Official iT2D Documentation Feedback

#21 Ah yeah..all is clear now ;)

#22 Planned documentation (being written this week) for next iTGB Release:

Planned Reference
- Release Notes
- Gotcha List
- Preprocessor compiler flag descriptions
- iPhone script variables/preferences
- Difference between the 2 Xcode projects you get

Tutorials:
- Modifying our Xcode project to use your game and deploy to device
- Handling an interrupt (call, home button, etc)
- Simple Multi-touch tutorial
- Using Windows PVRTC Tool
- Computer Terminal GUI Tutorial (yay!)

#23 The docs will be created here: iTGB Beta Docs Page.

When I'm done writing on TDN, I will download and convert each article and put into the official documentation.

#24 Will there be any examples of calling into the iPhone API's for things like getting input from the keyboard or displaying an HTML document?

#25 There really hasn't been much update to the docs yet, a couple small sections and a lot of outline.
I appreciate the couple of gotchas that are there, but am eager for more. Is more coming soon??

#26 @Dave - There are more docs coming. I have to cycle from engine to engine when it comes to generating new documentation. With a heavy focus on Torque 3D, I usually wait until I'm given a date for an engine's update to produce more written content.

However, I have created several iTGB video tutorials which I'd like to start uploading soon. This is mostly a big help to newcomers to TGB, iTGB, and iPhone deployment.

For developers more knowledgeable with Torque tech, like yourself, I'm going to need more feedback about what specifically you want documented.

#27 I suppose that's a fair question :)

I think I really want to know more about the port, the real gotchas, etc. There is a whole potload of do's and don'ts people are smashing into and solving anecdotally via the community. Someone through the dev process probably hit these first and could comment on some things.

But it stinks having wasted many hours on 'known issues' that weren't centrally documented when staring down a deadline.

I'm talking about things like iPhone specific issue considerations like:
moving sprites (setUsesPhysics seems to solve)
oddness/considerations with particle emitters
quit
preload vs unload for images
inability to use resources traditionally
speed considerations with moving sprites/behaviors/components (what works best in which situations?)
How to dev/test/refresh the xcode project. That workflow took a lot of time to master until anecdotal suggestions established it.

Someone had to have bumped up against these in development and those notes would be beneficial to us, who are trying to push the edge with the software now.

The getting started stuff would be useful of course.

Bottom line, the things that make iTGB different from TGB are the things I want to know.

#28 Dave , that is a really good list and you are totally right about having an answer for all of these in the forum.
I went through your list one by one and I can clearly remember solutions for all of the issues you described.
The problem is that I can't find it. off course, if somebody just started using iTGB there is no way they will know about it and at some point they would have to ask about setUsesPhysics() and all the other gotchas. That's why we need the search to work.
If we can get the search to work it'll make it much easier to find answers and we will have a lot less posts that are copies of previous posts.

#29 Hi Michael.

Just setting up iTGB, earlier there was mention of a "Getting Started" or "Quickstart" type of section in the docs. It would nice to have a quickstart (graphic), maybe just before the Conclusion in section 1 or after the Contents section. A quick workflow from start to finish....getting the quickstart App on your iPhone. Like the "Compile to iPhone" section but earlier and lighter (less detail). Enough to get it working....

The docs are excellent non-the-less!! Just a thought.

Thanks!
John Popadiuk
Chicago

#30

Quote:However, I have created several iTGB video tutorials which I'd like to start uploading soon. This is mostly a big help to newcomers to TGB, iTGB, and iPhone deployment.

I suggest you upload them now, I just spent 700$ on buying TGB pro and iTGB and I'd like to have as easy start as possible :) So please if you have any documentation and videos that you are holding in, upload it it will be appreciated and it is needed, no reason to hold it in :)

#31 Hello,
I would really like to see some docs on the known work a rounds for iTGB
1) Stuff like having to use “setUsesPhysics” to get moving sprites visible on the real hardware.
2) What you need to do (and how) to get your game to load up under the 30 second limit (delaying scripts until needed and the like (I’m really stuck at this at the moment and it’s driving my nuts)).

Some simple tutorials for a very basic game, going from the very beginning (importing gf/x and audio (explaining how you can’t have MP3 and WAVs playing at the same time)), right up to getting it working on the iPhone (with all the optimizations needed to get it to load up quickly). I’ve not really seen any more tutorials then what came with iTGB and that was really the minimum possible to get you started.

Considering how long iTGB has been out now, the documentation is very, very poor. I’m not having a go at you Mike (in fact your one of the reasons I’ve kept hammering away at iTGB), but GG really need to employ more people to do this as it’s really letting them down and the fact that GG is releasing more engines that will need documentation for, yet GG don’t seem to be increasing the teams to cover all the extra work that is need for the extra support (that will be needed) doesn’t look good for the future for the rest of the users (it’s also a reason I’m not going to be buying T3D for you guys).
Don’t get me wrong, I like TGB a lot, but iTGB just doesn’t feel finished / a complete product yet, and it’s been out a while now. I’m really disappointed to be honest. Again Mike, none of this is aimed at you, but your bosses really need to start hiring more people to help support the products and after looking at other companies products, it really shows how far behind iTGB is.
Sorry, I started to rant there, but I hope it’s taken as constructive criticism and it honestly isn’t done to cause an argument, it’s just something I’m feeling passionate about.

Thanks,
Mike.

#32 I think the sales page needs to be updated to be more clear about the system requirements. It has requirements for PC, Mac and iPhone, which almost led me to believe that I can compile everything on the PC and use it on the iPhone. It took some reading on the forums to figure out that you NEED a Mac to get your game on the iPhone; No Exceptions. I think the sales page should make this very clear.

#33 Not really documentation related Bruno...I'll pass along the feedback regardless...

#34 That is a good thing to add because it will keep my inbox smaller. I get questions about it all the time even though the Apple EULA for the iPhone SDK is extremely clear on the matter.

#35 Hi....Michael.

More than happy to assist (per M. Moore's comments) with visual for Quickstarts or basic manual updates and iTGB workflows. Have much experience in game design, designing documentation / manuals for games and vector graphic art to complete.

Please let me know.

John Popadiuk
Zidware

#36 I've been saving up for iTGB and just bought it but I have to say that I'm really disappointed with the documentation.

Michael and GG team, please give us 1.3 and better documentation soon!

#37 In TGB 1.7.2 and 1.7.4 the documentation contains a section called "Samples and Tutorials, Reference, TGB Reference" which contains all the TGB classes, with their associated methods, callbacks and fields.

This section is missing from all later versions of the documentation as far as I can see. iTGB 1.2 comes with no documentation at all! The official iTGB documentation zip file is missing this section. As an iTGB customer I can also see downloads for TGB Pro in my account page, and the official TGB documentation zip file is also missing this section.

Since this is probably the most important part of the TGB documentation it would be good to put it back please. It's missing from iTGB 1.3 beta (or Torque 2D iPhone beta - whichever you want to call it) also.

#38 Did you download the offline documentation Conor? I believe that was moved into a separate download with 1.2.

#39 Yes, the separate offline documentation for iTGB 1.2 is missing the reference section for all the TGB classes.

#40 Alright, cool. I was just making sure that you didn't mean that the documentation itself was not included with the package when it was moved to the downloads. I get that question a lot.