Illumination Software Creator

Illumination Software Creator (Illumination) is a tool for visually designing and developing software, and a corresponding Visual programming language that is available for Microsoft Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. Software developed with Illumination runs on Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Android, iOS, Maemo, and Adobe Flash-powered websites. Illumination is developed and sold by Bryan Lunduke. Source code is also available to buy under three levels of licensing.[1]

Illumination Software Creator
Developer(s)Bryan Lunduke
Stable release
5.0
Preview release
6.0 Beta 9
Operating systemLinux, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Android, iOS, Maemo
TypeProgramming
LicenseGPL
WebsiteLunduke.com
As ofMay 2013

History

Illumination was created by Bryan Lunduke, and first released in May 2010.[2] The earliest known public mention of Illumination was on the April 11, 2010 episode of The Linux Action Show!.[3]

On June 6, 2012 the Illumination was released as open source software,[4] as attempt to innovate a donation-driven Business model for open-source software.[5] After initially achieving the requested amount of money, on July 12, 2012 deficit of target sums from donations resulted in the source closing, and a fee being attached for download of binaries.[6] On November 28, 2012 the source code for current versions became available for purchase, under a Personal Proprietary License, the GNU General Public License, and a BSD license.[7] On November 28, 2012 the business model was changed,[8] allowing download of all premium lunduke.com content, including this software, for a minimum donation of $2.[9]

Features

Illumination works by arranging "building blocks"[10] in order to visually describe the functionality of a software application. Like many other Visual programming languages, Illumination does not require any code to be written by hand in order to develop software.

Within Illumination each "Block" is a self-contained piece of functionality.[11] Blocks are tied together via "inputs" and "outputs" which pass no data, and only serve to structure the flow of the application. Illumination also contains a "Window Editor" to allow for the building of applications with simple user interfaces.

As of 2.0,[12] Illumination Software Creator supports creating Python (PyGTK) applications as two distinct targets: Desktop and Maemo Tablet. And also supports creating Adobe Flex based rich Internet applications that run on the Adobe Flash platform.

At version 2.1[13] support for building Android applications was added.

In version 2.2[14] support for building what are called "Custom Blocks" was added to allow developers to expand the functionality of their projects as needed using traditional programming languages (such as Java, Python and ActionScript).

For version 3.0[15] support for building iOS applications was added.

For version 4.0, released on September 7, 2011, support for building HTML5 applications and including graphics was added.[16]

For version 4.2,[17] released on February 6, 2012, Portal Blocks have been added.

Illumination Software Creation Station

The Illumination Software Creation Station[18] is an Opensuse based Linux distribution, built with Susestudio, that provides a pre-setup system for testing and using Illumination Software Creator as a Live-CD or VMWare virtual machine.

On Dec 16th, 2010, the Illumination Software Creation Station won the first annual Novell Disters award for best software appliance built with Susestudio.[19][20][21]

References
  1. Lunduke, Bryan. "Buy The Source Code!". Archived from the original on 16 January 2013. Retrieved 14 February 2013.
  2. Lunduke, Bryan. "1.0 Beta 1 announcement".
  3. "The Future of Software Development - The Linux Action Show! s11e07". Archived from the original on 23 September 2012. Retrieved 14 February 2013.
  4. Lunduke, Bryan. "1.0 Illumination Software Creator has been set Free". Archived from the original on 6 October 2013. Retrieved 14 February 2013.
  5. Sneddon, Joey-Elijah (2012-06-01). "Will You Help Change The Way Open-Source Apps are Funded?". OMGUbuntu. Retrieved 2013-08-08. Lunduke is pledging to open-source and distribute his portfolio of hitherto paid software – which includes the Linux distro management simulator Linux Tycoon - for free, under the GPL, if he can reach a donation-driven funding goal of $4000/m. Reaching this goal, Lunduke says, 'will provide proof for others, who would also like to move their software businesses to be open source, that it is doable.'
  6. Lunduke, Bryan. "Open Source Funded By Donations? Not So Much". Archived from the original on 25 January 2013. Retrieved 14 February 2013.
  7. Lunduke, Bryan. "License the source code!". Archived from the original on 25 January 2013. Retrieved 14 February 2013.
  8. Lunduke, Bryan. "Pay (what you want) To Download". Archived from the original on 25 January 2013. Retrieved 14 February 2013.
  9. Lunduke, Bryan. "Access The Downloads". Archived from the original on 15 January 2013. Retrieved 14 February 2013.
  10. "Illumination Software Creator 1.0 Press Release". Archived from the original on 14 November 2012. Retrieved 14 February 2013.
  11. "Illumination Tutorial". Archived from the original on 14 February 2013. Retrieved 14 February 2013.
  12. Lunduke, Bryan. "2.0 announcement". Archived from the original on 13 November 2012. Retrieved 14 February 2013.
  13. Lunduke, Bryan. "2.1 announcement". Archived from the original on 13 November 2012. Retrieved 14 February 2013.
  14. "2.2 press release". Archived from the original on 14 February 2013. Retrieved 14 February 2013.
  15. "3.0 press release". Archived from the original on 2013-02-14. Retrieved 2013-02-14.
  16. "PR: Illumination Software Creator 4.0 Adds HTML5 and Graphics". Archived from the original on 2011-09-26. Retrieved 2011-09-08.
  17. "4.2 press release". Archived from the original on 2012-03-13. Retrieved 2012-02-12.
  18. "Illumination Software Creation Station". Archived from the original on 2011-10-23. Retrieved 2010-12-20.
  19. "ZDNet - Disters Award". ZDNet.
  20. "OSTATIC - Disters Award".
  21. "Novell - Disters Award Winners".
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