I have been in the process of developing some in house tools that will help me write the games. I generally create tools as and when I need, or want, them. I could probably go to the App Store and find other peoples versions myself, but I figure, why pay for them, when I can write them. After all, if you are a plumber, you don't call someone in to fix the sink.
So I thought I would show them to you, just so you don't think I've been idly sitting on my arse.
These are obviously jus the icons that our amazing art department (erm... me) created. I shall go through each of these in order.
First up, the Colour Code Generator:
I don't know about you, but I hate having to work out colours and insert them into the source code, or web page. So this little tool allows me to select a colour, using the standard OS X colour selector and it will then display the colour codes in decimal and hex, as well as a source format of my choosing (at present, it will display code for Monkey/BlitzMax, HTML/CSS and Xojo/RealStudio). I can then click copy which will copy the source to the clipboard for pasting into my source code. If I already know the decimal or hex codes, I can enter them manually and it will adjust the colour accordingly. It's a small app, but quite a time saver.
Next, Database Analyser:
This is quite an old tool I wrote some time ago and it is a major headache remover when developing database applications in Xojo.
The analyser will load an SQLLite database file that has been created in the Xojo IDE and kick out the source code required for Xojo to create a new database file on the fly with the same structure. If you have designed quite a large database, this can save you, literally, hours of coding time, converting it to source code.
Font Builder:
Although the Monkey language is ideal for writing cross platform games, one of the areas where it is lacking is font and text support. In fact, it virtually has no font support. So to remedy this, Font Builder allows me to create a PNG image file of the required font and it also exports a definition file that is then loaded into Monkey (using my own custom class) and the font can then be used within the game. But, it is not limited to the standard TrueType fonts that come with a Mac, nor just to those that are downloadable. Because the Builder uses PNG images, it is also possible to create your own fonts, in colour, for your games. This can allow a much more vibrant screen display, without having to create a bunch of extra image files.
Image Slicer:
Working on my current game, I came upon a few limitations in Android that prevented me from using large images effectively. I also noticed that some of the images I was using were pretty inefficient, memory wise, as there were large areas of transparencies in them. Image Slicer allows me to slice images in a grid pattern of my choosing. I am also able to select which slices are to be exported and which are to be ignored. This way, I can more effectively manage the memory usage of my games and also obtain a few speed enhancements.
Finally, Max Debugger:
I have shown this one before. As I do most of my coding in BBEdit, rather than the Monkey or BlitzMax IDE's, I needed a way to debug my BlitzMax games without having to fire up the IDE. Max Debugger is just that, simply a debugger for BlitzMax games.
I do plan to enhance this further at some point in the future to also act as a debugger for Monkey and to allow remote debugging for multiple platforms.
All these tools were written with RealStudio (I haven't actually upgraded to Xojo yet) and compiled as Cocoa apps.
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