Hollywood (programming language)

Partially: Mac OS X, Linux, Android

Hollywood is one of Andreas Falkenhahn ( Airsoft Softwair ) developed programming language that is sold commercially and whose focus is the creation of multimedia applications. Hollywood is available for AmigaOS, MorphOS, WarpOS, AROS and Windows. For Mac OS X and Linux, the program is currently not yet available separately, but the built-in cross-compiler can already create stand-alone programs for these platforms. This cross-compiler is a special feature of Hollywood, because it makes it possible to compile programs for all of Hollywood supported platforms from the same system. So can be compiled with Hollywood on Windows, for example, programs for all supported platforms (including Mac OS X). The programs thus generated are completely independent, so they can be, for example, launched from a USB stick.

With the additional program Hollywood Designer, the software can also be used as a presentation program or authoring system.

General

Hollywood's focus is on ease of use and platform independence. It is designed primarily for games and multimedia applications. The language scope is now running at nearly 500 commands that the application areas of 2D graphics, Musik-/Tonausgabe, file operations, text output, animations, sprites, levels, transition effects, image manipulation, storage of image files, and AVI video files, date and time functions, input functions (keyboard, joystick, mouse ) as well as mathematical operations and processing strings cover. The programming is done via so-called Hollywood Hollywood scripts ( file extension *. Hws ), which are dynamically compiled and can be saved as stand-alone programs. All Hollywood programs running in a sandbox, so that they can not crash, but get sorted with errors.

Platform independence

The concept of Hollywood attaches great importance to platform independence, which is why Hollywood scripts can not access the API of the operating system. This is to ensure that Hollywood programs are now capable of running on all supported platforms. In addition, it was considered important in other areas down to level differences between the different platforms as possible, so for example, used Hollywood for the output of TrueType fonts specifically adapted routines so that the text is shown on any platform exactly the same. In addition, Hollywood can deal with Amiga - specific file formats such as ILBM IFF pictures, IFF 8SVX tones or IFF ANIM files on Windows and Mac OS X.

Compiler

A special feature of the Hollywood compiler is that all external files can be automatically integrated into the program to be compiled. For fonts possible. This allows you to create programs that actually consist of only a single file and can be easily transported and distributed. In addition, the Hollywood compiler can also create Hollywood - applets ( file extension *. Hwa ). These applets are much smaller than regular Hollywood programs, but can only be run on systems where Hollywood is installed. Finally Hollywood scripts can be exported as AVI video files.

History

The origin of Hollywood is on the Amiga computer. Inspired by Amiga programming languages ​​such as AMOS, Blitz Basic and Amiga E of the author Andreas Falkenhahn began after his graduation in the spring of 2002, the development of Hollywood. Version 1.0 was released in November 2002 exclusively for 68000 based Amiga systems. A month later, the program already appeared for the PowerPC-based MorphOS. With version 1.9 was support for WarpOS in April 2004. In addition, in spring 2004 was released the first version of the Hollywood designers, Hollywood makes accessible to non-programmers. AmigaOS 4 is supported since March 2005. Since version 2.0 ( January 2006) Hollywood used as an integrated programming language Lua VM, but with heavily modified syntax and functionality. In addition, Hollywood runs on the x86 architecture by supporting the AROS operating system since version 2.0. Since version 3.0 (January 2008) Hollywood supports Windows and Mac OS X for the first time two non- Amiga -inspired operating systems. Since version 4.5 (January 2010) Hollywood is also available separately for Windows includes an integrated development environment. Since version 4.8 (April 2011) Hollywood can also create programs for Linux. With the version 5.0, published in February 2012 also played videos and vector graphics formats such as SVG can now be loaded. As of version 5.1 also supports Android.

Development environment

Among the AmigaOS compatible operating systems, Hollywood does not have a development environment. Instead, the popular Amiga development environments such as Cubic IDE and code Bench possess special Hollywood extensions which allow simple creation of Hollywood scripts is possible. The Windows version of Hollywood is delivered with the other hand with an integrated development environment that is to make writing scripts as simple as possible.

Hello world program

A Hello World program could look like in Hollywood, for example, as follows:

Print (" Hello World !")    Wait Left Mouse    end This program automatically opens a new window on the desktop, outputs the text " Hello World " and then waits for pressing the left mouse button. Once this has been pressed, the program is terminated. Opening a window happens in the Hollywood programming language automatically. Unless otherwise stated, Hollywood opens a separate window for each script at the default resolution 640x480 with a black background.

Hollywood Designer

The Hollywood Designer is an add-on to Hollywood can be created with the presentations. The Hollywood Designer provides to a WYSIWYG interface, based on the film concept. It can create any number of slides and provided with texts, graphics and sound. The films are then displayed sequentially or in a specially defined order with numerous transition effects.

Moreover, it is with the Hollywood designer also possible to create interactive applications such as kiosk systems that require user input. The finished presentation / application is started automatically with Hollywood and can of course also be saved as a separate program for different platforms or as a video file. For advanced users even Hollywood code can be directly involved in the project and are also resorted to the complete instruction set of Hollywood.

Technically, the Hollywood designer makes it to automatically generate nothing but scripts for Hollywood as prompted by the user. This process is, however, completely hidden instead, so that the user can create the Hollywood designers without programming skills, presentations and multimedia applications. However, the Hollywood designer can thus not be used without Hollywood. A Hollywood - installation is mandatory for the Hollywood designer.

The first version of Hollywood Designer was released in April 2004. Currently the program is only available for AmigaOS compatible operating systems available, but can, thanks to the Hollywood store cross-compiler programs for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.