Are you a Mac TGB user?

#1 Just to make sure you caught it--the Mac installers for 1.7.3 are now available in your My Accounts page :)

#2 Oh goodie. Thanks :)

#3 Seth,
I develop primarily on the PC, but I always publish my games for both PC and Mac. I have a lot friends who own macs and its really great that I can share my games with them.

I also created a game for my master's thesis. Students had to play it and then take a survey to measure psychological responses. Many students at the school use mac exclusively so having a mac version of my game was very beneficial. Slightly off topic, its really too bad that there isn't a mac version of TGEA largely for the same reasons that I like TGB mac.

#4 I've been working with TGB on Mac since its alpha release. [I don't do Windows.]

My first (and only) TGB game, MahJong Tradition (Mac only), was released in October 2006; with modest, but continued, success.

I'm currently getting back into TGB coding after a long illness; and am dealing with the various horrors of upgrading my game to TGB 1.7.2. I've gotten everything to work; other than being able to save a game in progress (the lack of FileIO documentation for OS X is a great hardship!). I'm back to trolling through the forums on a daily basis for helpful hints from the community!!! I'll figure everything out. I always do!

Is there anything I'd like to see fixed or added to TGB? Nope! I think that GG's support for the Mac platform is excellent; considering the current state of affairs between Windows Vista and OS X 10.5. Oh, there are some pie-in-the-sky notions; like moving from Carbon to Cocoa, but that is only because I suck at Carbon and could do so much more with the game engine if it were written in Cocoa! Frankly, I'm thrilled with the current state of OS X support in TGB.

Seth, while it might be true that you won't get very many replies to this post; it is important to remember that, given the current surge of people moving from Windows to Mac, more and more Mac developers will be working with TGB. Apple is thriving. Microsoft, not so much! TGB developers will be making TGB games for the Mac We aren't as much of a minority on these forums as we were a couple of years ago; and will become a larger subset of the GG community as times marches forward. Try to not be impatient.

#5 With the current crop of iMacs being even better performers and lower priced, I'm moving that way. What will be most difficult for me is that I have a few engine changes in TGB, and no idea at all about programming environments on the Mac.

Well, that and no hands-on Mac experience other than standing in the electronics store and playing with the desktop.

#6 I develop on the Mac. I am frustrated by a cursor bug that has plagued TGB since 1.5.0. Using a custom cursor displays the hardware cursor on top of the custom cursor. I develop casual games for young kids, so it's a big deal for me.

Generally, though, you can't complain about the timeliness of the Mac/PC version releases. It's nice to see.

Greg

#7 I have a TGB license and have a macbook but don't have windows... I think that makes me a mac TGB user :-)

Gary (-;

#8

Quote:What will be most difficult for me is that I have a few engine changes in TGB, and no idea at all about programming environments on the Mac.

I feel the same way about the concept of using the development tools for Windows; which I know nothing about!

Don, I think that you'll find using Xcode to be an elegant development environment; with GG already setting up the Torque2D.xcodeproj absolutely perfectly. You won't have any problem adding your own files to the project; or, if you do, I'm sure the helpful folks on this forum will be more than happy to help you out.

#9 Putting my hand up...

#10 To me, Windows stinks. I feel it is slow and obsolete (especially when Vista came out). Although, that is just my opinion, I use Mac all the time, and I only use Windows when I need to recompile it in windows form.

#11 My daytime job involves OS X development, and eventually Wii. It's not lack of focus - it's diversification!
I'm trying to come up with small projects to do in TGB, so I'm merely a license-holder at the moment..must do better.

Being able to deploy for several platforms is important, but the ability to develop on OS X is a basic human right :)

#12 I use Mac OS X a my primary development machine. (iMac Intel dual-core). I reboot into Windows using Boot-camp to do Windows testing.

In the course of development, I've discovered that various things (which GarageGames employees have been rather hush-hush about) have not ever been implemented on the Mac:
- Joystick support
- Support to detect individual modifier keys (like shift or control) if pushed by themselves

After chasing down several employees, I finally got a clear answer that there are no plans to ever add joystick support for the Mac version. That's fine; I just wish they didn't advertise that TGB supports joysticks and is cross-platform, and never bother to mention that this is missing on the Mac.

I've also played published TGB games where the authors tell you to use modifier keys as game-control keys, and yet they fail to work until you change them to non-modifier keys. So the game was developed on a Windows computer, and the author did not realize that TGB has features available on Windows that simply are not implemented on the Mac. Had GG staff at least mentioned these missing Mac features, they might have designed their game a little differently, or at least mentioned this in the Mac release.

EDIT: I *do* want to add that, like Don, I am also very very happy with the current state of OS X support in Torque. It's truly awesome to do all my development on the Mac, select "Build" from a menu and choose Windows, and find that my game just magically works! Awesome. My gripe is mainly about GG's reluctance to admit there are missing features. If these were documented more clearly, I'm sure it'd save some developers a few hours figuring out that some things just aren't implemented on the Mac, and wondering why it doesn't work.

#13 I develop my game on a PC/Mac. I use SugarSync to keep the files in realtime with updates between them. So if I'm at home I'll update the code on my desktop (Vista PC) then click play after I save the code file on my Mac for testing, and visa-versa when im out on my map laptop.

#14 I too develop on the Mac but intend on releasing on the PC too. I'm generally happy with the state of TGB Mac.

Yes, there's the occasional bug that slips through the cracks (like TetraWeb's Cursor issue, which is IMHO easily fixed but it seems to have passed beneath GG's radar).

And yes, as Vern and Seth have mentioned, there are a couple features missing from the Mac build, but nothing that I'm too worried about just yet. I know that attitude will come back an bite me I know when I come close to release and I have to go and fix them myself, but at the moment, well, here's hoping someone gets ambitious before I need to :)

But if anyone's keeping track, add my vote to GG adding Joystick and modifier key support!

Joystick wise, this thread from 2005 is amusing. Here's hoping the Early Adopter period ends soon.

#15 Designing, playing and developing games on the Mac.

Carpenter Software

#16 I develop on PC (and is also my main machine), but also have a Mac. I know many people who have Macs, so I like the ability to make games on both PC and Mac. That is very important for me.

#17 I have TGB and i'm developing on an iMac (build early 2007).
It runs perfect and is so much fun to work with it on my mac. Too bad Torsion isn't available for Mac yet.

#18 Raising my Mac hand -- nothing using TGB to show yet, but hope springs eternal. =:)

Jay Jennings

#19 Mac hand raised here too. Have been learning to teach to design students. Soon to purchase for institution to use in mac environment after extensive trialing.

Love the environment with a few reservations:
1) Space in pathname issue drives me bonkers. Mac users typically name volumes/folders with spaces and design students don't have the codeNerd instinct to name sans spaces.
2) Lack of drag and drop is annoying, especially given the long heritage of drag n drop in mac os.
3) Importing and or deleting multiple images cumbersome.
4) Lack of documentation version number refs (as mentioned above) makes it difficult.
5) GUI documentation confusing/wrong/dated/makes my head hurt. (Anyone help with a link that explains clearly?)

Otherwise, still loving it.

Mark

#20 Mac only here...

My wish is to have all the bugs fixed... :)