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RANT: Propeller Tool still missing professional features - Page 2 — Parallax Forums

RANT: Propeller Tool still missing professional features

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  • Bill HenningBill Henning Posts: 6,445
    edited 2011-02-20 13:50
    potatohead wrote: »
    Well, let's make sure the Sprite and Tile one we did works well on the thing. Linked in my Signature. It's going to Demo very nicely, IMHO. Tons of sprites, and it's full color, both VGA & TV. Says "propcade" right on it. I swear, LOL!!

    LOL!

    It definitely sounds like something that would be great for demos!
    potatohead wrote: »
    One thing I need to do on this pass is S-video. I keep getting distracted. Somewhere I've got a post of Eric's that describes how to set it up. Need to find that, and run the current TV COG I've written with S-video color. Did build up a simple LUMA / CHROMA cable, with two RCA jacks on one end, one funky S-video connector on the other. Figure I can build up a circuit with the simple RCA jacks, and use that cable to connect to the various S-video displays I have. I use the LUMA one for monochrome text, and it's flat out golden. Best way to run TV drivers, IMHO. Just no color that way.

    That would be very nice. I need to play more with SVideo too.
    potatohead wrote: »
    By all means do look at the drivers too. If there is some stuff in there that helps, be my guest. I'm about to try a VGA port of some of my stuff, and have been looking around at other VGA code to get a feel for things.

    Thanks. I think you will find these new one cog text drivers of mine interesting too.
    potatohead wrote: »
    Maybe I'll just move this TV project to BST. Bean is already there for the Basic. Why not? When I do better docs, I'll reference BST this time. In TV land, it's pretty easy to make a binary, so I'll do that. One thing about the two COG solution, is the ability to keep good render code seperate from the signal code. When they are woven together, ports are hard. Hard even with #ifdef.

    Sorry to go off on video stuff. Suppose that's another discussion on some other thread. Good job on the 40!

    I agree - and I use BST under Ubuntu (10.10, 64 bit) for 99.9% of my propeller work... but I did not want to have to require newbies to install it.

    Maybe Parallax should just adopt BST or Homespun.

    I've started the calculations for an interesting 4 cog TV driver. But I will take a look at the sprite/tv driver in your sig first, perhaps it will do everything I need :)

    No worries about going off-tangent!

    (I'm good ... I had more coffee <grin>)
  • JonnyMacJonnyMac Posts: 9,208
    edited 2011-02-20 15:17
    jazzed wrote: »
    @JonnyMac, for comparison which Phil was interested in, you should also compile that code with BST optimizations enabled. I use BSTC -Ograux.

    Yep, gets even smaller -- down to 571 longs. I verified the program is working with my GPS.
    1024 x 640 - 74K
  • Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) Posts: 23,514
    edited 2011-02-20 15:23
    What?! Smaller?!!! Let the compression wars begin! (Not really. I'd have to parse down to the expression level to do any further optimization. 'No time for that right now...)

    -Phil
  • SapiehaSapieha Posts: 2,964
    edited 2011-02-20 15:31
    Hi ALL.

    As I talked with Bill.

    All proposes are nice BUT.

    jag: OkI have readed this thread
    BUT
    All that are simple adds -- That not give PropTool much
    William: but it would help a lot
    i got frustrated making changes to many files

    jag: PropTool need reworking on BIN file construct

    William: YES

    jag: That helps what You write -- but in my opinion not much without BIN reworking

    William:
    i know, but i was only writing about probs i had today
    maybe you should post in thread about BIN issues too...
  • Roy ElthamRoy Eltham Posts: 3,000
    edited 2011-02-21 00:15
    Just wanted to give a quick update and also say that I have planned.

    First, I am a little over halfway through the conversion, I got slowed down a little because of work and other things, but I am still plugging away it it.

    Second, I plan to add several features to the compiler that should be usable in the PropTool. It's just a matter of Parallax tweaking the PropTool code to utilize the new features, or working out something so I can do that. High on the list of features to add are a preprocessor and dead code elimination. When I have the conversion part done, I'll be back here to get lists of features to work on.

    I hesitate to give an estimate of how long I think it'll be, but I can say that I am pretty sure we'll have the conversion done and some of the new features working before UPEW.

    Roy
  • AribaAriba Posts: 2,690
    edited 2011-02-21 17:29
    PreSpin is a little preprocessor made for Spin. It's available since 2007 ! I have made it then as a temporary solution until Parallax integrates preprocessing into the PropTool (we had the same request also 4 years ago).
    http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?95031

    The newest version (updated yesterday) recognizes also the preprocess directives of BST and Homespun, so it is possible to compile such a file with the PropTool (by first preprocessing it with one click).
    If you save the preprocessed Spin file under a new name, you can generate several versions out of a master file with preprocessing commands. These versions have no preprocess lines anymore and are therefore pure Spin files.

    It works now also with BST, with a little quirk - you need to close the "preprocessed" tab before starting a new preprocessing.

    The new version can be downlaodes at:
    http://www.insonix.ch/propeller/prespin.html

    Andy
  • Bill HenningBill Henning Posts: 6,445
    edited 2011-02-21 18:21
    Thanks for the update Roy.

    Ariba - thanks, that's a nice utility, however it is still an extra step for people new to the Prop.
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