Additional Examples - Non Gaming Applications

nathanh0

Gideros,

I know your system is focused on gaming applications, but you might be able to pull in some more users if you showed how Gideros could be used for practical applications to be mixed with gaming technology.

I like the idea of having a game development solution to build my practical application because I know if there's something I want to do that a game could do, I could easily add that extra spark to my application.

For example, you should add in your Example Projects some kind of data tracking application.

The application would be based on native buttons, lists, and text boxes (unless that isn't possible right now, your own Gideros variation of the features), some toggles (checkboxes, radio buttons), etc. Have the user fill out some data, show it can be stored and then listed on a screen as a normal practical application might do it.

This could help game developers in designing the other side of the game, which is general information collection, making lists, creating a settings screen that is not graphically driven.

I'm going to be trying to use Gideros for such a feat. I will let you know what I come up with.

Thanks!
Nathan

gorkem

Hi Nathan,

As you may have read, we recently introduced plugins - which basically binds your Lua commands to iOS functions, so you are pretty much limited with your imagination on what to do with Gideros Studio. There are 3 examples that comes with beta7, and Atilim has some small fixes for beta8 (download: http://88.198.22.6/downloads/beta/), and there'll be (hopefully) no beta after all and we'll announce our stable version in Casual Connect event in Hamburg.

Currently the plugins are available for iOS only, however Android support is underway and it'll be available after the stable version PR. This doesn't mean that we favor iOS over Android - we support both platforms in an equal manner, but didn't find enough time to develop Android plugins at the moment. But eventually it'll be there - Atilim is super-fast in implementation.

Two developers (@Caroline and @MikeHart) are working on our basic sets and exchanging information with Atilim and I think they'll be distributing some examples that everyone can work on. Currently we have 3-4 examples but I believe it'll increase as more documented plugins are available and developers get educated with existing examples.

Said that, one of the plugins is UIkit that will be distributed, and you'll be able to use the following widgets:

-Buttons
-Labels
-AlertViews (Up to 5 buttons)
-TextFields (with automatic native keyboard)
-Sliders
-Switches

(See: http://www.giderosmobile.com/forum/discussion/comment/1843#Comment_1843)

Mike already sent us a few examples using events, and they work perfect

In the future, "natively binded" iOS & Android plugins (e.g toaster for Android, Android native widgets, iAds, notifications, Gamekit, etc) will be enabled by default so you won't have to add any files to Xcode or Eclipse while exporting. Plugins which need an external SDK (e.g flurry, pubnub, urban airship etc) will not be enabled by default, so developers need to enable this and put their sdk on the device. We'll put an interface on the IDE to enable/disable plugins.

Anyway, I believe this solves your problem for iOS devices. :-)

Gorkem

strancali

EXCITED!