Close to 2011.9 stable release

gorkem · December 2011

Hi Giderans,

We are very close to stable 2011.9 release, so would like to hear from you beforehand: Are you satisfied with the current features? What would your suggestions be before, during and right after the PR (public relations) process?

Please let us know if you want us take an action before the release.. You can write it down here - think of it like a free talk.

Thanks,
Gorkem

MikeHart · December 2011

Hi gorkem,

I really like what i see so far. The whole toolset looks very stable and performs on Android (HTC Desire) and my Ipod touch (2nd gen) very well, much better than Corona. I was excited when I saw no stuttering on the Android player, which you can notices with Corona so many times. I also like that you have setup the developer center as a wiki so people can contribute to this.

From the toolset features that were requested already, atm I miss the most a function list in the IDE and the ability to load either serveral projects at the same time or load non project files to look at them. When i learn a new tool, I always study the examples and copy/paste code them them into my own test projects. For this I use a different editor right now, but it would be better to have it all open in Gideros Studio.

After this release I would like to see that this concept of public betas is keeped. This way the users can report bugs early and also get the chance to work with new features earlier than every 3 months.

My mind is made already about the switch from Corona to Gideros. This was/is based on the current SDK API, the toolset, the roadmap and of course, the support you guys have shown the last week since I have signed up.

Listen further to your users, try to implement some features which competing products provide (ads, social, network, ui) and keep up your great user support. Stick to your roadmap.

I will keep promoting Gideros where ever I can and will try to provide forum help, examples and tutorials in the near future too.

Thanks for this great tool
Michael Hartlef

gorkem · December 2011

Hi Mike

Thanks for your kind words - really encouraging as we work on the final release with Atilim & Deniz at the very moment

Regarding your requests:

- Seeing the function list is a very important feature, we totally agree. This will be implemented in our next stable release (probably will appear in a weekly build).

- Loading several projects at the same time will be implemented, too, and it'll look like Qt Creator where you see all your projects at once on the left navigation bar. There'll be one default project thought (which will be shown in bold).

- We'll keep this sentence as our motto: "Listen further to your users, try to implement some features which competing products provide (ads, social, network, ui) and keep up your great user support. Stick to your roadmap" :-)

Public beta concept will be improved towards a "automated weekly build" concept where we're looking for good build automation systems for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

Thanks for your support in our adventure.

Görkem

mykyl66 · December 2011

Not much more I can add to that. Well done folks.

Mike R

MikeHart · December 2011

When will the stable release be released?

gorkem · December 2011

Normally we were thinking that plugin addon would require much more time than we anticipated and thought to release 2011.9 as soon as possible without plugin infrastructure, but we decided to put a preliminary release before stable to introduce the plugins. This way we can get feedback from you (about plugin support) and then go with the stable release.

In fact you get almost the latest release, so getting a beta X or stable version would not differ a lot.

MikeHart · December 2011

Cool! That feels like christmas then!

ndoss · December 2011

Excitement!

GregBUG · December 2011

mmmm donuts...... :P

pmanna · December 2011

Great news for plugins! Can't wait to have a look on them...

mykyl66 · December 2011

Plugins will be a huge addition to Gideros.

Excellent as usual.

Mike

roberthahn · December 2011

only two things I'd like to see (and I totally understand if you need to defer this to the next version).

1) in the docs, specify what gets returned from all method calls, even :addChild()

2) for calls like :addChild(), which I think currently returns nil, modify it to return a reference to the child just added. This way someone can use that reference to set additional properties (like the position on the screen)

MikeHart · December 2011

Robert, the parameter of addChild IS your reference.

atilim · December 2011

@MikeHart

Let me given an example about what Robert said.

If we reimplement the addChild (and all other functions) of Sprite as Robert suggested:

local originalAddChild = Sprite.addChild
function Sprite:addChild(child)
  originalAddChild(self, child)
  return child --> here is the trick
end

then we can cascade the functions:

  stage:addChild(sprite):setPosition(10, 20):setScale(0.5):setAlpha(0.3)

Also, if we want, we can have a function addTo:

function Sprite:addTo(parent)
  parent:addChild(self)
  return self  --> don't forget the same trick <img class="emoji" src="https://forum.giderosmobile.com/resources/emoji/smile.png" title=":)" alt=":)" height="20" />
end

Then we can do even this:

sprite:setPosition(10, 20):setScale(0.5):setAlpha(0.3):addTo(stage)

There is a great tweening library for Javascript using a similar technique: http://github.com/gskinner/TweenJS

best,

roberthahn · December 2011

@MikeHart - exactly what @atilim said. I wanted to spend a bit of time thinking through my response to you

MikeHart · December 2011

Holy cow! Never saw this. @-)

jack0088 · December 2011

Just great!

The only things I would wish were:
- better structured API: grouped by inherence (e.g. Sprite>Stage>..) and list down the methods (similar to corona's approach). Just a nicer design/appearance to the API, so users can navigate logically and much faster.

- the Plugin system is a nice add-on to the whole, but since I don't have a clue of C-languages, I would wish Gideros to implement they own plugins (ads, push-notifications,..) with a nice LUA API and support them. 3rd party addons are good, but nothing is better than getting everything from one source/hand.

Fabulous job so far! And, thank you!

gorkem · December 2011

Regarding plugins: You are so true. If a plugin is widely used, and users are willing to see it natively, then the only way is to embed it inside Gideros Studio.

In 2-3 weeks time I believe we'll see devs developing their own plugins, and sharing them on github. Either developing a plugin or using it with Gideros Studio is an easy task.

Yesterday we talked with Atilim on how to manage plugins: There'll be an IDE which you'll be able to select all available plugins that comes with Gideros Studio, and enable/disable them. This is valid for Windows desktop player plugins (DLL files) and Mac OS X desktop player plugins (dylib files).

If you want to use the plugins with the player of your device, then you'll need to do the following:

- iPhone/iPad/iPod touch: You put the .a file (or corresponding .mm file) in your XCode and deploy your player to the device as usual.

- Android: You'll need to add the jar file to Eclipse project and generate the Android player APK.

I'm pretty sure there'll be several plugins around (inc. parse, stackmob, native UIs, maps, UI view, IAP, ads, pubnub) in a very short time.

Very productive future in front.

jack0088 · December 2011

- iPhone/iPad/iPod touch: You put the .a file (or corresponding .mm file) in your XCode and deploy your player to the device as usual.

Can I just deploy the player with ALL the plugins available and use it for all my projects (which themselves don't use all plugins)? I think I can, right?:)

gorkem · December 2011

Yes, perfectly possible. Just do it once and go.

MikeHart · December 2011

Can't wait to get my hands on it.

TokyoDan · December 2011

Where's this announcement about an extension-enabled Gideros Studio that I saw a tweet about this morning?

gorkem · December 2011

Still to be announced (sorry if this tweet is misleading - we'll be announcing it very soon).

MikeHart · December 2011

ztztzt, teasing us like that.

(
Since your announcement on twitter I was refreshing the browser every 5 minutes. Almost, I swear! Let's pray that it won't be much longer. [-O<

gorkem · December 2011

Yesterday we fall asleep while working, believe me. We were in the middle of two thoughts - either giving you what you need with "some" bugs, or cleaning up everything and sending an "almost there" beta7 to the server and let you know about it.

Other than coding and fixing bugs, the only things we do are eating, drinking and WC'ing (!) - minimum survival requirements.

MikeHart · December 2011

I believe you. Keep up the great work and don't make compromises just because we are ancious to get our hands on it.

WCing = WarCrafting??? WOW or the old RTS WarCraft?

marble68 · January 2012

Ok, I'm currently a Corona subscriber and this sounds *VERY* interesting (plug-ins).

For example, on Android - intents and intent filters are *critical* to doing things like push notifications and bar code scanning.

An IDE? BUILD AND GO?! DEBUGGING!!??!?! Z!OMG!

If you guys get delivery of plugins - holy cow. I'd *happily* _buy_ plugins like pubnub, partical effects, video overlay.

I am watching very closely now... *very* closely.

MikeHart · January 2012

Hi marble68,

please add your plugin wishes to this topic:

http://www.giderosmobile.com/forum/discussion/295/what-pluginfunctionality-would-you-like-to-see-next#Item_8

gorkem · January 2012

@marble68 - for plugins which are using an SDK (like pubnub, stackmob or any other 3d party SDK that you know innerworking principles) - you can write your own Lua bridge. This is also the same when you want to write native UI plugins - for example Michael has been working on native iOS UI widgets, and progressed a lot so far.

At the very moment, Gideros plugin system has yet to give support for the following, but won't take too much time I believe:

- Plugins which directly accesses the OpenGL layer (e.g partical effects or 3D support)
- Android plugins

We'd be grateful if you spend some time with Gideros Studio and tell us your thoughts.

There's also a big pile of wishlists from forum members here, in case you'd like to read:

http://giderosmobile.com/DevCenter/index.php/New_Ideas_for_Gideros_Studio

Welcome to our community! :-)

Gorkem

marble68 · January 2012

Thanks Gorkem. (sorry for the slow reply)

I'm extremely interested in this as some things are a high priority for me but not other platforms.

The #1 thing I do are custom business apps. So Native UI, GPS, Camera, Compass, and other "non game" functionality are priority.

Bar Code scanning is the #1 request I get. Considering zBar and XZing both allow redistribution, adding them to this tool would be extremely useful.

Thanks for the ideas link. I can reference that to see the limitations and features - most platforms aren't as transparent.

So I'm looking forward it having the time to play with this - and I may get a chance soon.

Best,
Chris

ar2rsawseen · January 2012

One note, I don't know maybe it is already possible, but when I'm working from office, have two monitors, one for Studio, other for player, everything works great.

At home I'm using only laptops screen, and it's kind of hard to switch between player and studio, so two possible solution that would ease it out.

Allow to integrate player in studio (not separate window), it would work great for small resolution player, for greater resolution, you could detach player.

And second one: to put play button also on the player and not only to studio, useful especially when you need to see the start of application, sometimes you can't manage to switch in time.

Is it only me?

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