Comments on: Why MDM Zinc V3 is so rubbish

By: Daniele

Daniele — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 14:20:32 +0000

Can’t believe it! I just discovered that all the executables I made with Zinc3 don’t work on Windows 7. They run once, then when they shut down they leave an un-destroyable process, so they can’t be started again. Ugh! I wanted to update my flash website (and also put those museum screenshots), for which I made a desktop content manager with Zinc3 ages ago, and now I’m stuck unless I want to do it manually :/

P.S. self-promoting corner: if you’re getting into Unity, I just finished a serious Tween engine: HOTween (http://hotween.holoville.com) :)

By: Daniele

Daniele — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 09:28:45 +0000

Unity is kind of a mess. Buggy and with a lot of missing features. But once you learn all it’s pros and cons it becomes quite powerful. One of the main cons is that packages are not allowed, thus you can override existing classes without realizing it (I personally start all my classes names with HO, to keep them kind of unique), and that, absurdly, there is no decent tweening system (iTween is the most used one, but it sucks, compared to what we’re used to with ActionScript). One of the main pros is that it really allows you to work in team with designers, because you can easily build plugins (way easily and more quickly than Flash’s SWCs) which control everything, and which they can set as they see fit.
Oh, and a note of advice: use C#, not JavaScript. Way better :P Anyway, if you have some questions I’d gladly answer: I found it quite disconcerting to start with Unity from scratch :)

I got no screenshots of the museum here (it’s about Athanasius Kircher, quite a fun thing to do). I’ll show you one when I’m back in Rome. And the move to Serbia is simply and happily for love. Though it’s not a complete move for now: more like 3 weeks in Serbia than one in Rome. This is where I love that my job allows me to work via internet :D

By: Gareth

Gareth — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 14:09:28 +0000

Unity, really? I have plans to get into that as well – downloaded the engine a few weeks back but so far haven’t had a chance to do anything with it. :(

Do you have any screenshots of the museum application?

Why the move to Serbia?

By: Daniele

Daniele — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 22:30:28 +0000

@Gareth
Hey :) It’s been very long. What about you? I see you’re busy with toys, and Learnalot seems to be going well? :)

Me I’m great, lots of changes here, and now I’m mainly wasting my time with Unity coding (just finished a virtual museum, and starting a game), and writing/drawing comics (plus some illustration, plus moving to Serbia, plus… oh, that’s enough). But I’m still pushing SWF Studio now and then, especially for a big app who needs monthly changes and updates: I just do the updates, publish it, and it never crashed. Hooray for Northcode.

By: Gareth

Gareth — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 20:48:14 +0000

Hey Daniele, how are you? It’s been a while. :)

A review of Zinc 4.0 would be good from a completionist point of view but in order to be able to write one I’d either need to buy a license or have Jaspal supply me with one.

I’d rather give my money to Scientology than buy any more broken software from him, and in light of our exchange a couple of years ago I don’t see him giving me a license any time soon… so I guess the answer will have to be no! Sorry!

Great news regarding SWF Studio though. I haven’t had many projects require it lately but it’s always a pleasure to use it when they do come up.

By: Daniele

Daniele — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 20:42:23 +0000

Hey Gareth,

I was wondering if you will ever do a review of Zinc 4. Now Zinc “Exports to Xcode 4.0″! Ahahaha, I couldn’t stop laughing when I read that in my email. They can’t even work on SWFs without jutting out tons of bugs, and now they pretend to export to Xcode! Ohgod.

In the meantime, I’m having the time of my life with SWF Studio (which I got thanks to your suggestions). Awesome support, and and it simply works.

By: Andreas

Andreas — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 15:56:20 +0000

Zinc is simply too buggy for any professional use.

By: John

John — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 01:49:30 +0000

As far as SWF wrappers go, SWF Studio is the only one we use. The folks at Northcode are truly dedicated to their community.

With that said, we are mostly moving to Flex/AIR. I wonder if AIR signals the death of all 3rd-party SWF wrapper products?

By: JohnFromDon

JohnFromDon — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 22:24:17 +0000

I must say, having looked at Zinc and the other similar technologies – I think for multiplatform accessibility, AiR is pretty good.

By: Gareth

Gareth — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 19:41:41 +0000

Hi Jethro

Thanks for the clarification on all those points.

It will indeed be interesting to see what MDM does with the release of Air 2.0. I’m afraid that innovation by itself won’t be enough next time around though, because after the shambles that is V3 they will also need to ensure that whatever it turns out to be is absolutely bullet-proof.