Bb3 Users, Post Your Impression And Bugs You Found.

@TreySmith I hope you get to read this one. I’ll make it short.

I took a class on management once.

Our goal was to write instructions to open a pack of gum and get a piece of gum in your mouth “documentation”. Everyone failed

Then we’re were asked to show everyone how to do it. Everyone passed.

There is SO much more to relaying information by “showing” or having “examples” of how to do something vs “documentation”

 

Ok thanks everyone. Duly noted. Will have Zack help with some video tutorials. I will do some as well as I’ve aways enjoyed it, and it’s been a while

 

@TreySmith , As far as documentation, my vote is for the Javascript API. I've never used BB2. I basically write all of my own nodes. I only use the built-in nodes as examples and as a substitute for a complete API. I love Javascript. I want more Javascript. Did I mention how much I love coding in Javascript. Thank you.

 

Of course. A few weeks ago I bought a fridge. This is another fridge that I bought. The operation of the refrigerator is simple. Turn on the power, open the door, close the door. That's all. But again this time I got the instruction manuals because it is the basic thing for the user and device. You can not skip this step.

 

Great stuff. Ideally, help newbies make some money with advertising. Getting a 'how to set up' some advertising is probably one of the biggest ones right now imo.

And just a tip for when the new videos are made, please place in the title what it's covering, or in the description. It saves having to hunt around for useful info.

 

I think what they are talking about is the actual JS documentation, which from my knowledge hasn't been updated. Also, some of the nodes when hovered over don't have those tips and some of them are very vague on what the node actually does. I honestly am upset just for the fact that it has been said to be a no code engine, which is awesome and I get that beta wouldn't have it fully be there, but I was expecting it to at least somewhat closer to being that no code engine that has always been advertised at release and that was a no go. I have barely used bb3, I open it with every update see nothing really has changed close it and hope for the next one.

My subscription is up in September and I feel like I haven't gotten my money worth, unfortunately. Hopefully, it will change

 

To be honest (And I have been using BB since version 1) I am not sure BB can get it done...I see lots of promises and very little delivered...

This was posted in the Dev Blog#11 on April 26th "And most of all we’re working on more tutorials and having a better documentation" - Where are those??

This was posted by Nik on March 24th -- "We are working on tutorials and documentation to help you understand how to find them and to work with them." -- Where are those?

Communication is horrible...

How are we ever suppose to build any type of business relying on BB?

 

I hear the desire for tutorials and of course they're great and welcome. However you can't expect a tutorial for a software's every use case and/or feature (especially a creative development software). It's just never going to happen.

Many of the best tutorials are created by users anyway. I don't expect a company to spend hundreds (likely thousands) of man-hours to create tutorials for every feature of their software. I do expect a company to provide documentation for every feature of their software. It should already be documented anyway...building software requires documentation by its very nature. It's part of the process. It should be a matter of formatting and distribution at this point.

Full documentation has to come first 100%, IMO. With proper documentation, the user base will likely publish their own tutorials. There are a few templates included with the software, and 15 minutes looking at their respective nodes, scripts and mind maps gives a basic idea of what's going on. Once it's fully documented properly, tutorials are a great value add and appendix.

 

I can understand...although I personally asked for more tutorials...Id suggest...if they want to promote the base templates they have on BB3 "NEW GAME" section, I would suggest starting with those at least. They put those out there because they are some of the popular games out in the market...that would be a good start. Im not asking for a zelda tutorial

 

The best/essential thing about having an external help/knowledge-base or product guide, is that it is searchable for a specific keyword or topic, and you can read about a node or process without having to be in front of the software.

 

I would have agreed if this is a free or open source software (e.g Godot/Unity). But this is unacceptable for a product as expensive as Buildbox. At the very least, the JS API should be fully documented and all the nodes should have basic explanation and examples. No one asked for complicated tips and tricks. Just the basic stuff. As of right now, not only there's a lot of empty description in the JS API docs, there's also a lot of undocumented API (e.g. setScoreCoin) that totally not mentioned anywhere. There are also lots of nodes with no description and totally no example anywhere. Oh, and most of the sample templates are broken too. I'm not sure if they even have a QA dept there. For a very expensive SaaS, this is totally unacceptable.

 

We're having a lot of meetings on documentation, and are planning the following:

- More videos from Zack
- More in-depth documentation inside the software
- More tutorials inside the software
- An learning style portal for people to learn about Buildbox

Thanks and we apologize for not having that ready at launch. I agree we should have, resources and timing were difficult as we were months in delay, but that is no excuse!

Please keep the communication and requests coming!

 

Sounds fantastic sir thank you

 

Documentation and tutorials are great and needed!!! But we also need the bugs fixed!!! There are templates and nodes that still do not work...

 

Yes, we're definitely (and always) on bugs! Which templates aren't working for you?

 

Stuck specifically does not function...sent bug report on 6 "bugs" to miko on several things...has been excellent communication with him so far

 

Ok thanks! @Sean Buildbox please make sure this is logged.

 

You lost the most important moment. Publications of the final version. I have never encountered anything like this before but I'm sure that after fixing the errors you will have more and more users. BB's idea is perfect.

 

Strict and publicly announced deadlines / time-based road map for promises and goals is much important than the promise itself. It will make you push your limit to levels you never thought you have, just to meet the deadline at any price, but without it, it is very easy your goals and promises gets delayed and maybe never see the light.

 

"Stuck" Template is not working..."Draw" template seems to be not working correctly...now maybe this is just me not know what to do...but when I bring them up they have errors in them when running them...