Hollywood 7 on X1000

This week saw the release of the latest version of Hollywood 7 for AmigaOS 4! I quick bought it to give it a go on my X1000.

Last time I looked at Hollywood was back here, a few years ago!

Hollywood is a commercial programming/scripting language which allows programs to be developed cross platform that can be compiled to run under AmigaOS 3, AmigaOS 4, MorphOS, AROS, Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and even Apple iOS and Google Android devices!

This program keeps getting better and better with more and more features added with each new release. The AMIStore client for AmigaOS 4 is an example of a Hollywood produced program, and of course Hollywood is capable of many other types of projects too.

As I already owned Hollywood 6.1, I qualified to purchase the cheaper upgrade option, and soon after  my purchase I received my keyfile and downloaded the installers for all the platforms I wanted to try it on, including Windows, MacOS X and linux.

Having said that, you don't actually need to do that, as you can compile the executables directly from AmigaOS 4 and just run them direct on the target system. So we can work entirely within AmigaOS while developing AmigaOS, Windows, Mac OS X and linux programs :-)

Speaking of which I should get it installed on my X1000. The install instructions are pretty straight forward. No need in this version to construct an iso to install from, which is great!

The installation process is very straightforward:

The installer picked up my Hollywood 6.1 installation to update:

As you can see, Hollywood can run on the NG and Classic Amiga platforms:

The new version introduces unicode character support, which is a great step forward. It mentions in the installer how to make older Hollywood programs deal with it if they are not unicode compliant:

You can use Hollywood from the command line or GUI to run scripts. I prefer to use Cubic IDE editor with the add-on Hollywood IDE support, but more on that soon.

Something to remember when you have Hollywood programs that are not behaving themselves without a close gadget or running fullscreen is the CTRL-C command to quit them:

Install is completed!

At the conclusion of the installation you get a nice Hollywood program that explains the new features of Hollywood V7, as below:

 I then ran the Hollywood GUI program, which allows you to see example scripts, including running them and viewing the source code, etc:

The 3D cube looks pretty cool:

Included with Hollywood is a comprehensive AmigaGuide document for Hollywood features and functions:

The Hollywood scripting language constructs and commands are also covered in detail, making this an essential go-to guide as you learn how to use Hollywood.

From my previous installation of Hollywood 6.1 in 2016, I also installed all the separate add-ons on the Hollywood website that enable support for all sorts of programs and project types, datatypes to playback music/videos, MUI integration, and more too!

These add-ons have not been updated (as I write this) from the older version in 2016, so I don't have any add-on installations to show here.

One thing I did update though is the Hollywood for Cubic IDE add-on, also downloadable from the Hollywood website. This enables full Hollywood compilation, source code highlighting and more.

The installer reminds you that you will be prompted to overwrite older files (as in my case):

Once installed, the Hollywood functionality add-ons are now available in Cubic IDE, my preferred editor environment in AmigaOS 4. (and indeed Classic Amiga as well):

I loaded up a program I have been working on from time to time - a little tribute to my old demo group The Experience - but not updated for a while now!

I then recompiled it under v7 and it compiled it from AmigaOS 4 with no problems!

I realise it is not the best looking or the most exciting thing, but from little things big things grow right?

In this case I have a program that allows me to select from the two Amiga demos that I helped write back in the late 1990's on AGA Amiga 1200/030 systems, for playback as mp4 video files:

I am pleased to see a bug that prevented colour playback of the videos has been fixed now, so it has given me more motivation to try expanding the functionality of this program further.

I can also playback the mods I wrote for the two demos from the program as well, although I haven't worked out how to stop them yet! Still have a lot more to learn! :-)

Hollywood 7 is a great product and well worth trying out, especially if like me you are a novice at programming.

The loss of my friend Mark

Last night (September 29) a close friend of mine, Mark Thompson passed away. He is known in the Amiga scene by his demo scene handle Axon of The Experience, a Classic Amiga demo group I formed in the late 1990's in Adelaide during our university days. We wrote 2 AGA demos and Mark wrote another separate intro in Assembler for Amiga 1200/030 systems.

Every week we would have coding sessions in his dorm room on our Amiga 1200's, with some of our Amiga owning friends at Uni also involved in the demo group at that time. We would always have too much drinks and fish & chips from the Blue & White cafe in North Adelaide after a heavy night coding...we attended the Coven demo parties at Adelaide Uni for a few years in 1995/1996/1997.

Together we wrote a hurried demo for Coven 1997 (Adelaide demo party) called "TLA" (which couldn't be included in the compo because it was PC only!) and also another demo called "Terminal" for Remedy 1998 where it finished 4th. It was a lot of fun.  Mark not only did the coding but also some graphics work on the Amiga too, like making 3D objects and even the TLA logo below.

 
We all had (and still have) huge respect for the Amiga demo groups who produced and continue to produce amazing demos for Amiga even today.

We knew we had no hope of emulating that but we tried anyway, and thanks to Mark's amazing coding skills in Assembler we produced the demo called "Terminal" in 1998 which I am still very proud of working on. I still have all the source code to the two demos, not that I can do anything with them nowadays.

The demos, some music and source code for TLA are still available on Aminet today from when we uploaded them all those years ago if you are interested to try them out.


Demos:

http://aminet.net/package/demo/aga/exp_term
http://aminet.net/package/demo/aga/exp_tla


Music:

http://aminet.net/package/mods/demo/term_int
http://aminet.net/package/mods/demo/tla_main

TLA Source:

http://aminet.net/package/dev/src/tla_source

Mark originally had the handle Raven, but then found out someone else had it already, so he changed it to Axiom (until he found out that was taken too!) and then finally settled on Axon.

A YouTube link I put up with the Terminal demo is here:

Traksion produced the main title song for Terminal and some pixel art. I did the design, some incidental graphics and the intro music. Mesh did most of the other great graphics in the demo and produced the 3D spacecraft flight animation.

Traksion came with me and ran the demo at the latest Adelaide Amiga user group meeting on the Amiga 4000T in early September 2015.

I was very proud we could show Mark's coding skills to an Amiga audience once again!


He was a very talented programmer, first on Amiga and then in the PC world. He was a great guy and a great friend to me over the years. Last night he passed away from terminal brain cancer, leaving behind his wife and his young son. I offer my sincere condolences to them and their families at this time. I will miss him.

Rest in Peace mate.