Just did that, if you don't mind.

Is there any place on the Internet where you can learn about why you should definitively choose Allegro 5 over other irrelevant APIs?
I think Allegro 5 needs more "marketing", i. e. more people need to know how great it is.

Thanks for starting this thread.

I agree that Allegro needs more marketing. We should emphasize the strong points of the Allegro API for any 2D programing or as a base for 3D programming in OpenGL. Allegro 5 has a great API for sound, for primitives, for rotating and tinted sprites, for easy font loading, for pack file integration, .... Our main competitor requires you to get a truckload of half-baked add on libraries that don't always work too well together or have a quirky or incomplete API.

Perhaps the Allegro web site and this site need a bit of a make over to make them more "web 2.0" stylish?

But I think Allegro also still needs more quality in the form of bug fixes, unit tests, features, ports, documentation, and tutorials. I think that maybe moving main development to GitHub could be very helpful as this makes it a lot easier for everyone to contribute to improving the quality.

And I think it also needs an (even more) welcoming community around it. I saw some people badmouthing Allegro on other forums because someone made an insensitive joke to them here on this forum. That's the thing we should definitely avoid.

Also, I feel that, because we are thinly stretched as it is, we have drop Allegro 4 support completely. IMO, it's obsolete, and Allegro5 is mature enough for daily use. Moreover, we should recommend Allegro 5 wherever we can.

Just a few thoughts...

Did I miss something? When did popularity become the mission? (Feel free to tell me to shut up if you're contributing more to the development of the library than I am. I'm just an olde timer former user.)

...doesn't Allegro 5 require add-on libraries, too?

What does that even mean? Nuke all traces of previous versions from the Internet? Does that also mean that adherents to the Allegro Religion cannot use competing APIs?

StevenVI, thanks for your questions.

In open source projects like Allegro, popularity is not a goal, but a means to improving the project. It's a way to attract more developers who in turn could help us out improve the library. As I said before, I feel like we're running short handed. I'm not a big contributer but I contributes the haptics code (which I still didn't get ported to windows nor mac osx since I'm a linux only user ).

Allegro 5 requires third party libraries, yes, bit it's API is better integrated. The API of our main competitor is incomplete and that's why you need about 4 extra not integrated add-on libraries to get all the functionality that Allegro integrates in one comprehensive API.

With Dropping allegro 4 I mean: 1) Not releasing any patches anymore. 2) Removing reference to it from all Allegro related web pages we control, and redirect or mention a "upgrading to Allegro5" or so web page. 3) Deprecating Allegro 4 in the sense that if you use it we will not give support anymore. Too many people come in the forum with Allegro 4 questions. The answer I always want to give them is "please upgrade first, then we can talk". Though I normally refrain from doing so as I don't want to sound too hostile... :p

I hope that clarifies my ideas a bit...

I don't intend to ever switch from Allegro to SDL. I tried SDL in the past and didn't like it.

In the future, I'll be making a better effort to credit Allegro in the projects I release, so that should help at least a little. Before that can happen though, Allegro really needs an official logo. I know there's been some artwork and such but nothing seems to have been officially adopted yet. (And if something has, it hasn't been properly implemented on Allegro's homepage or even the allegro.cc website.)

A logo would be the first step. Then all we need is a major indie release or two using Allegro that properly credits the thing and that should be a good start.

This is old news and an old topic but it's only fair that it gets its right amount of debate.

Allegro does not strictly need marketing of course, but all this

Seems a bit strange to me, this is not a warm community but most of the times newbies come here with a question and got the tihngs working after anybody has tried to help, and sometimes jokes are thrown in but not on the "insensitive" scale.

That's only my opinion of course.

I think that the one big problem of Allegro right now is twofold:

• on one side, the library has a not-so-off-the-shelf feeling. Sure you can be up and running with a windows precompiled binary quite fast....but I see MacOSX iOS and Android aren't quite so, or at least it's the IMPRESSION I get with the kind of posts I usually see pop seldomly.

  
  

• on the other side...time changed a lot the ecosystem of hobbist/indie game developers (the main Allegro audience since ever), go take a tour on GameDev....and low level libraries in general aren't the hot topic of the late years. At All.

Damn well at least years ago you got "newbie" game programmers that DID know the difference between an IDE and a compiler and did know WHAT does mean to "link something against another something"....today's quite different and low-level libs do not have the "magic" of the tools out there nowdays.

There ARE out there commercial projects that use(d) Allegro, but there is no buzz about them on the site (go compare...uhm, Ogre3D to name one which is not SDL?)

To attract developers you have to grow a competent userbase, which Allegro has not....the forums attract a lot of newbies but there is no significative "hi-level" interaction about the Allegro proper.

I guess thigns are bound to stay put for a good while.

Yes and no....I mean no stylish crap, but yes for a more actively maintained site...of course the more prominet rescource that is lacking for this is TIME.

Of course not. But that's a different "target audience".
I've tried to hack on a SDL project some years ago and I can't find any reason why I should prefer it to Allegro.

Except when I didn't know about Allegro 5 and nobody was able to tell me about it, because nobody knew.
That is the whole point.

Ok, I really don't want to step into anyone's turf here, and, you know, all active Allegro developers are my personal heroes, but maybe the official webpage could use a bit more of ... errr ... design, perhaps? And it could be a bit more "open" in naming the features, no?
Don't get me wrong here, but I just think Allegro 5 is an excellent library, which deserves an excellent "presentation" as well.
I mean it's for the public good, why should anyone be stuck with SDL when they could have used Allegro 5?

It's not "the" mission. But I don't think more users would be bad.
Apart from more developers, more users means more people testing the library -> more bug reports -> better stability.

Do you have links for this? I am very interested in what was said/done.

Usually allegro.cc is pretty friendly to newbies, but occasionally things are said that can be taken the wrong way.

We welcome patches!

Latest news on the release we have on the main page says that allegro 5.0.9 has been released, and is a year old (While I think it was late even then). This says something to new visitors.

allegro.cc is unofficial and almost no one looks at the front page any more http://www.liballeg.org is up to date.

I think I posted about 5.0.10, but it was never approved for some reason.

I don't recall anything to terrible about Allegro at all.

It does what I need it to, and it doesn't get in my way. That's basically what a library should be.

Hand-holding is for people without sufficient programming experience. Debate whether or not those people are important, sure, but I don't think I've ever had a problem getting advice or information about an Allegro question quickly and thoroughly. And I've been writing "games" for over ten years now.

As for the A.CC community, I do see some pessimism regarding newbies who can't be bothered to frame their question or write legibly. But it's no where near the kinds of rebukes I've seen people say on Stack Overflow.

As for anything Allegro library lacks in support? 99% of people here have day jobs and lives. Anyone who's willing to dedicate time to work on it, I absolutely salute. But there's no reason random person A can't add a feature just as easily as the Allegro Devs. I'm hacking on the Dolphin emulator code. Nobody gave me permission, guidance, or even a design document. They're extremely hard to get ahold of compared to Allegro.CC. I literally was stuck looking a swafts of code for days. But I'm making progress, and ironically, I'm getting more help from A.CC then Dolphin devs toward my project.

And so that's not really a knock on the Dolphin devs, but more of a shout out to the Allegro ones.

The best thing to market for Allegro is to make some kickass games for it. GET ON IT!

Actually, tomorrow or the day after, following over a year of being in Design Hell, I will FINALLY be getting back into coding my latest project!

@Kris Asick
A (better) logo is a great idea. The one we have now reeks of the '90ies. (And I can know because I started using Allegro on DOS+DJGPP). If anyone has a good idea for a new logo design, then please post it here.
Of course I agree that the Allegro API is significantly better than that of SDL, but the problem is of course, no one will use Allegro unless we can get them to know about it's existence.

@pckrel
Well, I agree that there's work to be done to make Allegro even more easy to use "off the shelf" for some platforms. But as Polybios says, the people who write games in Javascript or Löve or Unreal engine or so are not our "target audience". Our main target audience are programmers who want to develop portable and high performance games or other audiovisual applications in C, C++, or Pascal or other compiled languages that can easily interface with C.

@Aikei_c
I agree that the allegro.cc web site could use an overhaul as well, but that's Matt's domain, I presume?

@Thomas:
This is the thread where I saw this:
http://www.cplusplus.com/forum/lounge/108321/

Also, about the official web page:

Look once at http://www.libsdl.org/. There is no news section on the front page, but an explanation of what the library is, and who is using it. I think that's the best idea, the intoduction page should be the main page for SEO purposes, and the very best Allegro projects should be mentioned in a hall of fame.

Also the introduction still mentions Allegro 4 as a sorta kinda viable option. I feel it isn't. It should be marked legacy and deprecated, to discourage anyone from using it to develop new games. I don't know how Peter thinks about this, but that's something I feel rather strongly about. Especially, because, as Chris Katko says, we all have day jobs and lives, and not enough time and manpower to keep patching Allegro 4 or answering to Allegro 4 questions. I know there are quite a few games and apps that still use Allegro 4. Of those, I'd respecfully ask the developers to upgrade. I know the effort is nontrivial, but something has to give. OK, I'll stop beating the Allegro 4 horse now...

I'm a web developer also, so if you agree then I'd be willing to help redesign the web page.

@Chris Katko:
Yeah, I should get cracking on improving Allegro as well... But I really need help from people who have a windows or a macosx computer. I can write the haptics code for windows "theoretically", and then hope that it will work, but someone else will then need to test it intensively, and preferrably provide bug fixes. And that person should be willing to spend +-20$ to buy a haptics enabled joystick as well.

"Usually allegro.cc is pretty friendly to newbies, but occasionally things are said that can be taken the wrong way."

In my experience, having lurked and occasionally posted on this forum for over ten years, I would actually say that allegro.cc isn't always as welcoming and friendly as it should be. Infact even I have found it downright hostile at times, and if I hadn't been so used to Allegro it certainly would of made me use another library in general disgust.

Ah yes. BHX. I remember him. He was a bit odd. He has a habit of repeatedly coming and going, and flaming out, closing his account, then coming back later...

But yeah, I made a dumb joke. I didn't expect him to take it that way.

If you think you can do better than what we have, get a mockup going and post it in the Development forum and/or the AD mailing list.

Yes, sometimes it can be a bit hostile, I wish it weren't. Some of the members get a little snarky.

I'm really sorry for Specter, but I really don't get his vibe on that. Even if Tomasu did a dumb joke, THAT TIME, Specter has been more than once (since when I frequent a.cc and I'm really a NEW member) tutored and confronted...and besides one should always remember that internet is not RL...so fellow forum dwellers aren't necessarily aware of "YOU" as a RL close friend could be.

Dumb jokes are just that, jokes...even if dumb. Meh.

Well anyway, generally calling a.cc downright hostile is a bit too stretched in my opinion...nevertheless there is PLENTY of room for improvement...also maybe I'm just a bit grumpy.

Good tutorials are lacking, and the wiki get some love and a general appealing redesing...I know I should contribute like everyone else, maybe I need an "organizational" push

Well okay, but I was pointing that out in the sense that we are looking for a rare kind of user.

Seconded, and I would use the forums. I'd like to say that it's not a matter of "better than what we have" thou, but more like "get the thing going"....sane discussion is useful discussion.

Well, there's a fundamental problem there....for most of the experienced community "out there" Allegro IS Allegro4 and prior, so I agree with the idea of shadowing it a bit foreboding more Allegro 5.

That should DEFINITELY get a logo.

I also wanted to say when I first started frequenting allegro.cc it wasn't quite so "unfriendly", in fact I found it extremely helpful and informative, which is part of the reason I hung around so long. Things just change though, and hopefully my experience will change once more to something more fluffy, otherwise I guess I will move on as well.

Problem is I see it may get into bikesheding on the forums

I have personally seen some somewhat hostile behavior in help threads, though usually its pretty good. I try to just not post in a help thread if I feel like being snarky for one reason or another. Sometimes the snarkyness is triggered by the poster's behavior, but not always.

The Off Topic section on the other hand is something else.

Right, but still....is allegro.cc such a pace to put unnecessary weight on this

I know for a fact that I have posted somewhat tongue-in-cheek in newbie questions and got heated responses. But that's not the GENERAL cliamte in a.cc, I simply can't be convinced about that.

Well, to coordinate this, and to have hopefully less bike shedding I have made this:

http://wiki.allegro.cc/index.php?title=Promoting_Allegro_Project

In stead of competing let's just split up the work. The wiki needs a lot of work, and almost everyone here could contribute to this.

I think we should keep the hostility out of the help threads, even if the person who asks is being completely clueless. You can catch more flies with a spoonful of syrup than with a barrel of vinegar. As for the off topic forum... perhaps a "sticky" would be needed to remind people that anything goes here and that it's not for people looking for help or easily offended...

True, the general climate of theis forum may be OK, but people aren't going to stick around if they have a few unpleasant experiences, especially when they just joined... So my plead would be: pamper the newbies, because once upon a time we were all as clueless as them.

Ahhh Specter Phoenix (aka about 100 other names)....he was a character! And a bit of a douche.

Just tought about that but why not feed the news from liballeg.org to a.cc then? It shouldn't hurt methinks.

Seems a good Idea, but a wiki page is a bit of non-interactive for discussion, shal be jump on the talk page there?

I'd keep the forum for discussion, and the wiki for keeping track of things. That's the basic idea.

Yes!

Yes!

I think we should also mention/stress that you can use native Open GL alongside Allegro 5 as well and that therefore it's a very nice library to have for doing all the boring and platform-specific Open GL setup stuff, plus giving you a lot more.

Agree. It should be made very clear that Allegro 5 is completely different. Maybe people will finally get the idea that it isn't a DOS blitting library.

I found this community to be generally exceptionally polite and friendly.
IIRC everyone was quite friendly and polite to SpecterPhoenix, too, given his "easy to work with" behavior...

The last time I recall this community being quite rude was when a noob whose basic understanding of programming seemed flawed, wanted us to pretty much make his homework and then said we were all noobs and can't program when he was given basic tips and explanations instead of a complete program.

Reading through the first bits of SDL's and the official Allegro website.

SDL's front page, first paragraph:

That is a pretty good description.
The first four points apply to Allegro 5 as well.

Second to last paragraph:

So here we have platforms, languages, license. Very precise, concise info.

Allegro 5's official website, first paragraph:

In comparison to SDL, this could see improvement. This is especially due to Allegro 4 and 5 being treated together in the first paragraph. Note that Allegro 4 is even mentioned before Allegro 5, therefore becoming the first thing mentioned on the whole page...

While saying it is "primarily for C and C++ developers" is technically true, SDL's way of saying the same thing is cleverer, because it doesn't appear to be a limitation.

"Open source" is also true, but it could also mean that Allegro is GPLed, which it isn't.

"game programming". Hmm. While this may be the primary motivation behind it, its scope is wider than that. Anyone wanting to create an OpenGL window cross-platform for whatever reason could use it. Also, there is nothing in the code tying it to games (as probably opposed to engines).
SDL's way of saying it is again smarter, because they describe what it actually does "low level access to ... graphics hardware" while stating that it is widely used for games later.

Let's also take a look at the introduction page:

This is much better already. But it's a separate page.

I like the last point.

IMHO "low level access to audio, keyboard, mouse, joystick and graphics hardware" sounds much more appealing to newbies than "handle common, low-level tasks such as creating windows, accepting user input, loading data, drawing images, playing sounds, etc. and generally abstracting away the underlying platform".

What if you want a fullscreen game and don't even know you have to "create a window"?
Not to mention that - while it is technically more accurate - it just sounds more boring.

IMHO we should have the platforms in there, but of course they aren't, because you have to decide whether you want Allegro 5 or 4 first. As said already, this shouldn't be the case.

Further down:

To start the paragraph with describing a limitation is unfortunate here, because 2D graphics primitives are actually a feature (on top of native OpenGL and Direct 3D).

No offense meant at anyone, but I thought I'd demonstrate precisely what I mean.

We could just copy SDL's text and replace "SDL" with "Allegro 5", but we probably shouldn't do this.

I propose to:

• Merge front page and introduction page

• Write a new text for this page, which should mention everything the SDL folks mention on their page: short, attractive definition; platforms; languages; license

• Put (legacy) Allegro 4 on an extra page, where we could also describe the library's long and proud history, its origins dating back to the Atari ST and the glorious old days of DJGPP.

• We could link to this page from the front page at the bottom (Allegro is ... "with a proud and long history dating back to" ? 1992? (link).

Besides what the SDL folks do, we should probably also mention these points on the new front page:

• Is not an engine => more freedom and flexibility, higher performance (I guess )

• can be used alongside 3D API (e.g. OpenGL, Direct3D, and higher level libraries), while Allegro handles the other tasks

• Anything else? List of features?

I would have tried to write a new text myself if I had more time available, which isn't the case right now.

Comments?

Sounds like a good start Poly!

I'd be up for contributing in a small way if I could; not sure how I could help but I can do basic graphic work or maybe some writing, or any basic donkey work really, spell checking or information gathering, would like to be more involved. Let's not forget that whilst the allegro library itself has been kicking all other libraries in the nuts since DJGPP and RHIDE, the community here is one of, if not the best online, in my hokum opinion.

... And I asked my wife for a logo, she came up with this:
{"name":"608424","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/5\/3\/53526cc6ec8b8dcba62d9fb4b6b2d50f.png","w":548,"h":164,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/5\/3\/53526cc6ec8b8dcba62d9fb4b6b2d50f"}

Hmm, looks cool. Whats with the stuff in the curlies?

Hmm. Yeah, that's the weak point. The idea was that these are the things (platforms) you don't have to care about anymore because the grand Allegro 5 abstracts them away and ... err ... unifies your experience with its giant integrating curly braces

Maybe it's clearer with ellipses?

EDIT: Or perhaps someone else has an idea what to put into the curly brackets?

{"name":"608425","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/d\/a\/daa16d4ea1ae1751b556d24f5f2ec261.png","w":548,"h":164,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/d\/a\/daa16d4ea1ae1751b556d24f5f2ec261"}

Maybe she'll have another idea.

@ Dizzuy egg: if you don't know what to do, then I suggest you work on cleaning up the wiki. There's tons of pages that need to be updated, so I think you might fine a few you can contribute to.

@Polychromos:

I like the ideas for improving the web site text.

I like the text part of that logo, but the curly braces (suggesting C programming, I guess?) seem a bit too "generic" . How can we emphasize, perhaps though the use of some kind of icon, that Allegro is for low level graphics/game/multimedia applications through the logo?

Maybe the inside of the braces could be arranged to look like a game pad on a screen, surrounded by a earphone. Or such???

That logo rules!

You shouldn't try to put too much into a logo. I think Allegro5 does simply too much to express it all at once. The idea behind this was the abstraction, which I feel is the main feature. But you're probably right that it should also try to show allegro's "area of work", i. e. graphics etc.

At least it's a starting point. I like the text part, too

Another idea:

{"name":"608426","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/e\/b\/eb47698cacc1b0e41a70e3c1bd2bc5fc.png","w":436,"h":156,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/e\/b\/eb47698cacc1b0e41a70e3c1bd2bc5fc"}

Edit: Yes, you can express all that Allegro does in a logo

Poly, that's pretty cool, but I read it as all-egro, and I think hmmm....what is egro?

On the original, could we try lots of 1's and 0's, maybe spelling out Allegro in binary? Or is that a bad idea...

@Dizzy: This wasn't entirely serious of course. "Allegro" in binary could be an idea, but I'm too tired to figure it out now.

What's wrong with the current logo?

Are you referring to this? It's just the text "Allegro", in italics... made in about 5 seconds on some web-based logo creator 15 years ago

Regarding SpecterPhoenix, he left because of a bad joke that went too far in his eyes. I don't believe it was meant to be insensitive or rude, but it came out that way. Alienating people sucks, but it happens. As far as his programming ability goes I never saw him produce anything except for talk. It sucks that he is pushing people away from Allegro, because that is the last thing we need.

Regarding a logo, there is the unofficial Alex the Alligator, but that is really the intellectual property of Johan Peitz. Are we talking about replacing the {allegro.cc} _{game developing community network} logo on allegro.cc? I think what we have to realize is that allegro.cc is mainly a forum, and not intended to be the website for allegro, which is totally separate. That logo is really for a.cc, not allegro itself, and we could come up with a totally separate logo for the allegro website.

Anyone can post news on the front page, it just needs to be approved by whoever does that (Matthew? AK?).

There is a todo list for A5 on the wiki, but I think it needs updating.

I agree that the current docs could use a little more meat on their bones. Explanations of functions are generally terse, and could use a little more info.

Well, the fact there is NO actual logo may be something... ...but...also

elias is quite cliear and spot on, refresh THAT image can only be good.

I like Polybios' proposal (well his soulmate's one actually), but I'd put the curly braces around allegro (as in a.cc "logo") or to the right, like in a "strictier" C syntax mockup.

And I'm hoping the search for a logo is something for the LIBRARY and not restriceted to a.cc only, as Edgars points out a.cc is "simply" the community behind the library but...as I have read on gamedev, there's some feeling of "official" in this site for newcomers.

Hardly ever useful in this way, as I already said there's need for a current community website; as it stands there is a TON of things that need maintenance (and do not receive it) for no practical reason...all that could be removed with no harm.

I think having some well documented tutorial/example games (sic) on the wiki would attract a lot more people/fresh blood.
I don't know about other people, but as an eternal newbie I really like to have some code to play with at first to see whether I want with get to know a particular library/tool. I would find it very frustrating in life if ever time I wanted to see if I liked a piece of technology I HAD to read the manual in depth first to even just turn it on and play. I think Allegro needs to be more accessible and not expect people to have even necessarily a grounding in computer science. The thing I think that people seem to forget, is what is obvious for one, can be an obstacle for another. Sometime I just get "blocks" in my understanding, until something is explained anew, or I see from another perspective, but please don't jump down my throat cause I don't grok it like you.
Anyway this conversation is refreshing, and I hope it bears good fruit.

I Agree 100%, this happen to me a darn LOT (outside the programming field as well) and I understand but:

...not necessarily ok, but let's not expect Allegro to be plug-and-play more than it can be, it's still a low level library and AT LEAST requires you to understand how to link an external library to an executable (or at least what doest it mean )

On this very topic, we should add some general references about this in the wiki for people looking for help, to general porgramming resources and a bit if in-house explanation, that could go a long way with not that much effort. Anyone agrees?

Further ideas for front page text:

• Clear API with a very consistent and intuitive naming scheme

• which is the result of a complete redesign/rewrite/... based on the experience of 10+ (?) years of providing an easy-to-use library (something along those lines)

• List of features: detailed and nicely grouped - this makes everything less abstract / more practical

• Friendly, active community which is always willing to help

• Anything else?

The list of features should, for example, also contain the file formats you can load with it etc. because I think such things are important for newbies.
Of course it should then say that you can also use your own custom loader etc.

Hmm. Don't know.

IMHO the most important thing the Wiki should provide, is Getting started guides/tutorials for each of the supported platforms. These should be easy to follow, clear and above all, up-to-date.

There should be a central "Getting started" page that can be linked at from the official website. Right now, you have to choose between Allegro 4/5 in the Wiki, too. I think that's not a good thing, since we don't want any new user to get started with Allegro4 anymore.

The central "Getting started" page should instead contain links to the different platforms (i. e. more of what is now the "Allegro 5" page). Maybe Allegro 4 can be featured at the bottom as "legacy option" or something like that.

If we assume that a user arrives via the official webpage at the Getting started page on the Wiki, I think the first thing, he or she needs is not a link back to the official webpage.
Maybe we should feature the Wiki and this community prominently on the official website instead. It can be in the Wiki, too, but maybe not on "Getting started", but "Resources" or something (I like the Wiki site though ).

We could also move the Getting started guides to the official website, but I think it's easier to maintain them in the Wiki.

Edit: Is there an official FAQ? I think one of the things one needs to mention, for example, is that you should put your sprites etc. on one texture in order to minimise texture/state changes with Allegro 5. This is quite counterintuitive if you don't know it, I think. Maybe in a technical way, a nice feature would be a texture atlas tool as part of the distribution? With a corresponding addon maybe, which would support reading a sprite sheet and creating subbitmaps according to it? I think that would be something a newcomer could benefit from.

What do you think?

What about just the letters?

{"name":"608427","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/b\/6\/b62b4342ba951c69db90f40c6bb7e7a9.png","w":374,"h":164,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/b\/6\/b62b4342ba951c69db90f40c6bb7e7a9"}

Love that O

It is a free font called SciFly, if anyone wants to experiment further.

I know they aren't games, but I did try to get some basic Allegro 5 tutorials up: http://wiki.allegro.cc/index.php?title=Allegro_5_API_Tutorials

If the new logo is literally the old logo with a different font, I'm voting against it . In my opinion, it needs to have an alligator on it.

Alligator = Gay

And now I'm voting against anything you produce too, thanks for playing .

Well, we should use the refreshed graphics as a starting point in my opinion.

Armando did a good job with that pacmanized O to tell you the truth, at least that's my opinion...something could be definitely done there.

I agree that it should not be only the word "Allegro", but was the alligator chosen due to simple assonance? I think that there ought to be a logo with SOME kind of symbolism, since we cannot realy on an acronym (even thou Allegro IS such?).

Do you think AM was serious with his post?

Do you think SiegeLord was?

I too think the logo AMCerasoli is very good. Definetely better than the current one which just says "hey, look, it's shitty!".

I can't tell, that's why I asked...I wasn't implying, I honestly can't tell and am curious about it.

I'm deadly serious.

Also, in terms of cleaning up the wiki... do it properly this time. Last time somebody (who's name starts with A and ends with I) did it, I had to spend quite a bit of time fixing the mess.

Well, the logo is open for patches We have to start somewhere, it was meant as a starting point.

I like the Pacmanized version, too; but maybe we should add some other graphic element.

I think we can do better than the SDL one, though.

What about my suggestions for the official website and the wiki? Who is / is someone in charge of the website? What does he think?

The project is in control of the website. Everyone is in control of the wiki, but I happen to run it.

As long as you actually make an objective improvement to the wiki, go for it.

There is a current website (liballeg.org), and then there is the community (forums). It's best if people understand that the most current news and releases are on liballeg.org, and not on a.cc. A.cc only offers binaries for 4.2 and 5, there aren't even any binaries for 4.4.3, the latest version of A4. I think people expect everything allegro to be here ready made for them on the forums, but that is wrong, everything needed is on liballeg.org and the wiki. I agree things need maintenance, but scrapping the news page of a.cc is not an improvement in my eyes. I see that page every time I log into a.cc, and if there is any news I immediately check it out, but the actual latest information on allegro is on liballeg.org.

We just need to get more involved I think.

Are you talking about the front page of a.cc, the wiki, or liballeg.org? It's too easy to get confused if you don't specify.

There are tutorials on the wiki, but no games. It would be nice if the example games that come with A5 were given more advertising, but ultimately if you want to check out the source for a game or two, you can. If you start putting games up on the wiki, you have to teach everyone the components of making those games. AABB, atlasing, and so on... where would it end? It seems like that is not something we should really be doing.

I agree, why don't you come up with some material to add to / modify the wiki with? I mean, examples of your changes would be good. And any a.cc member can edit the wiki, so it is something you could work on.

I agree. SiegeLord already put up a guide for building A5 on windows. Can you contribute one for the a linux distro? Or android? Or OSX? Android and OSX building needs the most attention right now in my eyes, but I don't know anything about it.

There is : http://wiki.allegro.cc/index.php?title=Getting_Started

Lots of good ideas people. It's good to see people wanting to get involved.

I've been personally working on the Allegro "UI" for awhile now. Aside from shuffling the chairs on a sinking ship, here are some real, concrete things that need to be done:

Wiki:

• All wiki code tutorials need to be checked that they compile, clearly annotated with Allegro version they compile under and be checked for accuracy (I've seen some atrociously wrong statements in some tutorials).

• More tutorials need to be added... at least one for each addon.

• I don't know what could be done about compilation/installation tutorials. In my opinion, pre-compiled binaries are what's needed. Even my, imo, straightforward Windows A5 compilation guide takes an hour to go through by myself. I think that's not too acceptable.

• I don't think the overall organization is bad as it is. A4 already has pretty clear "don't use me" sentences. I guess we could make them bold.

Documentation:

• Simple things like documenting the types of function arguments, and making sure they actually match the function declaration.

• Providing short examples for some of the more complicated functions.

• Document defaults and failure modes for functions. Some functions say that they can fail... what happens when they fail? Some functions change options (e.g. display options), what are their default values? Some of these will require in-depth study of the source code.

• Document thread safety. Some functions are safe to call from multiple threads, some are not. Which ones? Also requires in-depth study of the source code.

Examples:

• Making sure they work acceptably everywhere. I've mostly finished this, but a second person could look through all of them. Command-line-only examples should do something even when launched from a GUI environment (even just saying "Run me from the command line!" is helpful).

• Many examples require a file to be specified... we have so many example files, that we could hardcode a default in most/all of those examples.

• If you're really adventurous, clean up the darn code. We do refer people to those examples occasionally... it'd be nice if they were clear.

And now, for my vision of the front page:

• Yes, it could be clearer, with a better introduction etc. News is not that interesting to take up 90% of the front page.

• Needs to have some screenshots. Ask trentg, Kris, check the demos, examples, etc. This cuts both ways, since few Allegro5 games are that good looking.

• Needs to have a Hello World. A5 is somewhat wordy, but I'm sure we can come up with a 10-20 liner that does something borderline interesting.

Thank you SiegeLord. I do think there are things more "real" and "concrete" than "marketing", too. But how to attract "fresh blood" when it is unnecessarily difficult to find out how great Allegro 5 actually is? From the point 4.9 becoming 5.0 I have the impression that 'public communication' (err, sorry, no native speaker here) of its qualities has been not as good as the library itself.

Today, there is no DJGPP download form anymore / its importance has quite declined if there is

I think the main point I'm trying to make here all the time is:

Allegro should publicly evolve to being Allegro5.

That means Allegro4 and 5 shouldn't be featured in parallel on the pages people are likely to see first (liballeg.org front page, Wiki getting started page / ... ).

Because: Allegro4's parallel presence is an obstacle to communicating Allegro5's many feautures on these most important pages.

I never meant to say "everything is bad". That's not the case at all.

I do like the current "Getting started" page in the Wiki, but as I already said: There would be not much sense in providing someone who comes to the site via the official web page (liballeg.org) with 1) a link to the site where he already is and 3) the site where he came from. That's probably not what the person needs to know.

Instead:

It would be better to have links to tutorials / getting started to the different platforms for Allegro5 .

But this would require that the "Getting started" page was only/mainly concerned with Allegro5, contrary to its current state.

The way it is now, you first have to choose between Allegro 5 and 4. That's one unneccessary step, as we don't want anyone to get started with Allegro4 anymore.

Edit2: The current "Getting started" page should IMHO be renamed to "Resources" or something like that.

liballeg.org mostly.

This would be 'excellent'. I think we should make it 'very good' before that.

I really do think that a better introduction / front page is very important. When I'm looking for a library, I expect people to be able to tell me what their project is actually doing and why I should use it on the first page.

edit: I do think that a nicer design of the page is more important than screenshots. As Allegro is a library, you can hardly take screenshots of Allegro itself.

I'm trying to convince people first, because it has to do with the balance of Allegro 5 / 4. And, besides time issues, I'm a bit shy about actually doing the front page / Getting started Wiki page texts it as I'm no native speaker.

Plenty of good suggestions here!

I had an idea for the logo, between the {}, there's now a "crest" that symbolizes the fact you can use Allegro for Audio, Video (with 3d if needed), game programming and input handling. I included the Inkscape SVG sources so thers can improve on it easily. I didn't pacman the O of Alllegro since it would be redundant, but the pacman in the crest could be replaced by somtheing else... The crest could be used by itself, by the way... Look at the attachments to see the image.

I'm not such a great artist, so yeah, someone else could proabably do better with the same or a similar idea.

I suggested to sync the news feed of a.cc with liballeg.org, so to have AT LEAST the current latest version news on a.cc, not to scrap that.
I think nothing stops to leave the rest of the news feed under the same moderation as it is now...won't hurt for sure.

I think there's a ton of a.cc that's just so badly outdated that makes no sense whatsoever and actually may be confusing...but hey, MOST a.cc is current nevertheless (a.cc is several tons a displacement!).
Maybe the real cruft is the resources section, that's basically 0% useful...IMO.

I see also a 4.4 section of the files page there, actually.

I know, I may come up with something but seems this is a bit controversial.

On other points:

Following SiegeLord's advice on the wiki, which I agree with, I'd like to add that there has to be a "getting started tutorial", so for a newbie "out of the blue" to even copypaste something working and explain the steps to get that to compile.

Well, I concur that there's not really a LOT that could be done on compilation/installation tutorials, there will ALWAYS be the need of some basic understandings of how things work in general (compiling, linking, include paths, etc..), this is actually why I was proposing to spend some energy to write a general help page on the wiki about the very basic concepts...not too deep, with most info referred with links to learncpp.com or the likes...

On a slightly offtopic note in this regard, I've recently succeeded in compiling allegro with MingW64 through MSYS2. MSYS2 has a fuckton of packages INCLUDING ALL of Allegro dependencies, and has up-to date LGPL directx headers (from wine project), so basically it could end up installing MSYS2 (download a file and unpack somewhere), download&install the compiler & all allegro dependencies (some pacman -S package commands issued on the command line) and then CMAKE Allegro.

I'll work on that and ask for feedback in the next future I think.

By the way, this is a very great tutorial on C programming that I think we could link somewhere for the newbie to start out with before they attempt Allegro: http://c.learncodethehardway.org/book/

@SiegeLord
Your list of work items totally belongs on the A5 todo page. I can edit it tomorrow or this weekend if I get a chance, and I'd like to help you out with testing and proofing all the example proggies.

Oops, you're right. It wasn't that long ago there were no binaries for 4.4 though.

Where are the links from liballeg.org to the getting started page on the wiki? I haven't seen one.

I think it would be best to keep the page mostly as it is on the wiki, but rename it like you said. A getting started page should have links to tutorials and example code, and could link to the newly renamed Resources page. The links on the getting started page should stay I think, because what if you came from google to that page? I think it's good to link back to the official website and the forums.

That is really helpful to know. I may go install MSYS2 now....

It would be nice if there was a page on the wiki with links to good C and C++ programming resources. No need to be more than a link page though I think. We're not here to teach anyone how to program.

We're OT but drop me a shout out if you need directions, I know I needed.
(and besides, there's a TON to download so beware).

Agreed, but some comments and a general separation into sections is due.

Even if there is no actual link, chances are that one ends up on that page in the wiki having already been in both liballeg.org and a.cc...so poly has a point there.

I know it's impolite to quote myself, but I want your opinions on the Allegro 5 / Allegro 4 thing. Thomasu, SiegeLord, Elias and other people whose opinion might matter , do you agree with the following?

This seems to be the main change I'd like to propose, so I want your opinions on that point!

No no, there isn't one. But there should be. That's what I'm trying to say all the time.

Because (repeating myself here): The first thing people will need are platform dependent instructions. They are in the wiki. This is good, as easier to maintain. So we need to link those instructions from the official site. So we need a place in the Wiki to link to. This would most logically be the "Getting started" page. Because when you want to get started, you'll most likely want to install / build / ... the library. You don't want to know where you are and where you most likely already have been.

Yes, but (links to) platform dependent instructions are even more important. You can't try out any code before you've got the thing built and an environment set up. This is the very first thing people will want to know ("Does this work on my machine at all? How?").

Yes, that all makes a lot of sense. But you need tutorials or examples to get going unless you're the kind of guy who is an API guru and just learns everything through the manual. I believe both sets of content should be present.

So, does anyone know how changes to the liballeg.org website occur? What needs to happen to modify / update content?

Tomasu, is there any way to sandbox changes to the wiki? So we can preview and then save our partial modifications without actually changing the page? And is there a good guide to the wiki speak? I dunno how to speak wiki anymore if I ever did.

The wiki itself has a "preview" button you can use to preview your changes, and IIRC it has links to pages explaining it's own syntax as well. And it has sandbox pages. Youc oculd even create a preview page and edit that, then move thecontents to the real page later. So, if you are careful, then normally it won't be too hard to make changes.

To get this ball rolling I made a "Getting Started v2" we can use to edit step by step until the content is OK to replace the "current getting" started page:
http://wiki.allegro.cc/index.php?title=Getting_Started_v2

I don't think my opinion matters all that much here, but I do think that we should mostly be focusing on Allegro 5, and that better documentation and tutorials are needed.

I don't think it'd hurt to have an Allegro 4 page or "Legacy" page for Allegro 4.

It's all in git, so simply clone the repository, change it, test it in a browser, submit patch.

[edit]
Oh, and personally I think the one thing we really need to have would be (up-to-date, not 5.0.10 ones like here on allegro.cc) binaries for all platforms. It's not acceptable that you need to spend several hours before you can run a hello world in Windows or OSX. Not to even speak of Android or IOS.

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Ok, I tried to collect most ideas from this thread on the wiki page. Tried to keep it short.

Now we can start working.
You're of course also encouraged to change the wiki page and its 2 "children" or post comments about it.

The crucial problem seems to provide precompiled binaries for more platforms. What can we do about that?

I have the impression that Peter Wang's opinion is important.
@Pete: Do you agree that website and wiki should concentrate on Allegro5? I think this was consensus here.

@Matthew:
Concerning allegro.cc, it was suggested to

• remove outdated content (Resource Directory!!)

• feed news of liballeg.org to allegro.cc

What do you think? Could this be done?

The only reason I can think of: IMHO Allegro.cc's design is quite superior to the official site. That's why we should do something about that.

My wife says a logo should be simple and every part of it should be well recognizable, even when viewed in small size. So having all those small, but detailed icons could be difficult...

If you or someone else has an idea for / about the logo, please post it. Even words suffice, no images needed.

@Polybios:

Thanks for kicking off that page as well.

As for the logo I see your wife's point that it might be hard to see the icons in the crest I designed if the logo is scaled down. Maybe it could be simplified to a logo that consists of a single note on a screen icon between the {}. Allegro is also a music term and the note suggests audio, the screen video...

@Johan H: Died.

@Polybios: I like the new logo idea, namely just the font and brackets. It is simple and able to be iconographic at the same time. Cleanliness of the font was good too.

Sometimes this forum is pretty brash, and I've caught my share. But you gotta realize people aren't out to hurt you; if anybody around here has malicious intentions they get run off by the regulars. It is that very attitude that makes the community what it is.

I've been meaning to do several of the things mentioned for some time, and thanks for bringing it to mind.

I've been feeling like bikeshedding some logos...

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{"name":"608435","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/2\/1\/219531b294e7e1080a1174bf3501efc8.png","w":669,"h":597,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/2\/1\/219531b294e7e1080a1174bf3501efc8"}

Made some more variants.
{"name":"608437","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/9\/5\/9536941c37e3e91c7475d02c09eb3bba.png","w":548,"h":164,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/9\/5\/9536941c37e3e91c7475d02c09eb3bba"}
The ellipis / three dots mean: We abstract all the tedious platform-specific crap away for you.
{"name":"608441","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/d\/6\/d6b59ddfd66ccbd6ed9bba01f1f827c5.png","w":548,"h":164,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/d\/6\/d6b59ddfd66ccbd6ed9bba01f1f827c5"}
The colon from the ?: operator: Either write lots of tedious code for different platforms, or use Allegro5.
{"name":"608440","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/6\/a\/6a2e685354dd4a8f3743c9bf67d313b3.png","w":548,"h":164,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/6\/a\/6a2e685354dd4a8f3743c9bf67d313b3"}
Pacman, eating the stuff in the brackets.
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{"name":"608439","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/6\/7\/679378294aa877e5b56f2c859f2424d9.png","w":548,"h":164,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/6\/7\/679378294aa877e5b56f2c859f2424d9"}

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:
http://goo.gl/lx1Dt4

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.

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...

People won't get that meaning just by looking at it.

Derezo, yeah, that may be nicer. The {...} is a bit abstract, not everyone will grasp what it means...

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.

Wife and I thought about the logo a bit.
"Allegro low level game routines" obviously implies two things: a) low level programming, b) games.

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. This wouldn't be "Allegro low level game routines" anymore. And I don't think that changing the name would be an option.

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 . With Pacman, but without screen and earphones.

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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In terms of Pacman, I'm completely not comfortable using something that is actively trademarked in a logo. That's just asking for trouble.

SiegeLord, I think you might be right, unfortunately.

Anyone has any ideas on how to signify "game" programming in a different way?

Atari Joystick? not sure how that'd fit though. xbox gamepad of some kind maybe? also doesn't really fit!

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.

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.

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:
You should have read the first post in this thread more carefully.

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).

Simple and elegant... Just like the library.

I never got the time shift thing working in A5. Despite that, I'm already working on the animated logo.

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! I'd like someone to review my "Getting Started" proposal before I replace the old one with the v2 one.

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?

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).

I'll have a look today and post my impressions.

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.

I think it's very good. Thank you for doing some actual work.
A few things I noticed:

• MinGW seems to be missing in the binaries section? I thought there were binaries available.

• Building from source / vs. binaries needs further comments. Like: You should probably use binaries for Windows as it's quite nontrivial to build from source because of the many dependencies (which are needed because Allegro, in its greatness, does so many things for you ), but it's quite easy to build from source on Linux due to package management. Once you get MacPorts running on a Mac, it's also not that difficult, from my experience. But I've never done real Mac development with XCode and "frameworks", I just copied my code over and typed cmake and make into the terminal.

• Maybe some hint about Allegro 5.0 vs. 5.1?

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.

1. Complaining is free and will lead to results.

2. Thank you for your politeness.

3. It's actually not mainly about the logo.

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!

Here's some quickies:

Requirements:
This section is addressing newbies of all trades, while someone with a bit more of competency maybe is here to get things going...is the "getting started" page for real newbies only, I ask?

Installing Allegro

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?
(Well both SDL and SFML provide binaries for OSX thou...I guess it's possible?)

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? ...I think the lastest VS2013 and a recent MinGW (a good c++11 one) alongside C::B would do the trick nicely for a beginner on Windows.

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.

As I expected, I didn't like the changes made to the wiki so I had to fix some of them . I don't necessarily agree with the proposed changes... so if you're planning on doing something drastic, I'd suggest still doing it in a different page.

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.

The things I didn't like, I changed.

Sure, perhaps splitting the page up would be good... but I don't think it's that long as is. It's already basically just links with link descriptions.

I should stress that the wiki should be verbose and clear... it is not a replacement for the liballeg.org website. It is the liballeg.org website that should be clean and easy to navigate. I don't think it's useful to compare the SFML download page with our wiki page.

Great, but I suggest no more touches to the "main" wiki until we reach some form of agreement, and besides, i'd say we shlud DEFINITELY draft pages for approval before upstreaming any change.

We should tag the pages under "unofficial" or something along those lines until there's a ore clear undestading on where we're going.

I actually struggle to get things going right now you know, I'm about to get a flooded week but will try to do something at least, I think we0re moving on a good path, so far.

I'd like to see more discussione about the official site anyway, I think that it is top priority getting the front page a bit more immediate.

EDIT:

Well that's 100% true, but this page is a "getting started", and I think one does NOT get started in so MANY ways; also the page in the end derails quite a bit from "getting started", at lest to me seems clear.

Anyway I couldn't agree more about liballeg.org, and what I said in my post just before my edit just confirms my point of view.

The comparison was not meant 1:1 of course, and my suggestion was not wiki oriented...it's something you said also, we need the main platforms binaries availble, thus I was referring to that page for the list of binaries to explain my point (not to compare content or aestethics).

Slightly off-topic....it has been said that anyone's can modify the wiki and so forth, but I GUESS that there should be some kind of (light) peer-reviewing.

It doesn't seem that unclear, to me, of what needs to be done with the main page, so I'd rather somebody just make some mock-ups of how it'd look like. Here are some general points I'd prefer to be followed:

• I want the main page not to be dominated by news, I want it to be dominated by a feature list and something to show off.

• I want the sidebar to stay, I don't like headers as they are inefficient on wide screens. Frankly, the sidebar is already pretty good.

• I'd move all A4 under a legacy page, but I would not remove it altogether.

EDIT:

Well, you need to choose what to install, install it, learn to use it and learn where to get help. There's only so much you can cut before you make those things unclear. You shouldn't need to deviate from that page to go from nothing to an Allegro "hello world", and I think that page accomplishes that. Maybe the end could be split off into "further reading", but it's already at the end, so it doesn't seem like a big deal to me.

Siegelord , I've cross posted you editing my post.

On the other hand, I mostly agree with your points (especially the sidebar) and I would add that on your first point, I would like to see the front page like an "About Allegro" with a bit of what is allegro? - main features - fancy stuff (this needs work&agreement...screenshots..games...something light anyway, but a bit of eye candy shouldn't hurt).

I just noticed that the CMake build system which we use supports the generation of NSIS installers for Windows as well as packages for Linux, and for OSX through CPack.

Ideally, we should use CPack to generate a full options windows installer that also can install the sources if needed. Even better would be a single installer that supports all different Windows IDEs/compilers, if such a beast is possible.

http://www.cmake.org/Wiki/CMake:Component_Install_With_CPack
http://www.cmake.org/Wiki/CMake:CPackPackageGenerators

I took a look at editing the main liballeg web page, but I don't now pandoc that well... I could manage to swap the news and the readme page around to make the latter the index page, but I don't know how I'd include the news into the readme page as well. Perhaps the headlines of the news should be somewhere else, in a side box under the menu or so???

Concerning the website, I'd suggest to write a short introductory front page text in the Wiki first before actually changing anything, for example here, where I've collected the ideas from this thread.

In any case, we need to decide where the news should go.

Agree.

Looking through the website, I'm not sure whether we still need the following:

• DIGMID

• Speedhack 1999-2005 under "Links" suggests the site is outdated

• "DJGPP mirrors" under "Mirrors" seems to be really outdated

• Why are there so many logos under "Logos"? Are these actually needed?

• Since there are no Allegro5 books, but only Allegro4 ones, maybe remove "Books" from the main sidebar?

Edit:
List of features:
We should put a list on the front page.
I'm thinking about an additional, more verbose list on an extra page, which would be combined with short code samples (two column layout?). Like one short code sample for every "feature", which should cover a common task and demonstrate how intuitive the API is. I'm not quite sure whether this is feasible, though. What do you think?

One news item on the front page is fine, otherwise it'll just be a separate page.

Anything of those that's A4-only would go under the legacy page.

That seems excessive... EDIT: Although perhaps the code sample could be elsewhere (wiki tutorial?) and there could just be a link.

Well, I'm definitively pro code-samples on the website somewhere.
When I'm looking for a library I really like to get a feel for the API quickly so I can decide whether I like it or not. I think it's especially a good idea given Allegro's excellent and clean API.

That's right. But do we have the info that is on the "Getting started" page on the website, too? That would be actually doubling maintenance effort.

So I'd argue that the "Getting started" page of the Wiki should be seen as an exception to what you said. It should be the only part of the wiki that is regarded as a part of the website, too. IMHO it should be like a hub which can then link to other verbose wiki articles (or somewhere else).

Generally all texts should follow guidelines for text on screen: short, to the point, structured, nicely grouped into paragraphs or lists where it makes sense, to avoid impression of wall-of-text.

I'm just saying one code sample is enough.

No. The main page just has features, download links and some navigation aids, news etc. 'Getting Started' wiki page is a tutorial linked from the main page... it doesn't have features or news.

We could have a wiki page which is acts as a draft for such a page. Won't be much effort transferring it over.

Tried to write a draft for the introductory front page text. As I said, I'm no native speaker, so it will probably need correction.
List of features is still missing.

I updated that draft. Now ALL the allegro 5 features are there, but I feel the list looks too long, really. Maybe it's better to trim it down to the essential features or use an inline in stead of a list format.

I don't think it's too long. There should be a more or less complete list somewhere.
Maybe we can arrange the layout in a way that you wouldn't have to scroll down to reach download / getting started / other info? Then it would be ok I think.

5.1 features are not listed, while Android is there as supported platform. Either we should remove Android or add 5.1 features, too. Maybe mark them with an *? Or should we just stick to 5.0 there?

We don't need to list every feature. File IO, configuration routines and portable memory management are completely unexciting, for example, as is the memfile addon. Fixed point math is not exactly the top-most used feature either. Front page space is precious and shouldn't be wasted on trivia. If we want to have a thorough list, have a "And more!" link that goes to something more complete.

I think Siegelord is right, the feature list needs top be shorter. I put the whole deatailed feature list on the wiki:

http://wiki.allegro.cc/index.php?title=Allegro_5_Features

As for which features to mention, let's just get all the exciting ones and not care whether they are in 5.0 and 5.1. It's an introductory page to attract people, so we can gloss over the details a bit. I did that and trimmed the feature list down to the most exciting points.

Very nice.

BTW: Do we really need news on 1) Official website 2) Wiki 3) Allegro.cc?

I have just ( ) noticed that the wiki also has news on its front page. The official website seems to be the only one up-to-date...

The way I saw it, the official website will have news about Allegro (releases, development changes, and so on). The wiki will have news regarding the wiki (server changes and so on). Allegro.cc will have news regarding allegro.cc (new depot games and such).

I completely agree with SiegeLord, and I'd say that the separation between 5.0 and 5.1 should be done in the "And More!" section which is linked.

Maybe we could trim a bit further even...leaving the thing in a sequential non-bulleted list?

I'm still voting for getting the liballeg.org news feeded to the a.cc news (whilst maintaning the possibility to ADD news about new games and such as it is now).

Thought so too, but people do seem to post about releases on allegro.cc / wiki news, albeit not regularly. Which leads to the impression of outdated news.

Optimal solution would be this including the wiki news, so every newsfeed is up-to-date concerning Allegro releases or we should somehow discourage people from posting news about releases on the wiki / allegro.cc news.

Well, whatever, I guess it's maybe not that important.

I formatted the feature lists as tables with 3 columns, each with 1 row per column, and with a bullet list in each of the 3 table cells. I'm not sure Pandoc supports the table format of Wikipedia, but, we can always generate the HTML manually in a pinch. Anyway, is this better? Or make it 2 columns in stead?

Hmm, maybe it's only me, but I think if the features in the columns aren't related somehow, it's rather confusing.

You mean a "normal" enumeration? We'd really need to shorten the list further then, because otherwise it'll only make things less clear, IMHO.

I'd say these

and those

could go. Short enough? I think it could become difficult to agree on some "essential features".

Or maybe just have a link to the page with the full list of features there?

I've been looking at it but can't make my mind around it....features are good but as Siegelord's says there's not so much "woo" effect in some...

I'd say that your two latter items could go. Unconvinced of the first two thou.

I remember when I was new and enthusiastic to the forums...

Those were the days.

I'm not new to Allegro, though, I started using it back then on DOS and DJGPP. And your (less enthusiastic?) contribution to the wiki would be most welcome.

Pssssssssh. To the forums you are new .

I used to contribute to the wiki. Mostly it was in my IDE days with Code::Blocks. The issue with the wiki it has a terrible search backend, and Google is faster. Also, it's hard to latch on to tutorials when Allegro has no defined "cradle to grave" across all systems for either starting from scratch or grabbing the binaries.

For instance I have my crazy source builder that works on powershell, I use clang from the command shell, and leverage git. Most of which is NOT automated.

We'd be better off making a Vagrant powered VM that has ALL toolchains for cross platform building that dumps the built binaries to a host machine, than building the wiki... IMHO.

Uh, are ypu talking about continuos integration?

I see google also reads the wiki, so I think that if more people link to the wiki, google will start to return more results from there as well.

I've been lurking here for 3 years, but anyway... If there is anything else in particular you feel you need to warn me about then feel free to do so (here or in a pm).

The Vagrant VM sounds like a nice idea. so, I'd say, please actually make it so we can try it out.

As for the feature list, I checked again and the SDL page doesn't even have one on the first page. So I pared down the two feature lists to two running paragraphs. I guess that that should be sufficient for the front page.

Here's the SDL feature list. It's quite verbose.

I think that's good.

Ok, so let's make the feature list even more detailed, and then also make sure it's available on the liballeg web site.

As for the fron page, I think the text is more or less OK. Now we just need some good-looking screen shots and a new logo and we're good to go.

I'll try to join you in doing all the work when I have more time.

Before we set up the new front-page and features-page, we should (re)move all that outdated stuff from the website. Posted some of it earlier here ("DIGMID").

Yes. Or, at first, maybe you could elaborate a bit on how this should work, Phrasz?

There's no need to outright copy anybody's front page. Clearly, I'm going to have to make my own draft .

EDIT:

Here it is: http://wiki.allegro.cc/index.php?title=User_talk:SiegeLord#Welcome_to_Allegro.21

SiegeLord, I see your point, my text is a bit too much like the one of SDL. I saw your draft and it's fine for me as welln, apart from maybe a few details. Let's see what other people say though.

It's probably more precise while being more abstract. Well, it's fine by me.

Except two four things:

1) I'd prefer (something like)

to

because

1. I like freedom and control being in there (someone said something interesting about people doing low level programming earlier).

2. You already use the phrase "the features Allegro provides" in the next sentence, which is a bit repetitive.

3. It could maybe suggest somehow that you have to write an engine before you can make a game.

2) We should pick a more neutral symbol for indicating the development branch.

Edit:
3) "User-friendly" ... "usable" sounds suboptimal. Maybe we could reintroduce the word "consistent" here?

Edit2:
4)

I think this could be omitted.

That seems reasonable.

I just didn't feel like figuring out how to get the wiki not to prettify the asterisk.

Sure, it's all fluff... whatever sounds least offensive.

On the contrary, I think that's Allegro's main selling point. Compare this to, e.g. SDL, where you can't even rotate a bitmap without dropping into OpenGL (as far as I can tell, correct me if I'm wrong).

I like your current revision for the front page, SiegeLord. It's short and to the point while still listing all the main features of allegro 5.

I like what's going on. I particularly like having an introductory paragraph followed by a bulleted list. It cuts to the point. That said...

... neither Allegro nor potential users should be guilty until proven innocent. Consider the following:

Versus:

The former knows his way around a grill. The latter suffers from arthritis or mental retardation... You forget that he can cook a great steak. It doesn't matter at that point.

I would take the general ideas already in place and tweak them:

... And here is why, and I think this is really important: An introduction only needs to reveal just enough information to entice a potential user into taking the plunge. Delving too far into particulars only increases the chances for a "deal-breaker" to surface--but once you have a user, he might discover that another, altogether unforeseen feature makes Allegro too hard to resist (and that the "deal-breaker" wasn't really a deal-breaker at all).

I am not the most authoritative source in the world when it comes to persuasion. However, I earned a diploma in communications and have experience advertising for a living. I believe the above introduction will do very well for Allegro.

Hey, that's not a bad idea either, Gideon! Good to get some advice from someone who knows how to do marketing.

Well, that's certainly more along what I had in mind...thou I'd tune a bit down the general tone, dropping it into its context. With just a tiny little bit more of introduction.

In practice, I'd consider some small tweaks:

into

and

Result:

I've basically removed the "dreams" part. While I perfectly agree that it delivers enthusiam and "hype", I also feel it's a bit out of context for the target audience.

Your approach is very interesting, Gideon, but I feel that it might be overdone considering the "target audience".
IMHO all those "Speed", "Standards" etc. somehow get in the way of delivering the actual info. At least I'd be turned away by it.
I can only speak for me, though.

Never rotated a bitmap with SDL. Had a brief look at their manual, seems to be true. Then you're absolutely right, of course!

You do have a point here.

Thank you. I'm happy for some approval, though I didn't come up with that on my own so much as I merely tweaked what was already being said.

Those are some good observations. In hindsight, the "dreams" line may have gone a little overboard, but its role is important. At the same time, the substitution of "discover" in that last bullet works well, too.

A good compromise might look like the following (changes in bold, with edits to the original as well):

... Reasons: Listing only works with all bases covered (as in the portability bullet). A C programmer with absolutely no intention of using Allegro with a scripting language, for example, could look at that binding list and say, "Hey, I wonder why Perl's not on there..." That shouldn't matter to him.

Also, a bulleted list really shouldn't exceed seven items, so I combined two bullets.

Lastly, this is going to sound awful, but... it's important to make the reader feel smart, even when he's stupid. Short, to-the-point sentences featuring keywords accomplish this. A sentence can never be too short, but it can be too long. Inactive verbs (be and its conjugated forms) should be avoided. Consider the following:

Versus:

The former says more about the man's position than it does the man himself. As "the town mayor," Bill could sit at a desk all day and do nothing. When Bill "leads the town," however, he takes action.

Anyway, the above introduction works even better than the first. Thanks for the input. The new one strikes a better balance, and I honestly don't see a lot of room for improvement.

One, final thought: Please, please, please let us stop thinking about Allegro's "target audience." Show Allegro for what it is, in terms that anyone can understand. Then, let the "target audience" decide who they are. If someone sees the term "C++" and doesn't know what it means, they will turn away naturally. But it would be a shame to have someone perfectly capable of using Allegro turn away, simply because he didn't consider himself part of the "target audience."

Problem is: Smart people will feel uneasy about being treated as if they were stupid.
Like I said in previous post, I'd consider it overdone for the "target audience".
We don't have to cater to people who are unable to read a sentence of normal length.

Ah, there's that "target audience" again... Well, I should let you know that I agree: Catering is bad.

Do you feel the current description is stupid, though? I don't. It's succinct. The thing is: Even (especially?) intelligent people enjoy things that are easy to understand. It lets them focus on the real problems.

I would never cater to anyone. It goes against my principles. But I do think it's important to express oneself in a way that reaches the optimal number of people. Stupid people find a way of weeding themselves out; we don't need to do that job--and on Allegro's introductory page of all places.

I agree, BUT unfortunately here the "target" is quite well defined, which is BIG part of the BIG problem...we shouldn't be trying to appeal too much outside.

To use Allegro you have to know a BIT of what you are doing...otherwise the unwary that tries Allegro and is overwhelmed by the complexity, will turn away and prolly say foul words about it (maybe thou not in foul spirit) failing to acknowloedge his shortcomings against Allegro's ones.

short story: We can't promote Allegro as a "one-click wonder" even if for experienced users is a "a few lines of code" wonder. /hyperbolic.

No sentence is of "normal" length, "smart" people will read the snippet and dig further, "stupid" people will get attracted and dig later.

Socially, the community will help both in their own endeavours.

@Gideon:
You don't seem to get my point (my fault). I don't think your description is stupid, neither do I think we should have complicated sentences there.
If something is as .... "advertising" as your text, I feel being manipulated and treated like being a stupid person. I don't enjoy that at all.
Allegro isn't cornflakes or some TV series, that's what I meant with "target audience".

Edit: Well, whatever. It's better than the current front page, so, meh.
Edit2:
Try to express it differently:
Allegro5 is really good. We don't need to persuade anyone, it suffices to convince people.

I beg to differ, but markets have shown that nothing is so good that needs no promotion whatsoever.

Right. That's why we're doing this!

My point is just that sounding too "advertising", i. e. too much fluff could turn off some people ... like myself, for example.

And I feel that this could be especially the case among more "low level programmers" in general. Of course, I might be wrong there.

If everyone agrees with you, it's fine for me.
It's better than the current front page.

I'm ambivalent... as long as it's short and conveys the points I think need to be conveyed, then it's fine by me. I already stressed the one point which I feel is the big differentiator between Allegro and other libraries (except SFML, which is Allegro's closes analogue). The new text sort of glosses over it, but maybe you can infer it from the first bullet point.

Additionally, if we are still on board with a code example, then we can express it directly.

I miss the fact that it can easily be integrated with native OpenGL / Direct 3D. You shouldn't have to read the manual to get to know.

Every C library should hold up a sign saying "standards"? Well, I doubt it.

I'd say the API is intuitive / easy to use. "highly integrated" and "consistent through add-ons" seems to be the same to me.

I still think we don't need to be appearing as if we'd desperately need to sell something. We don't want anybody's money. AFAIK, only few people here have made finished games with Allegro5. There are easier paths. Allegro5 is low level. I feel especially with those keywords, not to mention the "dreams", "you want" etc. the text somehow misrepresents it. Today, it's for people who already more or less know what they're doing, let's be realistic about that.

Hehe, I just realized we're bike shedding this issue to death. Also, I came across as trying to spearhead something, when I was really just trying to help with an area in which I am confident. I apologize for sounding big-headed.

By all means, edit what's there, but do try and keep the bulleted list to seven items (plus the last one, which really isn't an item). "Elegance" is probably the weakest. Either way, please maintain the pyramid of information flow from general to detailed. The introduction should be general but interesting enough to entice someone to read more.

Like it or not, the guys in marketing do know what they're doing. You don't have to respect what they do, but you should at least acknowledge their expertise. I know developers don't like it when a manager comes in and says to use Language X because he read about it in a Business Week article. Well, that street runs two ways.

That said, I have a feeling the introduction is going to turn out just fine. Thanks for allowing me to join in for a while.

Here's my attempt at changing things (see reasons below):

I thought the introduction was factually wrong, and we don't have any award winning anything . I rephrased the first point to emphasize my pet peeve. For the next point, I like 'versatility' more than 'standard'. I didn't really understand what was meant by 'Allegro grows as you see fit', so I said something similar instead. We don't support Unix, this isn't 1970's.

The rest were minor nit picks. I note that many of those statements can still be easily mis-interpreted... but I guess the expertise in lying is something you can respect from marketing types .

Well, it' a bike shed indeed, but I feel we're getting a better at every step.

I'll be going on 2 week holidays and I don't know if I'll have a good internet connection and time to use it. If I don't I'll leave it up to you guys.

Is anyone even working on any projects utilizing A5? Just wondering... even the "The Depot" sub-forum where members talked about their projects seems to be gone.

I like that last, with a minor change

I removed the "if you need to" because, as above, we should not be giving reasons to think "hey, I may ever need to extend the libray? pfft...incomplete!"

Gideon, please stay involved...your input has been very valuable IMO.

Anyway we're fairly close, short yet complete introduction.

The fact that those statements can be misinterpreted is actually a GOOD sign.

No. And nobody is working on the Allegro code either. This is the marketing department after all.

Is that true?

I'm working on my current videogame using Allegro. If the developers are abandoning the project please tell us.

That tells me it was a joke.

Don't scare people that way Elias

Allegro is a little understaffed, so we welcome help... I wouldn't say it's abandoned (or close to it). E.g. a listing of the past few months of commits:

2014-03-23  vkensou           [win] Fix for al_get_standard_path with unicode.
2014-03-20  Trent Gamblin     Make real fullscreen modes work on OS X again. May not be perfect still. Thanks SDL.
2014-03-19  Trent Gamblin     Remove some code (Android only) that was supposed to be a fix for some older Android devices that didn't support certain te
2014-03-19  Trent Gamblin     Allow adding (.exe) suffix to Raspberry Pi toolchain programs
2014-03-15  SiegeLord         Clarify what al_update_display_region does in case the driver does not support this feature.
2014-03-15  SiegeLord         Fix typo in documentation of al_wait_for_event_timed
2014-02-28  SiegeLord         Clarify the documentation of al_calculate_arc.
2014-02-25  Peter Wang        android: Set correct orientation at startup.
2014-02-23  SiegeLord         Add a collinear polyline test
2014-02-23  SiegeLord         Fix some more sharp-angle polyline drawing bugs.
2014-02-23  SiegeLord         Fix uni- and bi-directional looping of zero-length samples.
2014-02-22  SiegeLord         Fix incorrect rendering of sharp angles with thick polylines.
2014-02-17  SiegeLord         Rephrase the documentation of ALLEGRO_PRIM_QUALITY
2014-01-31  SiegeLord         Switch to using unicode windows.
2014-01-25  SiegeLord         Do not check for the D3D device being lost up to 1000 times per second.
2014-02-03  Peter Wang        cmake: Add deps folders to CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH *or* CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH.
2014-02-02  Elias Pschernig   [OSX] Fixed/avoided all sound examples freezing...
2014-01-18  Ben Davis         cmake: Add deps folders to CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH, not CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH.
2014-01-14  SiegeLord         Clarify that the output of al_draw_pixel doesn't get bigger/smaller when transformed
2014-01-12  Peter Wang        Bump version to 5.1.9 (GIT).
2014-01-12  Peter Wang        Bump version to 5.1.8 (WIP).
2014-01-12  Peter Wang        Prepare summary of changes for 5.1.8.
2014-01-12  Peter Wang        docs: Use tempnam instead of tmpnam in make_doc.
2014-01-12  Peter Wang        docs: Delete Windows path workaround for older versions of Pandoc.
2014-01-12  Peter Wang        docs: Add make_doc --pandoc option and use it.
2014-01-12  Peter Wang        docs: Allow for .exe suffix in pandoc version detection regexp.
2014-01-09  SiegeLord         Use the texture dimensions to compute the half-pixel shift.
2014-01-09  SiegeLord         Do not apply the half-pixel shift to proj_transform itself.
2014-01-08  SiegeLord         Move the 0.5 pixel shift into _al_hlsl_set_projview_matrix.
2014-01-08  SiegeLord         Remove #version specifier from all shaders.
2014-01-08  SiegeLord         Move the half-pixel shift in D3D into the projection matrix.
2014-01-08  SiegeLord         Add a note about vertex/index buffers being liable to fail on lower-end GPUs
2014-01-08  SiegeLord         Fix a crash in ex_prim when vertex buffer creation fails.
2014-01-07  Trent Gamblin     set _WIN32_WINNT version to Windows XP to get DirectSound 8 (Markus Henschel)
2014-01-07  Trent Gamblin     Use lazy initialization for thread local state object (Markus Henschel)

I know I have been since a while here but where is the TODO list of Allegro to see what can I do? I saw the code once and was WAY too complicated to me. But probably right now I can understand it.

Now thinking about it, I think we should reach a point where Allegro is 'complete' like for example eNet (the networking library) I use it a lot and I think they haven't changed anything since years ago and still working pretty well. Then improve other things like what people is doing know, the wiki, binaries, manuals, etc.

My patch was never accepted ...

I have a general TODO item that involves going through all the old patches and seeing if they could be applied or not, hah.

Did you submit it here... or on the actual Allegro dev list?

Life gets in the way of trying to integrate suggestions for me. I'll try to do this when I have more time (if nobody else does).

@Gideon:
Your contribution has been valueable. Having one short paragraph of text and a short list of about 7 bullet points is a good idea.
I'm sorry if I was too harsh with my criticism.
But we should keep the facts straight.

@SiegeLord:
It's important to keep the facts straight, but there's no need for scientific precision here.

1. "Multimedia output routines": While being precise and correct, I think it's too abstract. IMHO we should have something more concrete, more "fleshy" there.

2. Mentioning only "Multimedia" makes me think of the 1990s. If the thing is called "Allegro low level game routines", games should be mentioned on its front page, too.

In your list, there's "API" in point 2 and 6. IMHO, there should be one point for API.

While the idea "portable speed" is nice, there should be only one point starting with "portabl...", IMHO Maybe simply "speed everywhere"

I still miss these two which I deem important:

1. Playing nicely alongside / integrating well with "native" OpenGL and Direct3D.

2. Freedom and control (because it's not an engine).

Maybe 1 could be integrated into "Extendability and Modularity" which could be called "Flexibility"?

Maybe 2 could somehow be merged into "Freedom".

Truth.

I decided to play around with Blender and recreate the original Allegro logo (bottom of http://liballeg.org/logos.html). Here's the result:

{"name":"608452","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/e\/2\/e2046624fe9661deba798b207907dc7d.png","w":480,"h":270,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/e\/2\/e2046624fe9661deba798b207907dc7d"}

EDIT:

And now with slightly more uniform lighting:

{"name":"608468","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/a\/8\/a83e5294881d7bd9e31a55c2379774cd.png","w":960,"h":531,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/a\/8\/a83e5294881d7bd9e31a55c2379774cd"}

Bump.

Yhea I think that keeping this thread alive is important.

I didn't want to say anything but I can't just ignore it, SiegeLord, that logo is incredible wrong. It's so 1999-ish all that glow, and lights and depth it's not used anymore these days. I still think that as an improvement and not as a final logo we should use the logo proposed by Polybios in its most simple way (whiteout the brackets) and change the logo on the wiki, allegro.cc and liballeg, if in the future we come up with something better we can change it.

I know, these days it's all Windows 8, boring flatness. I'm not interested in modern perversions.

I think the text is too dark, in the version with black background I can hardly read it, in the version with white background it looks almost like black text. Maybe make a version where the Allegro uses the same color as the 5. And maybe even more uniform lighting, something like global illumination instead of the hard raytraced lights...

It's not only Windows but other companies. I still remember when I liked the Windows XP GUI, now I look at it and think "Oh my god". I think it's about changing, there is nothing bad in changing.

Code::Blocks also changed their logo. They went from something like this:

{"name":"2d9eah1.png","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/b\/8\/b822184ecc9e294bd288db70a50aa5af.png","w":450,"h":240,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/b\/8\/b822184ecc9e294bd288db70a50aa5af"}

to this:

{"name":"608471","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/0\/3\/03b32007c5799225ddc4989187795320.png","w":661,"h":283,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/0\/3\/03b32007c5799225ddc4989187795320"}

The glow of the previous version was incredible amateur.

There is also Google.

{"name":"logo11w.png","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/5\/8\/58ccd552e22f0c86c64f8560e04ddc39.png","w":538,"h":190,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/5\/8\/58ccd552e22f0c86c64f8560e04ddc39"}

Etc, etc...

Perhaps you need to check your monitor settings. The colours stand out very clearly to me, and I failed an employment test at a colour copy centre due to the fact that I can't differentiate colours well enough. So if I can see that properly, anyone should be able to.

I have nothing against change... but I am quite a bit against change just because everybody else is doing it, especially if they are all going the same direction... that's called being a lemming .

EDIT: I just looked a bit online about this, and look what I came up upon:

http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2013/07/flat-design-casts-a-long-shadow/

If this isn't a definition of a bandwagon, I don't know what is. Should we add a long shadow to the Allegro logo because everybody is doing it?

Designers and Companies tend to follow trends like lemmings. I see it at work a lot. The new trend is screen size images to show one element in a list. Even on the desktop. It's retarded.

When you created that image you was also being a Lemming, typical shadows, glows, depth and even colors, the problem is that you got stuck in the lemmings' tendency of the 90's. At least I'm a 2014 lemming. And yhea I like the fresh style of these new logos...

Isn't the whole point of this thread marketing?
One might agree about the lemming stuff, but the truth is (to me at least) that the glowing logo is shouting: "look, 1990!"
Which is not what we want to make people have a good impression of Allegro

You can assign any art to some time period, but unless it was created deliberately to emulate it, you can't say it's following a trend. I merely like blue shiny things.

I can show so many logos from 2010's that were not done in this stupid flat style. You make it sound like it didn't come about only recently (past 2 years at most). You both are literally doing a "this logo is so last year!".

What i mean to say is that all of the big websites are following (creating?) a trend: google, twitter, facebook, microsoft, amazon, ... you name it. They define what is modern in the general public's mind.

We can choose to ride this wave or not, just keep in mind that people expect things in a certain way.

So how do they start something "new"? The logo in question is the hot new thing!

Uh?

The first time I saw those logos I chuckled because I thought SiegeLord was joking. They don't fit in with what most people expect these days.

But I'm all for Allegro being more retro and all that, but that's not how you get more users.

How did they convince the public that this new thing was better than the currently cool thing?

If you think a logo will have any effect on the number of users we get, you're living in a very interesting world... We're not that desperate to literally grasp at every newfangled trend.

Look at this, incidentally:

Do you know what that is? That's Ruby. Ruby, the most hyped up language I've ever seen in my life.

Rubies are timeless.

Geez, I thought SiegeLord's logo was good. Has anyone come up with anything else? Lets see it.

In my opinion the new logo should be created with a5 and some kind of shader but I dunno how to do that.

So come on, design some shit!

Here's my attempt using Paint.NET (full size the image cuz the preview is a jpg) :
{"name":"608476","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/d\/f\/dfbd2c4cde114725abfbbbb8dd98965d.png","w":639,"h":156,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/d\/f\/dfbd2c4cde114725abfbbbb8dd98965d"}
https://www.allegro.cc/files/attachment/608476

Oh my fucking god... Edgar remove that immediately!

Did you look at the full size? The preview jpg is messed up.

And I don't see anything better coming out of you AMColey

Oh my god I just viewed at full size and it's even worse! remove it now! have already made my contribution! I like the poly version!

{"name":"b62b4342ba951c69db90f40c6bb7e7a9.png","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/b\/6\/b62b4342ba951c69db90f40c6bb7e7a9.png","w":374,"h":164,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/b\/6\/b62b4342ba951c69db90f40c6bb7e7a9"}

This ought to be darn well good enough.

{"name":"608477","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/a\/a\/aa934ec8de785ef9797ca1a1c4176d06.png","w":765,"h":423,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/a\/a\/aa934ec8de785ef9797ca1a1c4176d06"}

Now get off my lawn.

I also like the Poly version
{"name":"b62b4342ba951c69db90f40c6bb7e7a9.png","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/b\/6\/b62b4342ba951c69db90f40c6bb7e7a9.png","w":374,"h":164,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/b\/6\/b62b4342ba951c69db90f40c6bb7e7a9"}

I seriously like that idea. Just a single color version with the old A4 font, it's brilliant, so much character. And it's flat so even AMCerasoli would like it

Ok so since FMC, Polybios, Thomas F, Johan Halmén, Vanneto, beoran, Elias, Matthew L. And even Speceter Phoneix like the new logo, the new logo of the Allegro5 library is::::::

Polybios's version! Congratulations!

The pink draft was so I inspiring, I could persuade wife to make some more variants.

Note these are quick drafts, i. e. the 'a' / 'A' was just scanned from paper and not properly vectorized.

{"name":"608481","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/0\/4\/0471eceb3d5283fab7937b837bd947df.png","w":415,"h":140,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/0\/4\/0471eceb3d5283fab7937b837bd947df"}
{"name":"608482","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/2\/d\/2d052efe1a6e5d61f62c50056cb6b2fe.png","w":415,"h":140,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/2\/d\/2d052efe1a6e5d61f62c50056cb6b2fe"}
{"name":"608483","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/3\/7\/3784ba8398d33cb808b882b668281998.png","w":415,"h":140,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/3\/7\/3784ba8398d33cb808b882b668281998"}
{"name":"608484","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/e\/3\/e38ab304a1d14802de90544e7d966c9b.png","w":415,"h":140,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/e\/3\/e38ab304a1d14802de90544e7d966c9b"}
{"name":"608485","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/d\/9\/d9cc347832be4d11185a0a601cb2b220.png","w":415,"h":140,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/d\/9\/d9cc347832be4d11185a0a601cb2b220"}
{"name":"608486","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/e\/1\/e175b1586c1211e66de13688648609dd.png","w":500,"h":138,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/e\/1\/e175b1586c1211e66de13688648609dd"}

For those who dislike flatness and prefer gradients and depth effects, you can easily make it look like someone applied a cheap Photoshop filter by doing ... exactly that:
{"name":"608487","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/e\/0\/e074f820ca2074b4ee01a3d75d1caef1.png","w":415,"h":140,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/e\/0\/e074f820ca2074b4ee01a3d75d1caef1"}

Sorry, I have to downvote that snaky A logo. It does not make me think good things about allegro, nor does it make me want to use it.

If everybody makes logos i am a lemming too...

Maybe I'm just here for the nostalgia...

{"name":"608489","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/d\/1\/d18bfc724b3f3d7c981d7b98fd0677a0.png","w":650,"h":199,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/d\/1\/d18bfc724b3f3d7c981d7b98fd0677a0"}
{"name":"608491","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/3\/2\/323dd021748cddcf4165e4b284f0085d.png","w":650,"h":199,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/3\/2\/323dd021748cddcf4165e4b284f0085d"}
{"name":"608492","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/c\/5\/c544049f1090f00e8873e8ee1a34c64b.png","w":650,"h":199,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/c\/5\/c544049f1090f00e8873e8ee1a34c64b"}
{"name":"608493","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/8\/3\/839304ee5b011d915ef829d99be2992b.png","w":650,"h":199,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/8\/3\/839304ee5b011d915ef829d99be2992b"}
{"name":"608495","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/4\/6\/460b8853b5fc423a8b66d53dd26abddb.png","w":320,"h":98,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/4\/6\/460b8853b5fc423a8b66d53dd26abddb"}
{"name":"608494","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/0\/7\/070953f6676f1f2cdec8a18b019496ce.png","w":650,"h":199,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/0\/7\/070953f6676f1f2cdec8a18b019496ce"}

Warning: This one may cause irreversible bain dramage.

I SO DAMN LIKE that hand-sketched 5. And I like the light-blue.

And I also like the vectorized purple retro with that "5" in the triangle.

Yeah you guess what I dig....it's the 5.

The "snaky" alligator unfortunately look quite bad in the context...it's been thrown in.

SUM IT UP:

Poly, have your sweetheart sketch a capital "A" that pars (in style and dimensions) with the "5"....there we could use the extended Allegro5 with the current layout and the contrapted "A5" form as logo proper.

The hand-sketch conveys all the right moods about what Allegro is in my opinion.

Another vote for this, the blue hand written 5 rocks - make a corresponding A and were are good!
{"name":"e175b1586c1211e66de13688648609dd.png","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/e\/1\/e175b1586c1211e66de13688648609dd.png","w":500,"h":138,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/e\/1\/e175b1586c1211e66de13688648609dd"}

It's ok guys, I've done the only logo we're ever going to need/use. Everyone stand down.

{"name":"608496","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/5\/c\/5cd56ec3731d852a8e0834f4409bd1cf.png","w":800,"h":600,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/5\/c\/5cd56ec3731d852a8e0834f4409bd1cf"}

Did you just fart that out? If so, you might want to see a proctologist.

HEY! Don't be....oh wait it does look that.

That would be a pretty Awesome logo. It's a shame that the Dizzy image has a copyright.

Ditto, still a bit convoluted having dizzy runnig away...

I love the hand-drawn "5". Wonder what the whole Allegro written like that would look like. And I also like all of Derezo's, especially the purple one

Hmm, here's my attempt at mashing the two together:

{"name":"608498","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/e\/9\/e91eee90cf0a7560f8059fd449dc2c70.png","w":547,"h":144,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/e\/9\/e91eee90cf0a7560f8059fd449dc2c70"}

These are some of the worst logos I've ever seen... until Dizzy's.

That one is brilliant.

Yeah, I also think that Red Ruby is terrible....

The bloody fart logo looks quite appropriate.

I beg to differ, it is awesome, but doesn't really look appropriate

I do like the "hand-drawn" blue 5. I bet there are free fonts (such as http://www.fontspace.com/category/pencil) that could be used to make the A5 as was suggested before.

Apart from the logo bikeshed, any progress on the new front page text? The logo is only a small part of the work that needs to be done to market Allegro 5...

http://www.dafont.com/fff-tusj.font

I assume that's what was used above. I just gave it a shot with Inkscape and it looks pretty good applied to the full name. Then again, I quite like the Poly versions.

In all seriousness, this one:

{"name":"e175b1586c1211e66de13688648609dd.png","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/e\/1\/e175b1586c1211e66de13688648609dd.png","w":500,"h":138,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/e\/1\/e175b1586c1211e66de13688648609dd"}

is awesome; we should apply it immediately! A camel is a horse designed by committee after all...or something like that.

No, that A is too messed up, and doesn't fit with the rest of the letters.

Yhea, I don't like the A neither. Too exaggerated I think.

Doesn't work. You'll mainly see "llegro" then. Not good.

Rather boring. That's why my wife came up with another one, "from draft to something finished":
{"name":"608516","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/6\/2\/6264bcb63b56a692cc4be31b8bef68b9.jpg","w":481,"h":150,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/6\/2\/6264bcb63b56a692cc4be31b8bef68b9"}

Umm, no. You can scroll up to see the latest iterations/discussion. I'd try to work on this if I had the time.

I think I agree, some days later. The shape doesn't fit the "printed" look.

Why don't you stick the blue sketched '5' at the end of you're wifes new one, sort of sketch up into it? Might look cool!

Polybios you better stop wasting yours and your wife's time, it's more than clear that there is no real interest in changing the current logo. In this community everything is as it should be and if you find a bug it's not a bug it's a feature...

I love this logo, but seriously

{"name":"6264bcb63b56a692cc4be31b8bef68b9.jpg","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/6\/2\/6264bcb63b56a692cc4be31b8bef68b9.jpg","w":481,"h":150,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/6\/2\/6264bcb63b56a692cc4be31b8bef68b9"}

+1 to Dizzy's....I' wonder how could it look like.

C'mon bro....you know that's just untrue...:-X

Ok. I agree the "5" could be nicer. But just appending the previous blue "5" doesn't quite work. I have the impression you prefer blue to red.

I must admit that I think the "allegro" part is quite good now. Before we try changing the "5" further, maybe there could be more feedback to this?

@AMCerasoli:
And you ... better get back to being constructive.
Of course it's unlikely that we all (whoever that is) agree on one logo 100%. But I think we can come up with something that is an improvement to the current one, which just seems to scream "I'm from the 1990s".

But it's true man... Who is managing liballeg.org btw? I would have already changed the logo there (the hole page to be honest). Here at allegro.cc forget it. There is no way you'll see the new logo here. In the site I'm most optimistic is the wiki, which is an important place but there should been already a poll at the front page of allegro.cc (yes allegro.cc has a front page) to vote for this new logo. But nooooooooooooo....

We Want A New Logo campaign starts today!

allegro.cc is an unofficial site. Ask Matthew about changes to it.

If you want to contribute to allegro itself (and liballeg.org) check out the www repo.

The wiki is also unofficial.

I hope you don't think this is a democracy. The final choice will be made by Allegro developers (I'd nominate Peter).

There is nothing wrong with being from the 1990s. The only question is whether or not it looks good. The current logo is ok, but could be improved.

If this will be done... well folks, you will get decent popularity boom. People need to see what can be achieved with Allegro. Just like in commercials - we need an authoritative "dentist" that will say that using Allegro will make you Hollywood smile.

Adding "gay alligators" logo to future game intro/loading/elsewhere state might be good move

It might be good idea to stick with the alligator - it's a symbol after all. Pretty text can be pretty but no more. Perhaps, someone could draw it in harmony with that Poly version?

I like this one a lot.

Pretty much, yes.

++ Elias. There's at least 2 or 3 aspects of that logo that I can attribute to the library. Which is pretty good!

I also like Polybios' wife's last logo, maybe the 5 could be blue, but oh well... It's certainly better than the old logo IMHO. If enough people like this last logo then why not ask Peter as well if he likes it or not?

These logos are not very good.

None of these logos are any good - for the love of Christ don't change anything until we get someone for real to show how logos are done.

Only Mark and I left on the sanity boat.

Some of these are interesting sketches that might make for the beginnings of some animated intro to a game of a similar graphical style, but as logos... not even close.

There's nothing wrong with a basic font logo as is currently used. Unoriginal and uninspiring as it may be, at least it's not downright embarrassing because obviously no effort was taken and nobody thinks it's awesome.

Anyway, the best "marketing" would be great games that use the library. Proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Second to that is excellent documentation on how to install the library (e.g., pre-built libraries for all platforms), and then a well written tutorial/guide of how to use the library.

Obviously even if it takes a person 8 hours to learn how to install Allegro on his favorite platform, that only represents an insignificant amount of time in the grand scheme of making a complete game. But that's not how people feel when they are getting started. So working on making Allegro beginner-friendly is the best way to get more people to use it.

I partly agree cause...

...this is only because there is no logo proper, as it stands Allegro has no logo whatsoever and this is the only reason I just say you are right.

There is nothing wrong in "being from the 90s" per se, it is actually an asset!

But just consider this as an example:

When has SDL been released initially? When did Allegro land on Windows?

Just about the SAME year, or whenabouts...still anytime I stumble upon someone that compares somewhat ....it is always Allegro that comes out "older".

Now, I think it's clear that the logo itself is no priority at all, ALL the rest you have mentioned is clearly more important (and already aknowledged by the thread).

But to me you seem to be bashing the thing for the sake of it, honest.

{"name":"608522","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/9\/e\/9ed2cb5e4f2edf6630d721034dff896b.png","w":340,"h":240,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/9\/e\/9ed2cb5e4f2edf6630d721034dff896b"}

edit:
The alpha transparency seems to be messed up here in chrome.

Not agree. But in any case never say no and just disappear, at least post an idea of an already made logo to see how you think it should be.

I bet you would have say the same for Google, Ubisoft, Microsoft, etc, etc... Or maybe you're the kind of person that need to see something first to 'learn' how to do it.

Why don't you post something? Doesn't need to be yours, just something you consider a logo.

This is what people with no creativity at all use to think. If you have no such creativity it's fine, but don't try to judge others works because you simply can't, you don't have that power since you're not a creative person. It's like a jury of mathematicians were judging a group of graphical artists.

That's a good one too. It's simple yes, but damn it's much better than the current one.

rendered in OpenGL using Allegro 5 Primitives:
{"name":"608523","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/d\/4\/d42e15c81fc7bdb0bfc90200d7cee418.png","w":616,"h":392,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/d\/4\/d42e15c81fc7bdb0bfc90200d7cee418"}

code:

That's a load of bullshit. That's like saying if you're not a chef you can't tell if theres something wrong with food. Most art critics can't create art themselves but are perfectly qualified to judge the artwork of others.

Anyone who makes a statement such as you did is most likely a bad artist who can't take criticism from others and so therefore deems that person incapable of judging them.

I think it's not the same.

If you're eating shit, and I give you food and you tell me that it sucks then yhea you're pretty much incapable of judge.

@Matthew, Mark Oates:
I'm not convinced. This sounds as if you're just trying to disguise your subjective opinion as facts. Please provide 3-4 logos (anything will do) for reference, so we can see "how it is done". I really mean it.

Right. I've never meant to create THE logo, just an improved version of the font-logo which doesn't look like someone used a cheap generator in the 1990s.

Wrong.
It's really not good. It says "1990s DOS blitting library".

The website should have changed with the 5.0 release to signal it's something new. That's what we're trying to accomplish here.

Agree.

Well, it looks sketchy, because some people said they liked it sketchy.

What you think is irrelevant, unless you can can give a good explanation as to why you think that.

But here's why it is the same... I'm not a chef, yet I can tell when the chef who prepared my food put too much salt in it, or overcooked the meat. I have senses, and am capable of using them.

Likewise, even though I cannot paint to save myself, I can look at something a student painted and see that the proportions are wrong, or that there are conflicting shadows. Again, I have senses and know how to use them. You don't need to be able to create something to tell when someone else has done a bad job at attempting to do so themself.

That makes absolutely no sense, and only serves to confirm what I surmised.

Hahaha man... That's exactly why it is not the same. Everybody can do that, it's like "Man I can't breath, there is something wrong with the oxygen here!" or "man it's too hot I'm burning" those are human sense everybody can distinguish, but even though I would like to take you to some of the most distinguish restaurants and make you test the food, you'll probably find some food dishes that you don't like but does that mean that all the people need to agree with you or it's just you to used to eat McDonald's?

Not because to you it has too much salt, or its texture is weird or whatever it means that it's not good food.

Oh, so you can distinguish when a student has failed, how convenient. I bet that if I put here two paintings one made by an student and another with a value of millions dollars and you won't be able to know which one is which.

Art is not only ruled by senses. Art changes and what is beautiful today tomorrow may not, but still being art. If you don't have also the knowledge tomorrow you could say that the Mona Lisa sucks and remain as a fool.

If we're talking about marketing, and modern logos and we say that this:

It's better than this:

{"name":"b62b4342ba951c69db90f40c6bb7e7a9.png","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/b\/6\/b62b4342ba951c69db90f40c6bb7e7a9.png","w":374,"h":164,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/b\/6\/b62b4342ba951c69db90f40c6bb7e7a9"}

Or this:

Then we know no shit about graphic designs and logos.

Now, if you just want to troll go ahead and continuing talking about chefs and food.

That's is why I said this is going to nowhere, for the new people around here this is what always happens. It's like "We know that we current logo sucks, but it's that, or the logo of the year, we won't conform with a community made logo. We need Leonardo Da Vinci."

Come on, arguing about art or food and being polemic won't lead us anywhere.

A quick patch for dramatically improving the look of the official website would be to just remove the yellow background of the sidebar^[1]. Maybe we can at least agree on that?

Quoted for truth. Andrew Loomis (who was a very successful artist several decades ago and one among few who really knew their craft) explains exactly that in great detail across several pages in one of his books (from the top of my head, I think it is in "Successful Drawing").

I think I'll continue to play WoW.

Please send in some patches there's a git repo for the website.

Anything that helps make the site look better is a win.

I know the logos are bad because if I tried to make one that is what it would end up looking like.

And we aren't speaking of million dollar art for the rich. No I cannot tell the difference between a painting by a monkey or a modern abstract artist. There is none. It's just a made up world with made up rules for people with too much money.

Logos are for the common person. And I can tell the difference between amateur hour and professionalism because one looks bad and the other looks good.

The pacman logo is marginally better than the current one, but it's nothing to write home about. The A5 one looks like an icon.

Again, show us your concept of good logos, talk is easy. At least that way we can learn from the biggest brains of the smaller community.

I like it!
Mind if I steal this code and theoretically use it in my games?^[1]

As for the logos on display, I like the allegro5 being sketched, except the red 5 looks bad.

Fine with me.

Untrue, but I agree SO wholeheartily....

Anyway

SO true! I took the liberty to scrounge up a number of logos from multimillion companies....

{"name":"kinder-logo.png","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/e\/b\/eb9ff5552fbfbd9c382490393c22e34a.png","w":391,"h":119,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/e\/b\/eb9ff5552fbfbd9c382490393c22e34a"}

{"name":"auchan-logo.jpg","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/6\/a\/6ab3c61e6a8d95803e028b7913d9f2c7.jpg","w":620,"h":330,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/6\/a\/6ab3c61e6a8d95803e028b7913d9f2c7"}

{"name":"images","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/f\/b\/fb1830247bb976d834e8617f573962db.jpg","w":340,"h":114,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/f\/b\/fb1830247bb976d834e8617f573962db"}

....to ME, NONE of the aforementioned works strikes as amateur, for instance.

Man I never liked that Auchan logo. That super-market was in Italy and here in Spain they're called Alcampo.

{"name":"logo_alcampo.jpg","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/b\/3\/b36948dfb19909644f2425e6cda07bdb.jpg","w":2921,"h":671,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/b\/3\/b36948dfb19909644f2425e6cda07bdb"}

Well, for this community those logos would be garbage.

Hey Matthew, here is a multimillionaire sketch logo.

{"name":"Gamestop.jpg","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/e\/9\/e98467b0b6cb7613a48e42db56ac8215.jpg","w":1600,"h":472,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/e\/9\/e98467b0b6cb7613a48e42db56ac8215"}

I came to know when I saw the one in the Avenida Diagonal, but I just wanted to point out two things:

- I do not necessarilty think the logos I posted are good, I actually loathe a couple them....but they sure as hell are not AMATEUR work.

- Auchan is a FRENCH mall chain ,not Italian.

Here's a multi-billion company:

(Just remembered it because we saw those signs all over Spain when we were there on vacation - and I always thought back then "who would use a cheap looking logo like that" )

Hahahaha yhea, this is two steps from my apartment.

{"name":"nuevo_ecingles.jpg","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/1\/2\/121210a9a6292c0cee47b1a061daa469.jpg","w":700,"h":424,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/1\/2\/121210a9a6292c0cee47b1a061daa469"}

@matthew I don't want to fan the fires but I think it's good to remember that the worst enemy of good is not bad, but perfect.

A new logo isn't that important, but the old one really looks worn-out. And of course its' a topic everyone loves to bike shed about. And that's also what this blocks other work. So I'd like the new logo to be chosen as soon as possible so we can move on to the more important work.

Now we probably can't make a "perfect" new logo, but I do think we can come up with one that is somewhat better than the old one, and that better to suggests that Allegro 5 is "all new". And that's all that is needed really, for now, since we can always improve the logo even more if need be.

If you like, please make a few suggestions on what you'd like in a somewhat better logo. It would help sort out this discussion more rapidly so we proceed with the more urgent matters.

A new logo is irrelevant. What is relevant is to make a stable and useful cross-platform library. It does not even have to compete with other libraries for attention.

Not having a new logo does not stall development of the library in any way. If anyone wants to contribute code they can just grab the current version from git and start writing patches.

A nice looking logo would be nice, yes, but not having one does not "block" anything.

Dennis, well, OK, it's not a "blocker", but it look at the huge bike shed about the logo this thread is. So in that sense it does take a lot of effort that could be spend elsewhere. At least for me it feels like that.

Okay I pick Dizzy's blood splat logo as the official logo. Now get back to work.

Leave room for me! I agree with the general sentiment -- these logos just don't work. I like some of the ideas, but .. uhh.. they don't fit.

I posted my contributions mostly to try and shift the focus to Allegro's roots. My purple version got some comments, but I knew it wasn't production material. What I wanted was for everyone to see again what we're all familiar with: The ASCII art logo.

I started using allegro 3 with DJGPP and notepad on my 486. It was the most amazing thing I had ever found on the Internet.

When I was 13.

I wanted to make SNES style video games, and I thought it was a great jumping off point. It grew on me, and here we are.

Dayumm I didn't use allegro 4 until I was about 19 or 20.

Allegro is what has made me into the programmer I am today. I wanted to use allegro not to make games, but really so that I could make any program from the ground up with my own interface and design. I always thought that interfaces/graphics in video games were better than other computer programs, so I figured that if I could make programs at that level I'd be in good shape. I saw that C/C++ is the language to know if you're making things for real and I also liked Allegro's cross-platform ideology.

Recently, I've created several pieces of software for use at work to control the audio, projectors, and stage lighting in our auditorium. All of which are done using Allegro. For me it's not just a library for making games.

I would not be teaching programming at a college without Allegro. I mostly do web stuff now, though I have an ongoing long distance love affair with C.

@Matthew, What about removing the outdated stuff from "Resource directory" on A.cc?

I still think we should change the logo to signal A5 is something completely new.

It's not top-priority, of course, more something "nice to have". Nobody said it was top-priority. At least I've posted some more or less useful stuff which some people liked.

I think I started using Allegro when I was about 11-12. But this isn't the nostalgia thread.

@Thomasu:
Had a look at the repository of the website. I think I can't change the top-right search script from there. The search has only "A4 api", which is the default; would be nice to have A5 there. The form links to http://alleg.sourceforge.net/search/search.py.

No quick patches please, that's literally design by committee. Everybody makes one quick patch, and the end result is a monstrosity .

Plus, I don't agree.

Well, I think this:
{"name":"608532","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/e\/e\/ee276f492f02baa5c0852b37791e5244.png","w":1054,"h":887,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/e\/e\/ee276f492f02baa5c0852b37791e5244"}

would already be better than this:
{"name":"608531","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/d\/6\/d679b3eb8f92391781165334a00fb5ee.png","w":1056,"h":889,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/d\/6\/d679b3eb8f92391781165334a00fb5ee"}

As you don't seem to agree to big changes, I thought we might as well improve the site by just changing some small parts of it.

Who is responsible for accepting patches? Peter Wang?

The procedure is to send the patch to the mailing list http://liballeg.org/maillist.html#AD and then have it ignored for months wait for a developer to commit it.

I should point out, again, that what's really needed is a main page redesign and all those nice points I raised on page 1 or 2 of this thread . I know logos and "web design" are fun to talk about, but that's mostly it. It's deviating quite a bit from the stated purpose of this thread.

Now, what does that imply? Doesn't "redesign" involve "web design", too?

If main page implies "front page text", I made some, I hope, constructive comments to your last text some pages earlier.

I could also clean up the HTML stuff of the existing website to use a CSS-layout instead of tables so it's easier to work with in the future (i. e. just recreate the page as it is now).
But if the ones in charge are just opposed to changing anything for the sake of it, I'm not going to waste my time any further with this.

{"name":"5e4affe525f1ccb952f5a028a9bcf9c3.png","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/5\/e\/5e4affe525f1ccb952f5a028a9bcf9c3.png","w":256,"h":256,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/5\/e\/5e4affe525f1ccb952f5a028a9bcf9c3"}

I think this would be a good place to start. I would like to offer to do a redesign, but if I were to do it I would "do it right" and it would take me a while. I have many things to do ATM, an I could only see myself accomplishing that realistically with a will and a way.

That being said, after looking at the existing site, I would start with a cleansing of the HTML for a CSS layout.

Well, this would be great!

I had a closer look, there's actually almost no need to clean up anything, because there's only a table layout at the top. I'm sorry guys.

The site was somewhat recently re-done fyi. So I'd have been surprised if it was still using ancient web dev techniques. It doesn't look the best colour wise, but its still pretty clean and functional.

After going through the whole site I noticed there are numerous dead links (10+ of the A4 tutorials for example). Maybe removing them could be a useful starting point for cleaning it up?

Among the A4 tutorials are some dead links refering to
http://alleg.sourceforge.net/docs/...

It's a bit difficult, I don't know a good criterion except for links being dead. How many / what A4 tutorials are still needed there? Should they be preserved for posterity? If so, a prominent place of the website is probably not the right place for that, I guess?

On the note of featuring games made with allegro, check out the java-gaming.org forum. Specifically the show case and featured games. I think it's pretty impressive. I've been spending a little time there since using LibGDX

All that A4 tutorials may be a little out of date even if actually reachable methinks...Oly, try to split up a "legacy links" page and submit the patch...might as well just test the system no?

About featuring Games with allegro, recent contributions by Trent, Michael Moffit, Kovarex, Schyfis (ok maybe not so "recent") and Todd Cope should be plenty appropriate for forefront site (successful indiegogo campaigns, actual preordering, steam greenlights...), and I guess more could come (and are there, I know for sure one game on gog.com was sponsored here).

Someone even did a rip of Sauerbraten porting it to Allegro but there is no trace left of it...

Don't forget [url=https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=se.darkbits.greengrappler.android]darkbits[/url]

Allegro was fun for the time. From DOS to Windows during the wild evolution of DirectX, it was great. It was one of the first middlewares I trusted. Many fond memories.

I started migrating away from Allegro almost a decade ago, but I will always remember how important it was to me. Thanks guys for making it great.

OMG, is it the PoV, the guy who runs LudumDare? Didn't expect a post here

And what are you using now?

He's using Java.

;-p

You should check out Allegro5

It is modern, clean and intuitive, see the list of features on ... oh wait.

Wait, what? I thought someone put together a new page on the wiki for the feature list? My memory can't be that bad...

Yes, I remember A3 being one of the only gaming libraries that actually "just worked."

Well, that's the point of this whole marketing of allegro 5 we want to do. We want to tell people that Allegro 5 is also as great as Allegro 3 was in it's day, you can use it just as easily today. Well OK, we may have to work on the ease of use a bit, but the API is already very nice.

Seriously, maybe it's a good idea to stop the biked shed about the logo for now and focus on improving the web site and Allegro itself, of course. I finally was able to get Allegro cross compiled under 64 bits Linux to MinGW, so I started writing a force feedback driver for that platform. It's not complete yet, and I still need someone else to test if for me though, since wine doesn't emulate force feedback yet, but it's a step forward.

I should never have introduced the term "marketing" here. As you can see from the thread title, it was meant as a joke (I don't like "marketing" either), but people seem to take it ideologically.

So let's just say:
1) The website could be improved by providing more and more concise information about Allegro 5.

2) There could be less outdated stuff about Allegro4 which isn't clearly separated from A5 stuff.

3) It could be a bit easier on the eyes (least important - but I sent a patch nevertheless, because I don't have time to to work on the other issues at the moment)

The new "Getting started" article on the wiki is already a major improvement over the old one.

Pardon me if it had already been brought up ( I did not read the whole thread ).

Why not make an entirely new website for Allegro5 and leave everything Allegro4 related as it is?

They are essentially separate libraries so it would make sense to separate information on them.

There would also be the benefit of not having to deal with old website code, you could just start fresh on a clean green meadow of its own.

And all the work doubled. Who wants to do all the work without payment? You? As long as we don´t earn money with allegro there can't be a real marketing.

Its right, A5 should be strictly separated from A4. A complete new corporate design, style, name and mascot would be the best. Maybe a dragonfly instead of earthworm alligator Alex, symbolizing that Allegro now has new abilities. Like a dragonfly it can lift up and reach new goals fast and elegant.

But i understand, the developers already have much unpayed work, they dont want much more of it.

It all was re-done for Allegro 5 already by Peter. The website as well as the documentation are generated with pandoc. All we have to do for any changes is commit some markdown into git. It's just beautiful, I'd say as close to perfect as you can get with web dev. And minimum maintenance.

The patch by Polybios for example is only to a single CSS file

\o/

So... I am starting to wonder about the purpose of this thread. Seems like everything is running well already.

The real problem is imho that Allegro has become much more complicated, especially installation. It is too much for newbies. Even experienced users like Edgar and me have problems with it. I yesterday installed A5 for the third time. Now that i know which files belong where it took me "only" one or two hours. For a newbie it is days of fiddling around. For them it should be made easier if Allegro wants to get new members.

The two biggest improvements I think that allegro needs are:

1. More developers
2. Regularly made binaries for all platforms

And lots of pizza.

If anyone wants to have an Allegro Hack, I'll pay for pizza every day.

Long time no see man.

The somewhat obvious one: SDL. But over the past few years none of the libraries were particularly mature on Mobile, so I did A LOT of native ports, or occasionally used a piece of middleware called Marmalade. When SDL2 finally matured enough to do mobile well, I stopped using Marmalade, and vowed never to do another native port (unless it was necessary, i.e. consoles, Windows 8).

You are an evil evil man.

You should use Allegro5, because it is better.

@Elias:
Yes, the system seems to be an excellent solution. We just need to actually make the changes which are so easy and comfortable to make.
Just like we need to make the games whose creation is made easer and more comfortable by the existence of Allegro5.

What platform were you on? Windows?

Hell yeah, evil I am.

I also like Thomas would love to see updated binaries for various platforms.

And pizzas too.

Just cause I'm curious and I honestly don't know, what would it take to consistently provide up-to-date binaries for all of the platforms? As in, what resources are required?

Time. Nothing else.

[edit:] To clarify, you of course will also need a computer, with the target OS, and the ability to compile Allegro and its dependencies. And ideally some way to automate the process so new binaries could be made for small changes, like when a new bugfix needs to be tested.

You are sending pizza to all the speedhack participants?

How far can you get without a target OS? What can be automated in a cross-compile?

I think that ideally there should be a cross-compile environment that gets the Allegro source and compiles it. I guess that a "complete" cross-compile environment is not needed, I mean, with only one virtual machine you can compile for windows, and then on another virtual machine create the cross compile enviorment to compile against Ubuntu(1,2,3), Debian(1,2,3), Fedora(1,2,3), etc... But I know nothing about cross-compiling what I'm doing right now is set up a virtual machine for each OS that I want to support.

Polybios, that was on XP. The other box with win7 already has an A5 installed. But now i am going to use more Ubuntu 12.10 with wine to get away a bit from all this windows and still use the same programs.

If Allegro would be my project i would design a Windows version similar like it was 20 years ago. Like Turbo C and Turbo Pascal 5.5 was. They had an own IDE in Textmode, very similar to the Rhide of the old Allegro. I would use such an IDE in graphics mode, but keep it simple. That must not be a huge project like CodeBlocks with more than 100 MB. Most of the functions of CodeBlocks i never use. What you really need are three to five functions, i have mentioned some time ago with my allegro IDE batch "c.bat". These are:

E - edit the source code
C - compile it and see the error messages
R - run the program

as advanced features there could be:

D - debug
P - profile

Thats all i need for my way of programming. I mostly code one (if unsure) or a few lines and then compile it to see the error messages. Then run it to see the output. With this system i am usually coding. I know some people are writing the whole program at once, but it is difficult to find bugs then.

These three functions fit in a batchfile of 100 lines. Most of the other stuff in CodeBlocks is more or less useless, imho. Syntax highlighting is useful, few other things, but many other functions are only a distraction.

Together with the IDE i would put the compiler MinGw and the Allegro binaries all in a directory structure so that everything is ready. You just need to download, install (unpack) and you are ready to type in your program. Matthew has the binaries for download on a.cc, CodeBlocks has MinGw included, so it seems that should be possible. Who wants can get the sources and compile them.

And that way Allegro will not only be able to attract newbies, it would even be possible to sell it (if that works with the licences of the dependencies). Marketing could be like many programs do. Free for personal use, companies have to pay. Then Allegro could be sold to schools. They are the best customers, because they may take a lot of copies and are willing to pay a good price.

What Elias said.. And I'm looking into some software called buildbot. If it ends up working for us, that would be awesome. If not, I can provide a windows or linux vm for someone to setup an automated windows build.

edit: or well, someone might still have to do the windows side of buildbot, not sure yet.

Let me spin the idea with selling Allegro to schools further.

On a DVD there is still space free when there is burned the IDE with compiler and libraries on it.

There could be some free pictures, textures, tiles, sprites, sounds and music to use in programming.

And example programs to use as template for programming. I mean complete programs like the existing demos. Naturally for schools it would be necessary not to limit Allegro to games. There could be examples for the most common program types like:

1. text processing
2. paint and drawing program
3. Sound program

Games:
1. Breakout
2. Three-in-a-row
3. Hidden Objects
4. Solitaire
5. Car racing

and so on.

That could be a real interesting programming DVD where it is fun and easy to develop professionell looking programs and games like those at gametop.com and myplaycity.com. And it is an opportunity for the allegro members to develop these demo programs or port their old programs to A5.

This DVD could have two surfaces. One with a program and game menu to Execute all the demo programs and one for the developer side to see the source codes and how they are compiled.

Only ideas, maybe somebody is interested...

Allegro would be excellent to get into high school programming classes. When I was in grade 10 C++ it was so boring (we didn't even use classes -- but the teacher was all the rave about FoxPro) I spent most of my time programming games with allegro.

A classmate saw what I was doing and asked me about it (I made a tile based racing game with AI controlled opponents). I showed him the allegro ropes and he made a game where you control a penis that shoots sperm at falling objects. It was great.

These are interesting ideas, but obviously can only be the 3rd step or so.

About binaries / compiling / installing again, what is actually missing, what is important?

I'd say it's rather easy to get Allegro5 compiled on Linux because all you have to do is to install the dependencies via package management.

Windows is more difficult due to absence of package management. But I thought Michał Cichoń was already providing binaries? Has he ceased to do this?

Mac OS X: Although I don't know much about OS X, I managed to build Allegro 5 without problems as soon as I had Mac Ports installed. It took considerable time to build the dependencies, though. So this could really be improved by providing binaries.

I don't know a thing about iOS and Android. There is no article on the wiki about "getting started" on Android, the one about iOS is rather short. Maybe these are areas which could be easily improved by someone knowledgeable, so that we at least have "Getting started" info for all platforms online? It'd be good to have info online because at least I'd check how to build / install and if there's up-to-date info before even caring to download.

edit:
That means solutions for OS X, iOS and Android seem to be most important right now, right?

Also, is there a public todo list for Allegro5? The one on the wiki seems to be outdated. At least beoran seems to be motivated to contribute, it'd be good if people like him knew where to start to spend their time and effort.

If you were to automate cross compiling it would probably save time, but on top of compliling for Linux, we also have Windows to worry about. You can only cross compile for MinGW. I don't think you can get MSVC set up in Wine... not that anybody has probably tried such a stunt.

Sounds interesting though... wonder if you could run the compiler in wine? No need for GUI. Just need a functional install of MSVC.

EDIT:
MSVC on Wine

Why wrestle with wine when a vm would do the job cleaner and in a more portable manner?

So that's what you were looking at. If it's good enough for Firefox, Python, and Chromium, it should get the job done for Allegro (provided it's doable).

Incidentally, SDL also uses Buildbot.

<whisper>At the risk of reviving an old, dead, and very evil horse...

4 essential rules of effective logo design, for objective evaluation of logos.</whisper>

1 Start with your brand
Ok. Allegro. That was easy.

2 Simplify
"If being provincial is part of your brand then feel free to break this rule.
Well, hobby games library, so yes, probably what he would call it. So point 2 does not apply to us.

3 Shoot for ten times your size
Ok...

4 Someone will hate it
Well duh. Good he tells us, or else we'd have spent forever trying to find a logo everyone likes.

So yes, very useful 4 rules for helping with creating a logo

Any news on my pizza?

Make a song everybody here likes then maybe you get alligatorpizza.

Damn, that seems to be true.

NO SONG! WANT PIZZA!.....PEPPERONI!

Did you read the article? The title is misleading. Here are the guidelines:

Good

• Does your logo work horizontally?

• Does your logo have both horizontal and vertical options?

• Does your logo work in black and white?

• Does your logo work on both black and white backgrounds without a box around it?

• Can you sketch all non-typography elements in five seconds or less?

• Did you buy the font you used in the logo?

• Do you have less than two fonts?

Bad

• Do you use more than two colors in your logo?

• Do you have more than one shape in addition to the wordmark (text) in your logo?

• Are any shapes in your logo explicit instead of abstract? (i.e. a globe or something else recognizable)

• Did you use any clip art in your logo?

• Is there a photo or complex pattern in your logo?

• Do you have a gradient in your logo?

• Did you use default font kerning?

I think these rules are good. But a logo shouldn't be too easy like IBM, thats boring. But it should be unique. That goes for the name too.

If you google for Allegro you find hundreds of companies and logos. Restaurants, hotels, music schools and a lot other all over the world.

To me Allegro is a word from classical music. Oldfashioned and boring, excuse me. The opposite what it really is. And an alligator doesn't match to this name. Only because of the first three letters?

For a good marketing campaign there should be another, more unique name and symbol.

Thanks Gideon Weems, it's just what we needed to bring the focus back onto what is important.

I have an XBox360 controller hooked up to a Win7 machine, though I don't have that much time for testing/coding/debugging, but I could at least give it a shot if you want.

I knew someone put this up :
http://wiki.allegro.cc/index.php?title=Allegro_5_Features

and there's also SiegeLord's feature list draft :
http://wiki.allegro.cc/index.php?title=User_talk:SiegeLord#Welcome_to_Allegro.21

Here is SiegeLord's unofficial todo list from earlier :
https://www.allegro.cc/forums/thread/614086/998583#target

Just collecting important links.

I know, I know... Just file it away and remember it when the time is right.

I read up a bit on the software Thomas mentioned (BuildBot), and it looks promising. I went through the trouble of familiarizing myself with CMake and SCons a few years ago and walked away disappointed. BuildBot, however, seems to attack the problem with more of a top-down approach (whereas CMake and SCons felt more like beefed up versions of Make).

A number of continuous integration tools exist, but from the user list alone, I'd say BuildBot has a very good chance of fitting the task well.

Slartibartfast, unfortunately oit turns out that for Xbox 360 controllers I need to use the xinput api, not the directinput api. I have a directinput drivernow , but not an xinput one. Sou your controller won't work for testing until I implement that too...

Discuss!

I don't know who that person is, but he is wrong.

Poly got the quotes in the recent programming question threads, If I am not mistaken the first part is from bambam (you could guess by the poke to globals I think )

EDIT: I just posted before finishing

I was kidding about not knowing who it was, it was obvious that it was him. Maybe he should not talk about something he has no idea about? Where's the list of A5 games he wrote?

I don't even want to bother to respond point-by-point to that drivel, it's so utterly and completely wrong that it's as if it's purposeful trolling (and I don't think he's that skilled to pull off something like that, which makes this even more dumbfounding).

ActuallI, I think that the fact that the allegro5 API uses (more) global state makes it easier to use in many cases than SDL. In SDL you always have to pass the target texture or display to the drawing function, and pass in a lot of parameters, while in 90% of the cases you draw to the screen and use the same settings as in the beginning anyway. So I like the fact Allegro5 has global state, it makes my life easier in most cases.

I can agree that the API could be improved but if some people don't like the fundamental idea behind it, then I'm afraid there's not much we can do to help them. If there are some API functionss missing that were easier in Allegro 4 though, then I think we need to add them to Allegro 5.

I utterly fail at sarcam detection

About global state (and macros, singletons, whatever): you know all the bad press it's religion mostly when you understand that ANYTHING in the language can be used for good measure in the right context, and that even then...there WILL be an alternative, thus in the end: so what ?

By the way in Allegro I struggle to perceive 'global state' since it's treated very much like 'current context' to me, and the API specifications are very clear about that (at least in my scratching the surface).

By the way, I AM a beginner and I'm mostly put off by A4 API compared to A5...maybe this is due to me being a part-time C programmer on embedded systems in the past and being grown on Modula-2, VBA, Rexx, etc..., for the most improbable reasons, and that's just me but I thought I'd just put that down to words.

So... I want to bring this back to the intro blurb a bit. The last post was by Polybios here: https://www.allegro.cc/forums/thread/614086/999028#target in response to my draft here: https://www.allegro.cc/forums/thread/614086/998938#target . Any more comments on that?

I'd just say "High performance" - it's enough to mention in the explanation that this is true universally due to the different ports. Both "Portable speed" and "Speed everywhere" would sound strange to me.

Yes, or just even "Performance" . And where it says "extendability and modularity" , perhaps make it simply "modularity". Like that we have list of 1-word "key words" for Allegro 5.