Developers Woes

Solar2D Android
#1

Hi,
I steered clear of Android and stuck with iOS, now I have taken the plunge and spend on two Android devices to dive into the Android Market. I have been kind of new to Corona, I have been using it for the last 1 month or so. I had registered long ago and never got to check it out. Now I cannot think of getting off the Corona bandwagon.

BUT…

For creating a game, Corona is a good platform, but if I want to make a simple application that lists the contacts or a database oriented app, corona starts to crack under the strain rendering it almost impossible.

Be it the iOS or the Android, could we have some basic UI functionality that allows working with the native components, this is very important, if as a developer I have to go back to Objective-C for some of these, then I am kind of losing productivity as I cannot even use external libraries or modules.

cheers,

Jayant C Varma [import]uid: 3826 topic_id: 3668 reply_id: 303668[/import]

#2

+1

Not only UI elements but Android support in general is a problem right now. The more functions I try out, the clearer it becomes. I’m planning to release a christmas app the next weeks but the lacking Android support will probably force me writing it in Java as Android-only version. [import]uid: 11219 topic_id: 3668 reply_id: 11213[/import]

#3

Hi,
I got to return the Android 7" Tablet which was good in a way, as I can now get another one with the refund that I got It had a lousy battery life. Anyways, the point was after that I was in a pensive mood of what should I do for Android development?

This morning to clean up the device and return was a pain, the device refused to remove my google account associated with Mail and Market and also refused to do a factory reset.

I got that to work finally by being the all might “root” and deleting the required files.

This was when I had to log into my google account where I saw that I was signed up for App Inventor, so I decided to give that a try. Guess what my findings were?

  1. It is a very basic version of Visual Basic 1.0
  2. It is similar to program as scratch (if you haven’t seen, please have a look at scratch), it would be so nice if we could have a Corona IDE like scratch’s.
  3. The app compiles and creates an apk that works on the android devices, and…
    a. uses telephone, so can make calls and returns back to the app after the call (wish Apple did that)
    b. uses the camera very well and also allows control on the image that was taken via the camera
    c. plays sounds

Now this is wonderful, but it does not do OpenGL and sprites, etc…

Tim, Eric, Carlos… please,

  1. Let each device have its own *native* set of UI
  2. Have a good IDE for Corona, specially language syntax
  3. Have compatibility for iOS, Android, WP7, Mac, Win, *nix

Ultimately, corona might become an abstract layer like .Net that would compile and create a device specific package from the bytecode.

You guys have done a wonderful job, but please do not stop right now and here, there are a few more miles to go before you can rest, we are on the 2nd Day, there are 5 more to go, We just have light… :wink:

cheers,

Jayant C Varma [import]uid: 3826 topic_id: 3668 reply_id: 11343[/import]