Hollywood (programming language)

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Hollywood
Developer(s)Andreas Falkenhahn
Initial releaseNovember 2002; 21 years ago (2002-11)
Stable release
10 / February 25, 2023; 13 months ago (2023-02-25)[1]
AROS, Windows. macOS, Linux, Android, iOS
TypeProgramming language
LicenseProprietary
Websitewww.hollywood-mal.com

Hollywood is a commercially distributed programming language developed by Andreas Falkenhahn (Airsoft Softwair) which mainly focuses on the creation of multimedia-oriented applications. Hollywood is available for

APK files.[2]

The Hollywood Designer is an add-on for Hollywood with which it is possible to use Hollywood also as a presentation software and an authoring system.

History

Hollywood has its roots on the

64-bit architectures.[6]

General information

Hollywood's focus is on ease of use and platform independence. It was mainly designed for the creation of games and multimedia applications. The language set comprises roughly 900 different commands from the following fields of application: 2D graphics, sound, file system operations, text output, animations, sprites, layers, transition effects, image manipulation, saving of images and video files, time and date functions, input functions (keyboard, joystick, mouse) as well as mathematical operations and string functions. Programming in Hollywood is done via so called Hollywood scripts (using the file extension *.hws). These scripts are compiled dynamically and can be converted into stand-alone executables. All Hollywood programs run inside a sandbox, which makes it impossible for them to crash.[7]

Platform independence

Hollywood was designed to be a completely platform independent programming language. Thus, scripts cannot call any API functions of the host operating system directly and are limited to the inbuilt command set. Text rendering is also implemented via a platform independent font backend that ensures that TrueType text looks exactly the same on every platform. Furthermore, all versions of Hollywood support Amiga specific file formats like IFF ILBM images, IFF 8SVX sounds, or IFF ANIM files, to be fully compatible with scripts written on an Amiga system.[8]

GUI development

There are several GUI toolkits for Hollywood. RapaGUI is a cross-platform GUI plugin for Hollywood which supports Windows, macOS, Linux, and AmigaOS. RapaGUI uses native GUI controls provided by the respective host operating system giving all RapaGUI applications a native look and feel. MUI Royale is a GUI toolkit for Hollywood which can be used to create GUIs using the Magic User Interface. Another GUI toolkit for Hollywood is HGui.[9] In contrast to RapaGUI and MUI Royale, HGui draws its GUI controls itself which makes its graphical user interfaces look exactly the same on every platform.

Compiler

A special feature of the

cross-platform compiler that comes with Hollywood is the ability to link all external files (including fonts) into the executable to be built automatically. This makes it possible to create programs which consist only of a single file and can thus be easily transported and distributed. Additionally, the Hollywood compiler can compile scripts into Hollywood applets (using the file extension *.hwa). These applets are smaller than regular Hollywood programs, but they can only be started on systems that have Hollywood installed. Finally, it is also possible to export Hollywood scripts as AVI videos.[10]

Development environment

There is no integrated development environment for the Amiga-compatible version of Hollywood. On these systems, Cubic IDE and Codebench can be used to develop with Hollywood as these have support for the Hollywood language through plugins.[11][12] On Windows, Hollywood comes with an integrated development environment that can be used to create Hollywood scripts. The macOS and Linux versions of Hollywood do not come with an IDE either and can be controlled from the console or else integrated into other IDEs.

Hello World program

A

Hello World program
in Hollywood could look like this: 

  Print("Hello World!")
  WaitLeftMouse
  End

The code above opens a new window on the desktop, prints the text "Hello World!" in white letters and waits for the left mouse button before quitting. The opening of the window is automatically done by Hollywood. If not otherwise requested, Hollywood will automatically open a new window in the resolution of 640x480 for every script.

Hollywood Designer

Hollywood Designer
Developer(s)Andreas Falkenhahn
Stable release
6.0 / May 16, 2022; 22 months ago (2022-05-16)
AROS
TypePresentation
LicenseProprietary
Websitewww.hollywood-mal.com

The Hollywood Designer is an add-on for Hollywood that allows the creation of presentations and kiosk systems with Hollywood. The software uses a WYSIWYG-compliant interface based on slides. Users can create as many slides as desired and fill them with texts, graphics, and sound. Hollywood Designer will then run the slides one after another or in a predefined order. Various transition effects are available. Additionally, it is possible to create applications which require user interaction, like kiosk systems.[13][14]

All projects created in Hollywood Designer are displayed using Hollywood and can thus also be compiled into stand-alone executables or video files. Advanced users can also embed custom code inside their projects. Through custom code it is possible to access the complete command set of Hollywood.[15]

Technically speaking, Hollywood Designer does nothing else but automatically generate scripts for Hollywood according to the layout defined by the user in the

GUI.[16] The process of generating scripts and running them using Hollywood is entirely hidden from the user so that programming skills are not necessary for using Hollywood Designer.[17]
However, because Hollywood Designer merely generates scripts for Hollywood, the latter is a mandatory requirement for Hollywood Designer.

The first version of Hollywood Designer was released in April 2004.

Windows, macOS and Linux
from the Amiga platform.

References

  1. ^ "Hollywood 10: Xcelicious out now! - Hollywood forums". forums.hollywood-mal.com. Retrieved 2023-09-03.
  2. ^ "Hollywood - Features". Hollywood-mal.com. Retrieved 2016-07-17.
  3. ^ Johnson, Magnus: Interview with Andreas Falkenhahn. Total Amiga 21 (2005), pp. 14-15.
  4. ^ Schaefer, Robbie: Hollywood Multimedia. AMIGAplus 132 (2003), pp. 24-26.
  5. ^ "Lua: user projects". Inf.puc-rio.br. 2003-01-07. Retrieved 2016-07-17.
  6. ^ "Hollywood - Multimedia Application Layer". Hollywood-mal.com. Retrieved 2016-07-17.
  7. ^ Preinsack, Anton: Interview with Andreas Falkenhahn. Amiga Future 78 (2009), p. 14.
  8. ^ Christoph, Michael: Hollywood 3 on Windows. Amiga Future 71 (2008), pp. 26-27.
  9. ^ "HGui". a-mc.biz. 29 October 2015. Retrieved 2017-04-01.
  10. ^ Cornelius, Martin: Hollywood 4.5 or Multimedia is back. Amiga Future 83 (2010), pp. 30-31.
  11. ^ "Google Code Archive - Long-term storage for Google Code Project Hosting". Code.google.com. Retrieved 2016-07-17.
  12. ^ "Welcome to the home of CodeBench". Codebench.co.uk. Retrieved 2016-07-17.
  13. ^ "Tannlege / Tannpleier - effektiv informasjon til dine pasienter". Ferrule-media.no. Retrieved 2016-07-17.
  14. ^ "Amiga-based software presented at Nordental 2009". Amiga.org. Archived from the original on 2013-09-21. Retrieved 2016-07-17.
  15. ^ Williams, Robert: Hollywood 1.9 and Designer. Total Amiga 18 (2004), pp. 18-22.
  16. ^ Gutjahr, Christoph: Hollywood 1.9, Malibu and Hollywood Designer. The Triple Dream Factory. AMIGAplus 147 (2004), pp. 44-47.
  17. ^ Williams, Robert: Hollywood 2.0 The Sequel. Total Amiga 23 (2006), pp. 40-42.
  18. ^ Steigerwald, Martin: Multimedia pur. Amiga Magazin 7/2004, pp. 7-9.

External links

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