What's your favorite new feature in 6.0?

[Corey]

Just thought I'd open up a thread for a little chat on which features people like best about the new app. Nothing is too small to mention, if you liked it, please let us know. Actually it doesn't even have to be a new feature necessarily, please feel free to comment any features you like in AutoPlay Media Studio 6.0.

Personally My favorite new feature is the "Set.Properties" actions which have been added for objects. This just blows me away, and it's on par with all of the best design/development software I've ever used. Just speaking as someone who loves new design technology and playing with software, I'm riding high on this feature right now. It literally opens up thousands of new possibilities, what a *great* job the dev guys did on this feature.

[Derek]

This is a hard one to decide. I spent an hour arguing with myself over this and concluded ....

I have to go with the ability to create Objects at runtime. It makes for a truly dynamic application and puts everything else out there to shame.
This has been a long requested feature and, in my opinion, is second only to 'export to flash' in the super cool additions list [of which some additions remain at large!].

[Dermot]

Those are two great features for sure. It is tough to pick one so I picked two. Resizeable Windows and the Menu Bar. I picked these because I see myself using them in every app I create.

This is an amazing upgrade because there is so much new stuff but yet it's just like using 5.0. You can just start creating apps right away as you did in 5.0. Normaly with a major product upgrade you have to spend quite a bit of time playing with it and getting to know all the changes before you are comfortable doing some real work. You guys did an amazing job.

I was thinking about how I might use the new "Set.Properties" actions and thought how easy it would be to allow users to apply different skins to your app, You could setup different looks for inputs, paragraphs, buttons etc and even different window masks. and let the user choose which look they want. You could have them listed on a menu on the new menu bar with cool names like "Rainy Day" or "Icecream Sundae". You could save the chosen skin in the registry so you can apply it the next time the run it.

[mrdude]

To be Honest, I have never learned to program or even looked at a programming book. I bought visual basic & the books a while ago but found it boring as I have used APMS in the past & the learning curve is very easy.
The fact that I can make programs using this software is fantastic, I generally just download some of the examples that people have made and malipulate them into my own little program.

What's the best feature in APMS 6 - well everything and the fact that you don't need to know anything about programming to use it.

APMS has alot of features that I don't know how to use yet and some of the scripting is a bit confusing for me - but once I see a few example I can work out what's happening and use that info in future.

Marks out of ten - I give it a thousand.

[Dermot]

Originally Posted by mrdude

The fact that I can make programs using this software is fantastic

That's another major acomplishment by IR is that they have made it easier for the non programmer yet more powerfull for the advanced programmer. Normally these go against each other. A developement tool is either geared more towards the non programmer or the advanced but not both.

I would definetly suggest you take the time to learn scripting though. It just lets you do so much more and it really is not that difficult.

[Corey]

I'll get some more training videos online soon. The new videos with be "example project" based, and super easy to follow along with, I guarantee they'll make learning scripting easier than ever before. I've got everything distilled down to a 'T". Plus, as you guys can hear from the latest vids, there's been a ton of work invested into improving the audio and video quality, so the new vids will be the best ever.

In addition to that we are working out a new system which will be download based to eliminate shipping costs from the price of the training modules. We haven't got all the wrinkles worked out yet but we will soon enough.

[Dermot]

Hi corey

Just noticed a typo on the video download page.

All video files mentioned above are 800 X 600 .AVI format and can be viewed in any viewer which supports .AVI format wuch as the free Techsmith player.

[Corey]

Whoops, thanks Dermot...

My second favorite new feature BTW is the Menu Bar. I was just fooling around with it and I have completely fallen in love with it. As far as I'm concerned the new Menu Bar system really makes it easy to create truly professional applications. I will probably use the menu bar on about 85% of the projects I create. Can't say enough good stuff about this menu bar system.

[csd214]

My favorite new feature in 6.0? What a difficult question; almost like “what’s the most important invention in the mankind’s history?”

Frankly, after my first (quick) glance at the first beta version, my impression was “not a lot of news”. I have run into foolish conclusions before… Very shortly I understood; “I MUST have v6”.

I’m not a skilled AMS user; I haven’t created a “real” app before now. In ten days time I’m going to publish an add-on utility to my users of my main app. (What I fear is that my customers are going to ask for “that nice GUI” in my main app.) I’m only using AMS50 features but it is published as an AMS60 SFX. The backward compatibility is an important feature! BTW, I have used Intrigued’s WebPopup (also in the main app). That module gives me an efficient way to communicate with the users.

Back to subject; I give my vote to the Tree object! Both Brett’s “File Tree Browser” and Tigg’s “XML Parser” are great examples of the Tree object’s utilitarian value. (And the XML Parser is useful to understand the XML structure and to have a quick overview of the file.)

[Worm]

Oddly enough, I've had the same fav feature since purchasing v3. That feature is this forum. Even though AMS has evolved to the power house it has, without this forum I'd have probably still be created menus for my VB app installations. I am contnually inspired and challenged by posts here and cannot wait to see the "goodies" that start popping up with the new "enablers" available in v6.

[yosik]

Originally Posted by Worm

Oddly enough, I've had the same fav feature since purchasing v3. That feature is this forum.

Hear Hear!!

As to my favourite new feature, I would go with Create objects / Set properties. This is, imho, THE best feature of AMS6.


Yossi

[Steven Carr]

Hmm...

For me i use AMS as apposed to "rolling my own" on a case by case basis. So anything that makes AMS easier to use is great.

The Set Properties / Dynamic creation is a great addition but also the extra content can tip the scales to using AMS for a particular application.

In time i might do more complex apps in AMS. But lua as a dynamically typed language without the ability to create structures along with a rudamentry debugging system creates a barrier.

[Corey]

OKl, I'm officially addicted to the HIDE and UNHIDE ALL features now. This guitar tool I just built has tons of dots on the page as well as other objects and I must say this feature really improved the workflow for me a lot. I use it on practically everything now. There's just no substitute for hiding stuff when it comes to visualizing and organizing things. Purely in terms of workflow I think this is my favorite new feature.

[SonG0han]

change properties on runtime is my favorite.

but menubar, create items at runtime and all other new features are very cool!

[pjborg]

As a "part timer" who's been using AMS since version 3, I'm going with the menu bar for now, but there is so much stuff here! I keep on learning and pluggin away at it. Thanks, pj