I was just reading some reports from AmiWest 2010 and got interested in the AVD news. It apears that the development of this visual developer suite have been restarted.

Curious about the project I followed the link to the homepage to read more.
http://bitbybitsoftwaregroup.com/index.php

The suite itself will cost $199.95 (preorder price) But there are also plans for a Free version. Also they have a sponsorship system to support the development of the free version, where you can donate monthly or on a one time if you wish.
The interesting about this donating plan is that everyone that donates and at some point reaches more than $200 in total, will get a copy of the suite.
So it is almost like preordering the package, but paying it in rates.

Apearently the suite is not ready for release yet, so I just donated $10/mnt to support the software development. Actually I dont even own an OS4 machine yet either. But hopefully I will someday, and then this software might be finished as well, and if I then still want it I can just donate the rest of the remaining amount.

Anybody else interested in this software?

@amyren

Thank you for supporting my efforts to resume full time
development on AVD and FreeAVD.

I am currently doing some final testing of the SDK Browser v2.0,
which I demoed at AmiWest, and will be releasing it as a standalone
FREEWARE version (hopefully sometime this weekend).

My primary focus after that is to complete development (to v1.0)
of the GUI Builder. With any luck that should be around 3 months
from now assuming I can continue to put in the hours on it.

I also plan to resume beta releases of AVD to current customers,
and development betas of FreeAVD to supporters like yourself.
(So when you pick up an OS4 machine, I'll have something for
you to start testing).

Best Regards,

Jamie Krueger
BITbyBIT Software Group LLC

_________________
Jamie Krueger
BITbyBIT Software Group LLC
jamie@bitbybitsoftwaregroup.com
PLEASE NOTE: I only speak for myself and my company,
and am not a spokesperson for Amiga Inc.

@JamieKrueger

Hey Jamie :)

Can you walk me through how you'd create a GUI and then hook up events to it? Something like Visual Studio 2008ish would be pretty cool. I.e. drag a control (or gadget in this case) from the toolbox into the editor window, then select from the properties window the event you want to connect up, then double click there to have it created automatically..

Which GUI toolkits will be supported?

Will there be an entire IDE to go with the GUI builder? I'm quite liking Simon Archer's CodeBench lately.

Last edited by jahc on 30-Oct-2010 at 01:54 AM.

@jahc

AVD (Advanced Visual Developer) will provide a fully
integrated set of IDE tools, but will also be very open
to external control and thus still integrate very well
with your favorite editor, etc. I have been talking with
Simon about how to best integrate parts of AVD with
CodeBench, for example.

Here is an example screen shot of the GUI Builder.
It is a be old at this point, but it does give you some
idea of how things are shaping up.



AVD's GUI Builder supports all the OS4 gadget classes
that currently make up Intuition/Reaction. It allows you
to create and manipulate the live interface, rather than
a mock up of one.

Building interfaces with AVD's GUI Builder is extremely
quick an easy. You can setup a project, with a new interface
and new window and start adding layout groups and gadgets;
or jump right in and let AVD create all that for you by directly
clicking on a gadget object from the available list of classes.

So, a single click on a "button" object from a list, would create
a project, create a window for the project with a root layout
object, and then add a button object to it. One of the key features
of AVD's GUI Builder over that of visual builders on other platforms
is that is takes advantage of Reaction's dynamic layout engine.

Therefore you don't have to waste your time adjusting the position
and size of your interface components, the OS does this for you.
Instead, you can just focus on grouping your objects in vertical
or horizontal layout groups, and AVD's GUI Builder makes this
very quick and easy to do.

Once you have thrown a group of gadgets together into an
interface for your program, you will be able to assign the C
code to be executed when that gadget is clicked. Alternatively
you will be able to assign the execution of various external
scripting languages, like Shell commands, Arexx, Python, Rebol, etc.

It is important to note that AVD supports the automatic generation
of both a compiled C applications, and interpreted applications
written in XML and using a pre-built runtime system (I call GuiBits).

In the case of the C app, AVD generates the interface design and
other items you put together with the visual tools, into a one of the
ready to build AVD Template sources. You can modify any part of
the AVD Template source code as you wish as long as you respect
the designated areas that AVD may alter for you. You then built the
resulting code into an executable.

However, when you ask AVD to generate a "GuiBits" application,
it writes out a description of what your program should look like
and what it will do (using some internal logic and external scripting),
and sets it up to run by icon or command line. When run, the runtime
interpreter (GuiBits) reads in your program's description and creates
the application on the fly. For example, using this system you will
be able to create graphical interface frontends for command line only
programs, or even create preference apps with zero programming
knowledge.

In summary, AVD will provide many of the features of modern visual
development systems for other platforms, but with a very Amiga feel
and likely be even easier to use then other system costing a great
deal more.

Best Regards,

Jamie Krueger
BITbyBIT Software Group LLC

_________________
Jamie Krueger
BITbyBIT Software Group LLC
jamie@bitbybitsoftwaregroup.com
PLEASE NOTE: I only speak for myself and my company,
and am not a spokesperson for Amiga Inc.

@JamieKrueger

All of this looks pretty cool. Is versions on your site of ADV + SDK browser are usable for now for real taks ? Or better to wait latest versions about which you talk ?

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@JamieKrueger

Jamie's back in full strength!

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@JamieKrueger

Quote:

However, when you ask AVD to generate a "GuiBits" application, it writes out a description of what your program should look like and what it will do (using some internal logic and external scripting), and sets it up to run by icon or command line. When run, the runtime interpreter (GuiBits) reads in your program's description and creates the application on the fly. For example, using this system you will be able to create graphical interface frontends for command line only programs, or even create preference apps with zero programming knowledge.

Sounds *very* interesting.

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X1000|II/G4|440ep|2000/060|2000/040|1000

what Amigavision was to multimedia AVS is to GUIs

does sound very interesting

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@jamie

Good to see a developement like this.

Thanks Jamie for your effort.


What do you think is going on with the website amiga.com?

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Sometimes we give people a lot of credit just because they’re writing nice sentences even if it isn’t adding up to much.

The site is very sparse on details, but I get the impression that it's like ReActor except that it won't run on OS3.9 and costs $200. I'll pass on that.

@Minuous

You forget to ask about aos1.0 and win3.1 support as well

@JamieKrueger 
Tested public freeware archives from your page, looks pretty cool !

Last edited by kas1e on 30-Oct-2010 at 02:36 PM.

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@kas1e

Quote:

You forget to ask about aos1.0 and win3.1 support as well

So true!

@Jamie
Do a RAD like Realbasic and I'll buy it for 400 Eur +

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Sam460 1.10 Ghz
AmigaOS 4 betatester
Amiga Translator Organisation

I might consider donating if you open-source the project and make it portable to other platforms.

Otherwise, I'd rather donate to projects that will benefit the entire Amiga community, and not just a small part of it. Like the AROS bounties.

Last edited by Channel_Z on 30-Oct-2010 at 03:32 PM.

@Minuous

Yep, OS 3.x is too old and no more supported officially, for users it's time to upgrade

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@samo79

Quote:

samo79 wrote: @Minuous Yep, OS 3.x is too old and no more supported officially, for users it's time to upgrade

...to AROS 68k!

@JamieKrueger

Great to see you back in business! AVD is one of the applications i was looking forward to buy as soon as it would become available!

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@Channel_Z

A Reaction GUI builder would be useless on AROS and MorphOS.

Varthall

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@Varthall

Exactly. That is why I only will support it if it is open sourced, so that other interested developers might add GUI builder support for MUI, ClassAct, BOOPSI etc.

@Channel_Z

It depends I guess, if the program has not been made to support other GUI toolkits, adding this might require a complete rewrite.

Varthall

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@kas1e

The current version of the SDK Browser (1.6) is very usable as an
AmigaOS4 SDK document viewer/browsing utility. The 2.0 version
does add some nice features over 1.6, and should be out sometime
this weekend. I would grab the current copy from my website or
os4depot and get starting coding now. :)

Then check back and you can trade up to the 2.0 version.

The GUI Builder can produce interface designs as both "C" and
"GuiBits" versions now, but is still Alpha and needs a lot of work
yet to be truly useful. I will be putting together a new build of the
AVD Beta for the current customers/beta testers soon. (Which
should be the first in regular updates to the beta testers).

Best Regards,

Jamie Krueger

_________________
Jamie Krueger
BITbyBIT Software Group LLC
jamie@bitbybitsoftwaregroup.com
PLEASE NOTE: I only speak for myself and my company,
and am not a spokesperson for Amiga Inc.