX or OpenGL support to speedily handle a screenful of sprites. Interaction with these (like any object in Franklin) can fire call backs to Runrev.

When you start Revolution 3 for the first time, you’ll notice the brand new Revolution 3 Start Center. Here you can access recently opened projects, documentation, the user forums and more.

The best feature is that you can create your application on one OS and deploy to multiple operating systems. Build in Mac OS X for example, and you can compile for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux – and the applications all look native on all platforms and don’t have that sluggish feel of Java applications.

Runtime Revolution 3 adds several new features, including a new script editor, better online help, a new start center and more.

Mirye Runtime Revolution 3.0 includes the following major improvements:

Mirye Runtime Revolution 3 Script Editor. Mirye Runtime Revolution 3 includes a fast, modern script editing and debugging environment. Quickly access handlers, Errors, Documentation, BreakPoints, Variables and Search Results within a tabbed interface.

Mirye Runtime Revolution Help System. The new Mirye Runtime Revolution Help system includes all previously released materials plus Mirye Runtime Revolution 3 additions. But the improvements don’t stop there! You now have superior navigation and access to articles by subject.

Beautiful, Gradient Vector Objects. Mirye Runtime Revolution has always had built in vector object creation tools – now Mirye Runtime Revolution graphic objects support gradients. Not only can you interactively modify the gradients on objects, you can do this by script.

Multidimensional Arrays. Mirye Runtime Revolution 3 multidimensional arrays makes it far, far easier to work with data of all kinds. It will transform your use of working with XML data with Mirye Runtime Revolution applications.

RevCamp Subscriptions. Order Mirye Runtime Revolution 3 or Mirye Runtime Revolution 3 upgrades and updates and get a Mirye RevCamp subscription. RevCamp includes monthly releases of valuable content assets, tools, services and other features useful to Revolution developers.

Ultra Fast Database Applications. Mirye Runtime Revolution 3 Studio or Higher includes Valentina 3.1 ADK Advanced for Runtime Revolution. Paradigma Software Valentina is the fastest cross-platform database available and ADK advanced includes components for Mac OS X, Linux and Windows deployment, as well as Valentina Studio Admin visual database tool.

Benefits of Mirye Runtime Revolution Issue Format

The new release format offers the following benefits:

• Additional, Permanent Benefits. These are benefits that customers receive regardless of when they are announced. With this first issue, Studio and Enterprise customers receive Valentina for Revolution 3.1 ADK Advanced, the ultra fast database toolkit for Revolution.
• Limited, Timed Benefits. These benefits are only available if you download them within the limited time. With this first issue, Media, Studio and Enterprise customers receive the Business as Unusual Volume 1 collection of 20 royalty free soundtracks.
• News and Articles. With each release, there will be news, articles and tips offered to help enhance your use of Revolution.
• Special Offers. You can get special member offers for other, or third party products that will enhance your use of Revolution.

The Why Behind Mirye Runtime Revolution Format Change

Mirye Runtime Revolution is a professional tool for creating and deploying cross platform applications on all major operating systems: Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. In many respects, it overlaps and competes with the likes of Adobe Director, REAL Software REALbasic, MS Visual Basic, Java and even Adobe Flash or Microsoft’s .net framework.

Mirye Runtime Revolution overlaps with REALbasic, Java and .net framework in that it can deploy to multiple operating systems using mostly the same code base. But that simply describes features in the last step of a work flow pipeline – not the entire pipeline of a release.

Designers that have experience with Adobe Director, Flash or Microsoft’s new Expression more likely to recognize the pipeline, because these products also excel in aggregating combinations of audio, video and graphics assets. These are elements that are usually developed by someone else and upstream in the workflow pipeline.

Teams though can share more than just assets – but the knowledge of how to best exploit the use of those assets at each point in the work flow.

This brings us back to the format change and the question: Is Mirye Runtime Revolution only a deployment technology, or does it encompass the aggregated assets and knowledge? Even if you are a weekend developer and you wear all the hats of artist, layout designer, sound technician and coder, an additional benefit at any point in your work flow pipeline provides benefits to the entire project.

This brings us back to our new issues format. By providing ongoing knowledge and benefits in an magazine-like issue format – expanded beyond a software only update – a release can deliver benefits that are more timely, and benefit your entire work flow.

The morning begins at 9:30 AM with groups splitting between an Organizing Your Code II session run by Ken Ray of Sons of Thunder Software and a Files and Documents session. I sat in Ken Ray’s session, where he reviewed a variety of products such as The Scripter’s Scrapbook for organizing your code for easy reuse. This product supports 17 different languages, including Revolution, and has a feature that lets you search various vendor mailing lists for terms.

Ken followed this up with a discussion on how arrays work in Revolution. He discussed how he has his own notation for differentiating between arrays based on their scope. Later, Ken compared how arrays work in Revolution compared with other languages.

Then, he covered how custom properties work. Revolution internally uses a “c” to denote custom properties. He cautioned that “is among the keys” for poling for custom keys or properties doesn’t apply to customKeys. He then demonstrated how you can store anything in a custom property, including additional stacks. Finally, he discussed how you can trap a getProp message and have your stack modify it.

10:40 AM

Phil Davis presents Working with USB Devices and Revolution. Phil has extensive background in connecting custom USB devices to educational titles. Phil first describes just how complicated the USB spec is, and in this presentation discusses storage and communication. There are four different transfer modes supported for transferring information. Fortunately, Phil describes that you do not need to know the specs to work with USB and Revolution.

You can poll for Vendor ID, Product Name, Product ID and Serial Number to control use of your stack. This information is available on every OS, but every OS manages it differently. He went on to show how Windows stores this information in the registry, and how to query the registry from Revolution. On Mac OS X, there is a system utility to retrieve information about USB devices that’s accessible through a command line. Phil has created a library to work with USB devices that is freely available on his website. He also briefly covered USB Communications Class device, showing a USB RCS Servo Controller for working with USB cameras and other robotic devices.

Valentina Reports for Cross Platform Applications

Paradigma Software Inc develops the ultra-fast, cross-platform database system Valentina. Valentina Reports is a new client technology that lets you play back rich, formatted reports in your application.

Features for Initial Release

• Layout Visually Rich Reports in Valentina Studio Pro Beta (free during beta period)
• Drag Query Objects into Layouts
• Organize your data into Groups
• Add layout elements such as labels, lines, vector shapes, pictures
• Pull and display pictures from databases
• HTML/Web Object pulls pages from databases or live from URL
• Support for all major development environments on Windows and Mac OS X (Linux coming)
• Exports PDF and bitmap graphics of reports
• Royalty free application deployment

Examples of supported environments include Runtime Revolution, Adobe Director, Apple xCode, .net and more.

Pricing

• $149 per technology/OS (for example, VReports for Revolution Mac OS X)
• $299 for three technology/OS (for example, VReports for Revolution Mac OS X|Linux|Windows)

Educational pricing available.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg-2-E2jaxs

Downloads

Download Valentina Reports Beta 2 and Examples and Valentina Studio Pro Beta

• Valentina Reports for Revolution (Windows)
• Valentina Studio Pro Beta (Windows)
• Valentina Studio Pro Beta (Mac OS X)

Find other beta downloads here.

Ill be updating throughout the day.

Kevin Miller, president of Runtime Revolution spoke at the keynote, reviewing the significant success of the Revolution 2.9 release, including new improvements in printing, drag and drop and the new Linux architecture.

This was followed by some developer presentations by Quartam Reports and Daniels & Mara GLX 2.0 with Visual Application Browser.

Revolution will gain a PHP-style engine and plugin allowing you to embed Revolution code in a web page. A prototype was demonstrated by Robert Cailliau, co-creator of the world wide web. It will be compatible with all major web browsers. It will require little redevelopment of projects to bring them to the web.

• Performance is very fast – much faster than a Java applet
• This will have a sandbox security system similar to Java
• It will support database access
• It will support a plug in architecture if the end user will allow trust for it (including Applescript, shell, VB Script, etc)

A few demonstrations were shown.

Updated 12:15 AM

Trevor Devore, developer of Screensteps visual documentation tool presents the GLX Application Framework, a fast application starter framework for Revolution. You can download the documentation for the GLX Application Framework. Two very impressive features are file management, handling preferences, managing recently opened files and application packaging. You can download the framework and try it yourself.

Updated 3:05 PM

Scott Rossi of Tactile Media presents Multimedia I. His preferred graphics format for working with Revolution is the PNG format as it supports multiple levels of transparency, and the benefits of importing vs referencing graphics files. He followed this with a discussion of comparison of object effects vs card effects, and combining these with audio playback. He also demonstrated how to layer players to achieve multiple, simultaneous audio playback with Revolution.

Scott then demonstrated scripted music notation with Shakobox.

4:32 PM

Jerry Daniels of Daniels Mara gave an introductory presentation on building Internet applications. Jerry demonstrated how to create handlers and use the message path to access files on the internet to update local applications. Next, Jerry covered building a multi-tier architecture using tagged data. He recommended using tagged data for building application preferences, saving them in text files or using custom properties.

Jerry later moved on to how to extract data from the Basecamp API. You can also get example code from the GLX website. Lastly, Jerry demonstrated integrating browser-based data displayed through the web browser object from a website into an Revolution project using drag-drop.

5:44 PM

Devin Asay presented on building courseware and product demos using Revolution.

The Runtime Revolution cross-platform rapid application and media project development tool can compile to the following platforms: Microsoft Windows (98SE, 2000 Pro, XP, Vista), Mac OS X PPC, Mac OS X Intel, Linux and Solaris – giving full ability to develop, test and debug cross-platform applications. In addition, it supports the building and deployment of native internet CGI solutions.

Revolution 2.9 includes the following major improvements:

Over 500 Enhancements and Fixes. With the help of over 800 testers over and a year of testing, this release incorporates over 500 improvements.

Modern Linux and Windows Architecture. The Revolution engine now supports modern Linux conventions. Also includes native appearance on Windows Vista, XP Pro and even Windows 98.

Optimized for Mac OS X Leopard, and Earlier. Build applications that look native on Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard (smooth grey) or on Mac OS X 10.4 and earlier (brushed aluminum). Also includes the 2.6.1 engine for building legacy Mac OS applications.

Improved Documentation. Nearly twice the size of previous releases, now includes more information on using databases, XML, Unicode and more.

Better Database Applications. Eight new commands supported by Database Query Builder – worry less about low level scripting.

Printing Architecture Improvements. More than 20 new and updated features make printing complex layouts significantly easier and more professional.

Improved Active Scripting with Apple, Windows, Adobe Applications. Active Scripting with the “do..as” command means you can interact with OS level scriptable applications, like Microsoft Office.

Revolution Studio 2.9 costs $399, with Revolution Enterprise 2.9 costing $999. A limited time competitive upgrade bundle – that expires April 6, 2008 – to Revolution Studio 2.9 from Real Software REALbasic or Adobe Director also includes Valentina ADK Advanced for Revolution, a free day of training at Revolution Live 2008 and Valerian Professional Icon Set – a total value of $1200.

But this really isn’t about the technology – its about the socializing and appropriate venue. It seems like that simple truth may be eluding many, who probably have already forgotten what drew them to pre-Web 2.0 venues that very much were about where you hung out. The more you can get your face out there in the right venue, the more likely you will meet others of that also like that venue.