Firefly Designer

[Chris Boss]

Brice,

I apologize about the short quotes from your email.

I didn't think it was anything confidential, but if it bothers you I am sorry. (I removed them from my previous post)

I am sorry you didn't get the support you needed, but I do think there must have been a problem with email communication, since I always respond to customer emails. There is no way I would purposely ignore customer request for help for months. That is absolutely not true.

My initial responses in this thread were simply about memory usage and I tried to clear up any misconceptions about that. I never said anything bad about FireFly and I didn't post simply to take away attention to it. FireFly is one of the most liked and well supported third party tools for PB and I hope Paul great success with it. Maybe it was a poor choice to broach the subject in this thread, for that I am sorry.

Like I said above, if you are not satisified with the product, feel free to sell it to another party so you can get the funds to purchase FireFly. You will find FireFly an exceptional product and worth the price.

I also find it strange that you are so disappointed with the product now, since in the email you sent me dated Sept. 14th, you said you "really like" like the software , "is perfect for" your "style of games" and that you were "very impressed with the performance".

I applaud your inability to keep customer correspondence private. One can only imagine what you do with other more crucial customer data?

so learn from your experience...

Indeed

[Jim Padgett]

We certainly have moved far away from the original poster's statement of Firefly..... or as a friend would say.. ' Girls Girls, you're both pretty ' ......

What I don't see is why someone would spend $$ on a product they don't really want and then blame it on the vendor... no one put a gun to your head... so learn from your experience... I for one appreciate the work anyone does to provide tools that make my programming more enjoyable.. I thank you all.. Bob, Chris, Paul, Eric and all the others that work so hard to provide tools for such limited market.

[Chris Boss]

Brice,

I tried sending another email to you using the address from an email I got from you dating Sept. 14, 2007

It was bounced back again and the reason why was:

"Recipient address rejected: User unknown"

[Chris Boss]

Brice,

I checked the forum and you did register on the forum shortly after you ordered the software.

I found at least 5 or 6 posts by you on the forum, the latest being a few months ago.

You could have posted on the forums anytime if emails from me didn't get through. I do check my forums a number of times each day.

I noticed that your email address (the portal) for my forum was different than the one in your emails to me. Also your email address in your original order form was different than the one in your email to me. If you periodically change email addresses, as well as change the portal used, then that could cause problems in communication.

[Chris Boss]

Brice,

I always reply to all requests for tech support very quickly.
Most of the time, replies are sent back within a few hours.

If you did not recieve some of my emails it may be possible your email service is removing them as spam.

I tried to send you an email today using the email address from your original order and also a different one I got from an email you sent me in Sept. and both emails were bounced back.

This is not my fault.

Just ask my other customers about my response time in tech support.

(I removed references to your email discussions here)

I should note that using web portals (ie. yahoo, hotmail, etc.) for email, rather than your local internet provider has risks, such as spam filters that remove email.
The biggest problem I have had with customers not getting emails or their email not accepting attachments is with such portals.
My Internet provider account is set up to not remove any emails for any reason. They may flag some emails as spam in the title of an email, but they will not delete them.
I don't miss emails because they get deleted by my email service.

If you have had problems with getting my emails, this may have had more to do with your email service than me.

As far as my forums, registration is turned off periodically. The UBB forum software has been regularly attacked by "bot" software which registers fake registrations (to somehow use it to bounce off urls to bad web sites). Customers simply email me to allow them to register and I turn it back on for a short time.

If you are not getting my emails, then that may be the reason you can't register. When a customer requests to register on the forum, I will turn registration on for a day or so and then turn it off again.
If a customer does not register within a short time, like I suggest, then they may not get registered.

If you doubt what I am saying, then simply ask my other customers who regularly visit the PB forums about my quick tech support.

...

[Chris Boss]

Brice,

You can sell your copy of (my software) which you purchased to another party to recoup some money if you prefer. All I ask is (in the software license) is that you contact me to get permission (which I will give) and give me the name and info of the person who purchases it.

I don't currently offer a demo version for valid reasons of my own, and with its high price I never encourage someone to buy it without getting all the facts they need to make an informed decision first.

I am sorry it wasn't what you were looking for.

Feel free to even post on my web site you have a copy of the software for sale. You likely can recoup enough to buy FireFly of which you will likely be more happy with.

You might want to try EBay to sell it.

I don't offer refunds, because it is sold via the internet and is shipped electronically (downloadable). Software which is sold this way is easily open to abuse (buy and refund). There is no way to prevent people from buying, refunding and then continuing to use the software.

This is one reason I recently released a "personal version" of the software, which is low cost, so people risk less money up front. If they like it, then they can upgrade to the full version.

Sadly, that low cost version was not available when you purchased.

...

[Chris Boss]

Brice,

You made comments about my software which I simply wanted to clarify (memory usage). I think thats fair.

I never said anything bad about FireFly here and I wasn't trying to compare my software to FireFly. I am glad you have found what you are looking for in FireFly.

Also I did try to email you (prefered), but it appears none of the email addresses I have (even one dating 9/2007) appear to work.

You implied my software was a memory hog, whereas its memory usage is quite reasonable.

I tried to explain some details about Windows itself and why applications use the amount of memory they do.

If it makes you feel better, I edited all my posts and removed all references to my software (by name) and comments specific to it.
I even removed the signatures on the posts.

I just wanted to explain why software (including mine) uses the amount of memory it does, in Windows.
My comment about Windows not being like DOS is valid.

If you want to write software for Windows be prepared to have it use 2 to 3 meg on memory or more.

[Elias Montoya]

Hmm....

...

[Chris Boss]

Brice,

I am not saying that it doesn't matter what size an application is or how much memory it uses.

What I am saying is that because of the design of Windows itself, the memory imprint of applications is much larger than DOS. This has nothing to do with the designer tool used. It has to do with how Windows itself actually works.

When an application is loaded into memory (a process) Windows allocates a predefined amount of memory just to run the app. A small utility application which is only 20 KB in size could end up requiring 1.5 meg of memory just to run. Thats just the way Windows works.

While I don't know all the "ins and outs" of what a compiler can do to decrease this memory imprint, you will likely find that most compilers will create applications that require a minimum of 1.5 meg ram, no matter how small the applications file size is.

Second, is the Windows API itself!

One way to see what I mean is to use the MS Depends utility program that comes with the Windows SDK. Depends can load an EXE or DLL and display its true dependencies. In Windows there is no such thing as an application with no dependencies. The application will be dependent upon any OS DLL which holds an API function it calls. With each version of Windows the dependency list increases significantly. Windows 95 loaded a lot less DLL's when an application is run, than does Windows XP or Vista.

An application is not just dependent upon the DLL's it calls, but on any DLL's those DLL's call.

While Windows can load just one copy of an OS DLL and share it among applications (which is efficient), each instance of an OS DLL will require memory for other stuff. How much each DLL requires I don't know, but it can add up.

The point is that, one must accept a minimum memory imprint for applications realizing this is just the way it is.

With Windows, one does not try to make applications that run on say just a few KB of memory. The key is to try to control memory usage beyond the minimum required to run an application.

...

[Paul Squires]

Hi Brice,

Could you please email me at [email protected] ? I can not send you a private message via this board.

....

[Michael Mattias]

>simplest example that ships with EZGUI uses 3MB of memory..

You did notice I carefully qualified my statement to say four bytes of user memory, right?

[Bud Durland]

In retrospect I really wish I would have bought Firefly instead of EZGUI

I have both EZGui and FireFly. I've not completely set it aside, but I do find myself using FF more than EZGui. I have two upcoming projects that I will probably do in EZGui because I need the more flexible interface tools (i.e., these projects have a greater emphasis on "pretty", although that's not the best way to say it)

My EZGui wish list:

• I wish EZGui let me move multiple controls at one time
  
• I wish EZGui let me compile the exe to whatever folder I want
  
• I'd rather it worked more like PBForms with regard to generated code. Put EZGui generated code inside commented blocks, let me put other stuff where I dang well please, and quit moving things that I put in '<<SAVE>>/<<END>> blocks

My FireFly wish list

• Add code tip builder from JellyFish
  
• If there's an error when I compile, please display the line number where the error happened

Both are good tools, it's a matter of picking the one that suits the project and your programming style.

[Chris Boss]

Brice,

Simple DDT programs use about 2 meg memory.

A simple hello world (just a messagebox in PBMain) uses 1.5 meg memory.

The simplest PowerBasic program (hello world) loads the following operating system DLLs (on XP) (and of course their dependencies):

- kernal32.dll
- ole32.dll
- oleaut32.dll
- user32.dll

My runtime loads the following operating system DLL's besides the above:

- advapi32.dll
- gdi32.dll
- shell32.dll
- comctl32.dll
- comdlg32.dll

Of course this will increase its memory imprint.

A memory footprint of a couple meg on todays computers (with a minmum of 128 meg RAM, most with 256 meg) is really nothing.

Its not like DOS applications where memory is at premium and every byte counts.

[Chris Boss]

Brice have you tried using one of those compression programs that binds the DLL to the EXE and compresses it ?

The runtimes do compress well. UPX compresses it down to 158 KB.