First post, first questions

Solar2D General Questions/Discussion
#1

Hi,

Being tired of XCode & Objective-C, I’ve been looking for alternates way to develop for the iPhone OS. Most of them are quite expensive or fail to fit my needs (rapid prototyping, small build size, open source or low priced, etc). Coming from the Java world, the only one that held my attention was XMLvm, but it’s not mature yet and requires too much tweaking to make things work.

Enters Corona…

I grabbed the trial version yesterday and played with it quite intensively since then. So far, it looks great. Lua is an excellent choice (although my heart goes to Python - a bit to large to bundle in an iPhone application I guess). It seems pretty fast and it looks actively maintained. Best of all : it’s affordable for an indie developer (compared to Unity iPhone Advanced license, Shiva, and others). The extensive documentation is a big plus too. I think I may I’ve found the tool I was looking for.

But nothing’s perfect, right ? :slight_smile:

I know Corona is quite new, but :

  • Is there a roadmap somewhere ? Something more detailed than the one on the Home page, with milestones details, future features, planned released dates etc ?

  • Your bugtracker is down. Or maybe there’s a new one somewhere else ? (https://anscamobile.fogbugz.com/)

  • Corona looks heavily oriented for graphical applications & games, but two important things are missing in this area and annoy me a bit : an OpenGL accelerated particle system (almost critical feature) and a basic Physics Engine (a simple rigid body solver would fit most people needs). Any plans ?

Anyway, nice work. Corona looks very promising :slight_smile:

Tom [import]uid: 4566 topic_id: 427 reply_id: 300427[/import]

#2

There’s a new version coming soon (1.1) which should address a number of missing features. I expect you’ll see more native iPhone controls and improved text input, among other things. The target date is February 1, but I’m sure you know how software and deadlines seldom work out.

Check out the feature request forum…many of the requested items have promised at a later date. There’s no definite commitment to a physics engine. I’ve asked for that too. Beyond that, there’s no official roadmap. It would be nice to see one.

I’ve quite enjoyed learning Corona and Lua. [import]uid: 1560 topic_id: 427 reply_id: 797[/import]

#3

Thanks for the answer.

An other quick question : are Corona Apps compatible with the 2.2.1 firmware ? Are there any features or functions I should avoid to keep the 2.2.1 compatibility ?

Tom [import]uid: 4566 topic_id: 427 reply_id: 799[/import]

#4

Corona is 2.2.1 compatible.

The only feature that is not compatible is the compass function and that will be available in 1.1 which should be out in days.

Carlos [import]uid: 24 topic_id: 427 reply_id: 801[/import]