A Book About Hype (3.5+Pro) šŸ“˜

yeah! :slight_smile: and deleting an element the third time with all command -keys pressed the robots big brother came along ... great !

so is there a nice animated easteregg within hypeĀæ

1 Like

It's just a funny dialogue box.

I wasn't expecting that. I was wondering what would happen? Would it be like a video camera recording a display of its own video? (Another comparison, a mirror pointed at another mirror.) How would it work? It didn't even occur to me to put a symbol in a symbol. So as I was about to try it, I was imagining some big scenarios.

Heh, and then I saw that. It makes sense. Symbols shouldn't be in symbols. The symbol would displayed an infinite amount of times.

This book doesn't have an index. There is a glossary option in iBooks Author, but I'm not planning to use that for this book. Instead, I have Chapters and Sections. If you wanted to learn about Symbols, there's a "Symbols" section. If you wanted to learn about "Persistent Symbols" there is a section for that too. If you wanted to know about a particular part of the Inspector panel, there is a section for each tab.

The idea is that I'm starting from the beginning, thoroughly explaining the software, and then I move into more advanced and real world topics.

I'm not ready to publish the list yet, as it's still changing.

2 Likes

Progress Update - September 29, 2015

Wow, September is almost over. I better get moving. Iā€™m going right back to work after this post. I was feeling pretty good about the example I just made, so I thought you might like to see a screenshot.

I mentioned the ā€œDensityā€ interactive example before. The screenshot is from the ā€œFrictionā€ example. It looks simple, but there are subtle things going on. The element rolls from left to right. Once the element reaches the right side, the scene automatically resets. The Friction value can be changed with the slider ā€“ while the scene is running. The controls at the bottom left are in a ā€œPersistent Symbolā€, so the Friction setting is consistent. You can load a circle or a square.

I think this is a great learning resource, as you can actually see how the Physics settings work.

I also created a nice interactive example for Bounce / Drag. I have about a dozen of these interactive examples in the book so far. Iā€™m planning to make more.

1 Like

Please take your take with the scaling section as well as best practices for texting symbols and using multiple time linesā€¦ It can be so easy to lost. I love the screen shot above it looks like a great example to illustrate how the physics interacts.

1 Like

Progress Update - Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Iā€™m working on the JavaScript chapter now. A major issue arose. I wasnā€™t sure how to settle a bitter debate ā€“ Should semicolons always be used or is ASI (Automatic Semicolon Insertion) good enough?

I noticed that Tumult uses semicolons in their examples. Theyā€™re aggressive about reducing the size of their JavaScript code, so thereā€™s probably a good reason why they use it.

Previously, I was using semicolons all the time. But lately, there seems to be a trend in excluding them. (Swift doesnā€™t require semicolons either.) I was shocked to see that I could remove all of the semicolons from one of my Hype projects and nothing bad happened. I tested another project. It was also OK without semicolons. I tested a third, uploaded it to the server, to see if there would be minification issue. Nope, just the usual JavaScript issues I didnā€™t get around to fixing yet. HA!

Learning about ASI has certainly changed my JavaScript writing style. Iā€™m seriously thinking about dropping semicolons when theyā€™re not necessary.

Personally, Iā€™ve always hated them. It seemed superfluous. Yet, I donā€™t think Iā€™m going to to settle the debate. A lot of developers are using semicolons because thatā€™s what theyā€™ve always done or because thatā€™s what theyā€™re used to from other programming languages. I doubt Iā€™m going to change their minds.

However, people that are new to JavaScript wonā€™t have an opinion on this matter. Every line of code that future developers write could be partially influenced by me. This feels like a big responsibility.

Update: I might change my mind on this one, but Iā€™m starting to think semicolons should be used. Itā€™s not just fear, uncertainty and doubt. There are legitimate concerns. I donā€™t think theyā€™re major concerns, but itā€™s enough for me to feel bad about excluding them.

1 Like

I hope youā€™re feeling energized about the book-Hereā€™s what Iā€™m struggling with -Iā€™m working on a fixed layout iBook with pages that are HTML5 widget scenes built in Hype Pro. Several elements will be physics powered, which is great for mobile. But iBooks is also available for Macintosh. How do I make it just as entertaining?

I'm quite tired actually. This book is moving along at a much slower pace than my last two books. I like to think it's because I'm working harder at it. Perhaps it's because the subject matter is more difficult.

I'm not sure a fixed width iBook is a good idea. While an iOS device running the latest version of iBooks can open a .ibooks file, it's not the greatest of viewing experience. I'm using the ePub template for "A Book About Hype".

The Interactive Stencyl Textbook uses a fixed-width layout. Wow, that was a bad decision. At first, it would only run on Mac and iPad. Lots of people were grumpy about that. It's disappointing, because I like the look of a fixed layout.

Isn't it the reverse? Wouldn't physics powered Hype widgets be more powerful on desktop? I'm using Hype Physics in my book. It seems to be OK. The problem is when two Hype widgets are too close to each other. To prevent crashing, I try to limit it to one per section. It's one of the reason why I have so many sections.

I set the widgets to run on the page. That way, they scale to match the size of the book/display. It's disappointing that fullscreen mode doesn't fill the screen, but that issue appears to be on Apple's side.

Thanks. From what I can tell it isn't the scene itself that is off, but the elements in the scene start to slide a little. If you set a background color to the scene you can see this. Further, it only happens in Safari; Chrome and Firefox are fine. I believe this is a Safari bug. Unchecking "Use WebKit graphics acceleration" from the Document Inspector also fixes this.

Our minifier (google closure compiler) will automatically remove or add semicolons as it sees necessary (it prefers not to use newlines so I think keeps a lot around, but they aren't really "ours"). I personally like/use them as it does protect against some classes of bugs but also more strongly indicates intent... we're also C/Objective-C developers so it is a bit second nature to us to add them. I'd also say most developers do use semicolons, so there's a better chance of copy/pasted code matching their style. JSLint and other cleanup tools I believe enforce using semicolons.

2 Likes

Progress Update - Tuesday, October 6, 2015

I had a pretty productive dayā€¦ wellā€¦ evening. Last night, I was writing up a storm. Iā€™m past the tedious parts of the book. Now I can focus on examples. First up is an RGB color selector. This part is so much more fun. I was doing great untilā€¦

Whoaā€¦ whoaā€¦ whoaā€¦ this code is embarrassing. This isnā€™t optimized.

Almost 24 hours later, I figured out a better way to do it. I decided to add that into the book. It happens a lot. A project might look good at first, but then a problem is discovered. Then itā€™s the delicate process of deciding how to fix the issue. Maybe thereā€™s a cross-browser issue, maybe the code runs slowly, maybe the code is insecure ā€“ a lot can go wrong. I think thatā€™s a good message to communicate. A lot of new developers might think itā€™s their fault. Nope, just another day at the office.

I donā€™t want to give you bad code. Even if an example works, it might not be good enough. I donā€™t want to get angry letters from people that know JavaScript better than me. At least if the letter is from someone at Tumult, theyā€™d probably be friendly letters. The team has been very nice.

OK, Iā€™m just letting you know that Iā€™m still alive and Iā€™m still working.

2 Likes

I agree Michael, long ago I put up a website using Hype ver1.x ( http://greenteamcarboncounty.org ). The ownership has changed several times and thus the contact phone number changed each time. On the first change I looked at the Hype project and decided to improve it, so I redid the entire project. Later on, I really did not want to redo the project but I still needed to be able to change the phone number. I discovered that I could open the ā€œfilename_hype_generated_script.js" and simply change the phone number there. That was a big time saver for me.

2 Likes

Progress Update - Wednesday, October 7, 2015

What example do you think Iā€™m working on next?

Also, wow! I was surprised to see this feature as a native part of OS Xā€¦

It was really easy to create the retina graphics that way.

2 Likes

Progress Report ā€“ Thursday, October 8, 2015

This is the kind of thing that worries me... http://graphic.com

Apparently, iDraw was acquired by Autodesk. It was a minor issue for the book, as I mentioned iDraw. (It's pretty good for creating SVG files ā€“ when Illustrator is too expensive.)

The larger concern is that I can't shake the feeling that a similar announcement could be looming for Tumult / Hype.

Now announcing Sprite Mover 5000 - Professional Plus - Championship Edition Turbo (formerly Hype) ā€“ A MicroDesk Application, part of the Clay Software Consumption Cloud. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I'm not sure how I feel about Autodesk. That upgrade notification is going to sit there until I figure that out. At least it wasn't (in order of descending contempt) Adobe, Google or Microsoft.

1 Like

No guesses? OK, here's another hint...

2 Likes

Hmmmm, could it be a puzzle?

The first image piqued my interest, I didn't know you could slice with Pixemator - that's a handy feature!

1 Like

It is a puzzle ā€“ a slide puzzle! It's a game from way back in the 1800s. Reading about its history, it reminded me of the Angry Bird craze.

It's a great example, as it shows real world applications of conditionals, timing functions and loops. It's also proof-of-concept that Hype can be used to make actual games.

But unfortunately, it's been a tremendous source of frustration for me this week. I felt that it should be playable. That means it should shuffle. I've been working on that for days. HA. I couldn't figure it out. I was running into weird errors.

1 Like

Canā€™t wait to this project drops! I am a huge fan of Hype. I find my self on he forms a lot trouble shooting projects very frequently. Mostly scaling issuesā€¦ But having a solid resource to help give a complete walk through would be a game changer for myself as well as countless others. I have already done some pretty amazing stuff with hypeā€¦ just wait until i actually have it down pack. If Iā€™m able to create a very solid work flow i will be creating video tutorials to help others and help spread the word about hype as a true brand ambassador. Special thanks to you and the Tumult keep for putting out an amazing product but even more importantly is for all the community support within the forms. The sense of community they have created has keep maybe people tuned into hype and wanting more.

3 Likes

If you need any help to keep the project moving Michael Iā€™m sure there are a few of us that could :wink:

Great work though. Canā€™t wait to see the outcome.

D

4 Likes

Itā€™s very need to me, thanks for share this. :smile:

Progress Report ā€“ Sunday, October 18, 2015

I might not have a lot of time left to meet an October launch deadline, but at least I have a nice way to display the timeā€¦

The ā€œTimingā€ example shows how to display time in Hype.

The more I use Hype, the less I touch the timeline. Iā€™m not sure if thatā€™s a good thing for the book. The examples are more complex than I imagined theyā€™d be. Thereā€™s a lot more JavaScript. I didnā€™t even get into math related topics, like sin/cos or calculating the distance between elements.

Anyway, Iā€™m still working on the project. It might still launch in October, but Iā€™m not rushing the book.

Also, since the book is planned to be an iBook Store exclusive, you might want to save yourself some money. iTunes gift cards are often available at a discountā€¦

I mention this in the book as a way to save money on Hype, but it could also work for ā€œA Book About Hypeā€.

2 Likes

Ohā€¦ is realy nice. Thankā€™s