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| Allegro 5 "marketing" :) |
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Polybios
Member #12,293
October 2010
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Made some more variants. |
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beoran
Member #12,636
March 2011
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Well, I like the 3rd one because it is the simplest, I like the red dot detail. And I also like the last one because it also contains some elements that suggest audio and video. Here is a poll for the candidate logos: |
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Derezo
Member #1,666
April 2001
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The last one looks really cool, and I think it builds a nice context, but it's too busy. I think removing the {...} element from that one would be a major improvement on it. "He who controls the stuffing controls the Universe" |
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pkrcel
Member #14,001
February 2012
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Ditto. The last one is sufficiently involved even w/o the curly brackets. I particularly like the 5....we should build the logo "proper" upon that. Maybe using "A5" in there... It is unlikely that Google shares your distaste for capitalism. - Derezo |
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William Labbett
Member #4,486
March 2004
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Polybios said: The ellipis / three dots mean: We abstract all the tedious platform-specific crap away for you. People won't get that meaning just by looking at it.
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beoran
Member #12,636
March 2011
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Derezo, yeah, that may be nicer. The {...} is a bit abstract, not everyone will grasp what it means... |
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Gideon Weems
Member #3,925
October 2003
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I will finish reading this thread in the morning. In the meantime, I have a humble observation to make concerning Allegro's defining characteristic and how this determines the type of people who use Allegro. Allegro is low-level, which is for people who like control. People who like control veer towards perfectionism, and I can't help but wonder if this leads to a high rate of incomplete projects. A lack of complete projects does not help an SDK's reputation--though admittedly, SDL doesn't have much to show, either. The logos look great. I like the first one, though a spiffy logo can only go so far. Do we have a figurehead who could do make "public appearances" for Allegro (even if only online)? That may be a big piece of the puzzle. Somebody has to spread the word, in addition to setting the word straight. Allegro's API deserves more users. It is a fantastic example of good design. |
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Polybios
Member #12,293
October 2010
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Wife and I thought about the logo a bit. We think that both are nicely visualized with curly brackets (C-syntax -> low level programming) and Pacman (games). We agree that the last variant is a bit too busy. But taking away the curly brackets, which we both love, what remains just looks like some average, softened, mushy "multimedia" thing. Almost like SDL. There's also still the problem that you can't symbolize all the different devices Allegro5 supports in one logo. You simply can't. While we like the 5 being on the screen, too, it looks like a smartphone screen. But Allegro has its roots in the desktop world and I think the Iphone and Android ports are both the least trivial to get up and running (from what I've read, never tried). So this would be misrepresenting it a bit. Besides, it doesn't look like being "cross-platform", of course. Choosing a 24" widescreen display instead wouldn't change that, plus it'll be even more boring. You will look at the logo through a screen. A screen is the least interesting thing you can choose, IOHO. Therefore we both are in favor of the curly brackets Of course you don't get the abstraction idea by simply looking at it, but I think we have low level programming there and, if someone asks, there is a (more or less) clever sounding answer available. Edit: Even more low-level, Dizzy's idea: |
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SiegeLord
Member #7,827
October 2006
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In terms of Pacman, I'm completely not comfortable using something that is actively trademarked in a logo. That's just asking for trouble. "For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increases knowledge increases sorrow."-Ecclesiastes 1:18 |
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beoran
Member #12,636
March 2011
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SiegeLord, I think you might be right, unfortunately. Anyone has any ideas on how to signify "game" programming in a different way? |
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Thomas Fjellstrom
Member #476
June 2000
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Atari Joystick? -- |
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Elias
Member #358
May 2000
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Polybios said: C-syntax -> low level programming There's all kinds of languages using C-style syntax like PHP or Javascript which are not low level at all. And I think "C-style syntax" is too general, about any C++ library could use curly braces in their logo simply because it's written in C++ then. So, I also think that the {...} would be confusing. -- |
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Johan Halmén
Member #1,550
September 2001
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Forget the pac man thing and concentrate on the g letter! Think of it as a shooter of some kind, with a spring leg. Think the table lamp in Pixar's famous logo animation. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Years of thorough research have revealed that what people find beautiful about the Mandelbrot set is not the set itself, but all the rest. |
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Polybios
Member #12,293
October 2010
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Hmm, you're probably right about Pacman being difficult. Forgot the "a5teroids". I'd argue about the curly brackets, but there's no point if you don't like it. Well, at least, we've tried. If we come up with something else, I'll post it. Another thing: The Wikipedia articles about Allegro are outdated as well. Added that to the a.cc wiki. @Johan Halmén: |
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Vanneto
Member #8,643
May 2007
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Whats wrong with just allegro5 without the {...}? I know those things are supposed to represent something, but I doubt anyone would really get it (like William said).
{"name":"608444","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/1\/3\/139b6ee0fb39019b4d3027b3d7b7e96f.png","w":332,"h":102,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/1\/3\/139b6ee0fb39019b4d3027b3d7b7e96f"} Simple and elegant... Just like the library. In capitalist America bank robs you. |
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Johan Halmén
Member #1,550
September 2001
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Polybios said: You should have read the first post in this thread more carefully. I never got the time shift thing working in A5. Despite that, I'm already working on the animated logo. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Years of thorough research have revealed that what people find beautiful about the Mandelbrot set is not the set itself, but all the rest. |
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beoran
Member #12,636
March 2011
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Hey, I noticed something, the G looks like an inclined joystick! So here's another logo bikeshed (attached). (edit) and another one, this without joystick, but with a subtitle of "low level game routines" But yea, if we can't agree then just the "allegro5" logo above should be good enough. It's not "perfect", but it sure beats the old logo. Apart from logo bikeshedding, let's start working on the wiki, already! |
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pkrcel
Member #14,001
February 2012
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SiegeLord said: In terms of Pacman, I'm completely not comfortable using something that is actively trademarked in a logo. That's just asking for trouble. Now that you mention it, I think that's right....but we could go for the pacmanized "O" with some kind o variation. Not the full-fledged pacman which is in the latter logos. I really like the fact that the logo is "busy" with the screen and hearphones. The 5 in the tablet-y screen and I think we should dig that more. Seems its just me. Also the 'g' as JH as noted seems something that we could 'gamey' work on...but that's a bit too elaborate, maybe? Vanneto said: Simple and elegant... Just like the library. I agree but...that's hardly a logo, just "rewriting" Allegro shinier is a starting point (and we could use that anywhere the "logo" proper doesn't fit). beoran said: let'start working on the wiki, already! I'll have a look today and post my impressions. It is unlikely that Google shares your distaste for capitalism. - Derezo |
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Polybios
Member #12,293
October 2010
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pkrcel said: I agree but...that's hardly a logo
I think it still looks better than what SDL and SFML have. Remember that for every newbie from our (shrinking) 'target audience' who is wrapping his head around SDL or SFML now, it's not very likely that he'll ever use Allegro5. So I think the things discussed here are quite important. beoran said: I'd like someone to review my "Getting Started" proposal before I replace the old one with the v2 one.
I think it's very good. Thank you for doing some actual work.
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William Labbett
Member #4,486
March 2004
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We spent ~6 years writing a library so we and anyone else can write the games they want to write and then 10 minutes is spent on a logo by someone with no graphic design experience at all to try and attract would be new users. That's very allegro (priority : game programming) but it seems daft to me.
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Polybios
Member #12,293
October 2010
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beoran
Member #12,636
March 2011
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Polibios, I took your suggestions into consideration and then brashly moved the content to the "getting started " article. I also changed the front page a bit to make it easier for people to find Allegro 5 and a bit less easy to find outdated Allegro 4 information. I also stressed in the Allegro 4 sarticle that it is deprecated for new applications. Your or anyone else's contributions and suggestions are welcome! William, I see your point but let's not sweat the small stuff. I just got cracking and made some incremental improvements. If noone has a better idea,then we can just start out with a simple "allegro 5" version of Polybios' logo, which is already better than that old DOS one, and then improve that more even later. The work on the wiki and the web page, and of course on allegro 5 itself is more important. So let's get to it! |
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pkrcel
Member #14,001
February 2012
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pkrcel said: I'll have a look today and post my impressions. Here's some quickies: Requirements: Installing Allegro Quote: If you are on Windows, the recommended way to install Allegro is to install from pre-built binaries. I do not feel comfortable with this...the recommended way to Getting Started with Allegro is this.... for any platform (iOS and Android included to be honest); besides there are unix-y ways to get Allegro compiled on Windows too... we should get more to the point here ad generalize the statement. Also I've seen on GameDev people that BELIEVED to be impossible to build on windows (ala "it's only possible to cross compile on linux (!) ) due to this very statement on a.cc files section. No good. As a general impression also we should DROP ALTOGETHER mentioning building from source as a "getting started" topic, IMO. I want to get started, lemme do a short tutorial... If the first thing I see mentioned is building from source....meh. Ditching the mobile platforms, we should provide binaries for the 3 major destkops (anybody seen the download page of SFML?) and the corresponding tutorial to get going (the Allegro "Hello Video" that Siegelord mentioned some post ago), I see the lack of a precompiled MacOS X Build of any sort in the wiki...I don't know squat of developing on OSX so...who knows what we coud do? I say also let's drop ancient IDEs like VS toolkit 2003, VS2008, etc...I know there are some out there that are using those since their inception and those are better than the latest VS2013 etc etc....but again which is the target audience of this page? Why am I so eager to cut things down? Bacause right now the getting started page is quite overwhelming...it's a huge wall of text. Most of the things about building from source I feel should be moved in a dedicated sub-section where a lot more options can be more verbosely expressed. The same should be said for teh "Development" parargraph which belongs to a more forcuse "resources" section, whicih again should live as a separate document. The "Tutorials" section needs work and we already know it, but there are listed also the video-tuts from CodingMadeEasy which are then again cited a couple paragraphs later along the ones from FixByProximity, they should both reside only in the "External Resources" and linked with a note in the "tutorials" section (they are EXTREMELY useful but EXTREMELY time-consuming after all). Good Job on the official getting started from the manual, I know I used it and it's good to publicize it. Sorry if I spew a lot of text and did not modify anything but...I think there has to be consensus otherwise we'll end up in a mess. It is unlikely that Google shares your distaste for capitalism. - Derezo |
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SiegeLord
Member #7,827
October 2006
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As I expected, I didn't like the changes made to the wiki so I had to fix some of them "For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increases knowledge increases sorrow."-Ecclesiastes 1:18 |
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beoran
Member #12,636
March 2011
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SiegeLord, actually I think I like the changes you made to the "Getting Started" page. But what exactly did you dislike about what I did / wrote? Since it's a Wiki, we can always revert or edit more if needed. So, in this case I prefer action over complacency. pkrcel, most of your remarks are fair enough, really. I guess the "Getting Started" page could be pared down by splitting it up into several pages. Then the "Getting Started" page could be as you say, just for that, getting started quickly and enable you to write your first "hello alegro5" program without too much fuss. So as far as I'm concerned, feel free to edit and split the "Getting Started" page as you see fit. |
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This wouldn't be "Allegro low level game routines" anymore. And I don't think that changing the name would be an option.
. With Pacman, but without screen and earphones.
I'd like someone to review my "Getting Started" proposal before I replace the old one with the v2 one.
