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AppGameKit Classic Chat / AGK Features

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jSmith
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Posted: 18th Mar 2013 12:49
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After reading the online documentation, I am still left with a few questions that I hope can be answered by the more experienced AppGameKit users.

1. Is there any way to compile Tier 1 code to native binaries?
2. Can multiple screens be created? (eg. about screen, settings page, etc.)
3. If so, are there any transition effects? (eg. flip, wipe, etc.)
4. Are there any basic UI controls? (eg. buttons, date pickers, progress bar, etc.)
5. Are device functions supported? ((eg. phone, camera, messaging, browser, e-mail, etc.)
6. On Android, can home screen widgets be created?

Thank you.
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Ancient Lady
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Posted: 18th Mar 2013 16:34 Edited at: 18th Mar 2013 16:36
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1. Yes for iOS, Mac, Windows and Android
2. You can make any number of 'pages' you want in your app by creating the images, text, etc.
3. The only transitions are ones that you program yourself.
4. There are virtual buttons and virtual joysticks. Aside from that, there are no built-in UI controls.
5. There are commands in v1088 (currently in beta) for taking a picture and using in the app and for selecting existing images. As for the others you list, not so much. There is a command that is supposed to open the default browser on the device for a given URL. But no real browsing within the app. No phone or email usage either. You can do network stuff.
6. If you mean automatically create the app icon on the home page, that is apparently a configurable thing on the individual devices and not something the installation of the app does on its own. (At least that is what I get from recent posts.)

EDIT: #1 - The AppGameKit IDE only creates a Windows binary. iOS and Mac compilations require a Mac, Xcode and an Apple iOS or Mac Developer's License. Android can be built in Windows using Eclipse and cygwin.

Cheers,
Ancient Lady
AGK Community Tester and AppGameKit Master
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lilpissywilly
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Posted: 18th Mar 2013 17:28
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6: No widgets. The apps created in AppGameKit do not work running in the background. Unless of course you use native code with Tier 2, not my area so might not work even so.

My hovercraft is full of eels
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Digital Awakening
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Posted: 18th Mar 2013 18:55
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AGK is not about creating pages and placing thing in an editor etc. You need to program everything yourself, more or less. If you do not know how to program then learning AppGameKit can be a steep experience, if you do not have a natural talent for it. It is called App Game Kit because it is focused on game development.


Demo 3 is out now!
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Mobiius
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Posted: 18th Mar 2013 22:01
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1. Nope.
2. Yes, if you create them.
3. Yes, if you create them.
4. Yes, if you create them.
5. Yes. (To a degree, there are some functions which have tier 1 commands to control.)
6. Not in tier 1.

I have created a UI engine, which supports transitions, as well as UI elements such as buttons and scripting.

This engine was used to create every game of mine I have in the play market, as well as a third party app available there too. (It's from a pre release version of this app that this video is from.)


Here's a video from the start of version 2 of my UI engine.

So you see, you can indeed do everything you requested with a bit of thinking! lol

I live for video games! (And beers, and football, and cars!)
See what I live for here: [url]http:\\www.TeamDefiant.co.uk[/url]
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Ancient Lady
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Posted: 18th Mar 2013 22:05
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Mobiius, why do you say 'No' to question 1?

You can create Android apk files and iOS and Mac programs in their native formats for Tier 1. Just not from the AppGameKit IDE, as I said.

Cheers,
Ancient Lady
AGK Community Tester and AppGameKit Master
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JimHawkins
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Posted: 18th Mar 2013 22:20
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Isn't Tier 1 a byte-code interpreter?

-- Jim DO IT FASTER, EASIER AND BETTER WITH AppGameKit FOR PASCAL
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Digital Awakening
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Posted: 18th Mar 2013 22:21
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Correct me if I am wrong but anything made is T1 uses a bytecode file and not native binaries. Basically a player runs your game.


Demo 3 is out now!
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Ancient Lady
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Posted: 18th Mar 2013 22:38 Edited at: 18th Mar 2013 22:40
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For all Tier 1 apps, basically it is a Player that processes the byte code file.

However, unlike the Windows version that just renames a Player to <yourappname>.exe and reads the byte code file in the media directory, where everything is totally visible to the user, a complete packaged application is built in iOS, Mac or Android.

It does basically still use a Player (now called an interpreter), but everything is bundled into a single file in the native format for the platform. And the executable code is in the native binary.

The Players that accept broadcast from the AppGameKit IDE are NOT what you would deliver with a final product. They are meant only for testing purposes.

Apple doesn't even allow TGC to put a Player in the App Store. They do allow a viewer, which only mimics what is happening on the PC and totally not good for testing.

EDIT: I'll try to clarify a bit. A Player is an interpreter that accepts external input. The AppGameKit IDE broadcasts the byte code file generated. A finished app is an interpreter with the byte code file incorporated into the final product and it will only run that one set of byte code.

Cheers,
Ancient Lady
AGK Community Tester and AppGameKit Master
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jSmith
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Posted: 19th Mar 2013 12:31
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Thank you for all your answers. And thank you Mobiius for the video; speaks a thousand words.

A typical Hello World example generated by Obj-C/Xcode and Java/ADK weighs just around 100KB. Are the final binaries generated by AppGameKit very big in size?
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Digital Awakening
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Posted: 19th Mar 2013 16:10
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Don't know about T2 but T1 stuff is quite large. My bytecode file is over 4 MB alone for Rush to Adventure so far.


Demo 3 is out now!
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Ancient Lady
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Posted: 19th Mar 2013 16:33 Edited at: 19th Mar 2013 16:35
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I have a simple test app that just displays the orientation and accelerometer values (used for initially discovering the confusion in orientation between iOS and AppGameKit, which has been fixed). I have the app in both Tiers.

In Tier 1 iOS, the v1076 app takes 2.5MB installed (including the start up images required by Apple, about 365KB). The same app in v1088 takes 5.1MB because of the overhead for the social media stuff, and probably the extra interpreter stuff for the 3D processes. As a comparison, the Players (which handle receiving broadcast programs) run 6.9MB and 13.0MB for v1076 and v1088, respectively. Within the Xcode build directory the v1076 test app is 2.6MB, the v1088 version is 4.9MB.

For Android, the v1076 Player apk is 2,775KB and the v1088 Player is 3,577KB. The v1076 test (like the one for iOS) apk is 2,902KB producing an on-device size of 5,440KB or 3,230KB, depending on device.

The on-device sizes for my current Tier 2 project tend to run small compared to things like Jelly Defense and Angry Birds.

EDIT: Tier 2 and Tier 1 are similar for small projects.

Cheers,
Ancient Lady
AGK Community Tester and AppGameKit Master
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MikeMax
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Posted: 19th Mar 2013 20:48 Edited at: 19th Mar 2013 20:50
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We need a one-click compilation (or to create a clean and complete Eclipse or XCode project with all required files) with the ability to check or uncheck specials libraries (facebook libs, ads libs etc...) to optimize final size !

Actually the player is good to quickly test ... But compilations are still a real problem.

AGK would have to be standalone with everything included to compile an app itself (JDK/JRE, Android SDK, facebook libs, ndk etc etc etc...) other cross-platform solutions are doing this very well so it should be possible (but they are not doing as well as AppGameKit for other things .

I think after 3d animations support, notifications support (android), it will be the thing that would make a real difference if one-click compilation was working for iOS and Android (or otherwise a one-click eclipse/xcode project creation...).

And if AppGameKit Tier1 could accept direct C/C++ code insertions (inline) ... (should be great :p another basic language allow this and it's very cool to implement specific functions or to use specific GLES functions that are not already ported to the basic language

And the final thing : Tier1 Direct TCP/UDP commands set.

that's all :p (it's not the christmas period ? :p)

Keep up the good work TGC !
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Ancient Lady
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Posted: 19th Mar 2013 21:04
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The final AppGameKit product for iOS, Mac and Android (both Tiers) is a single installable package. You do NOT use a Player for final production.

It is only Windows that doesn't neatly package everything in one piece.

But, I agree with pretty much everything else you said, MikeMax.

Cheers,
Ancient Lady
AGK Community Tester and AppGameKit Master
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Digital Awakening
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Posted: 19th Mar 2013 21:30
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One click builds and automatically select the packages needed, like in DBP, is what I want.


Demo 3 is out now!
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MikeMax
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Posted: 20th Mar 2013 03:48
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i have forgotten something : in-app purchase for android :p necessary for specific business model (widespread actually)
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Digital Awakening
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Posted: 20th Mar 2013 06:49
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Quote: "i have forgotten something : in-app purchase for android :p necessary for specific business model (widespread actually) "


That should be in 108, either now or later before release.


Demo 3 is out now!
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xCept
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Posted: 20th Mar 2013 07:18
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Although the help files still indicate in-app purchases only work with iOS (as of 1088) I believe Android support was added as early as 1084. From the change log:

Quote: "1084: Added code for Android in-app purchase, although may be broken, sometimes returns errors from Google Play"


Also, Paul and others comment about its implementation here: http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=203556&b=41
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jSmith
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Posted: 20th Mar 2013 18:57
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Thanks again for all your answers, and Ancient Lady for that very detailed breakdown. Are there any options to dynamically link the dependencies to lighten the final compiled package? Or must all libraries be included regardless of whether or not they're used?

In the original question, regarding support for device functions like phone, messaging, camera, e-mail, browser, etc., how can it be done?
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xCept
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Posted: 20th Mar 2013 21:32 Edited at: 20th Mar 2013 21:32
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As I recall, there is currently no way to selectively include dependencies when building the final app, they all must be included. I know this suggestion has been raised in the past so those who are not using social network features etc. don't need to include all of the libraries but that is not the case thus far.

AGK doesn't support phone or messaging right now. The latest beta has simple commands to support loading in photos from the library or taking one with the camera, as well as loading pages in the device's default browser, notifications, in-app purchases, ads etc. You can find them in the help if you install 1088 beta. You can also tap into the raw sensor data of the device (accelerometer etc). For instance, to load in an image or take one from the camera you use ShowChooseImageScreen() or ShowImageCaptureScreen()
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Digital Awakening
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Posted: 20th Mar 2013 21:40
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If you use T2 you can add any external library you want. I doubt AppGameKit will ever get support for dialing and sending SMS as these are are only for phones and not game related. The main focus of AppGameKit is game development.


Demo 3 is out now!
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Ancient Lady
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Posted: 20th Mar 2013 22:09
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Quote: "Are there any options to dynamically link the dependencies"

No.

DA is correct about adding external libraries. Doing some of the interactions can be tricky if they require user input of any sort at all. That is tightly controlled by the AppGameKit engine.

But we are stuck with the full package with AGK.

Cheers,
Ancient Lady
AGK Community Tester and AppGameKit Master
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MikeMax
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Posted: 20th Mar 2013 22:55 Edited at: 20th Mar 2013 23:05
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To resolve a lot of problems ... it would be cool to have the ability to open a webbrowser (fullscreen or not but inside the AppGameKit app) and having a predefined JS callback (with string parameter) to close it and return something to the app.

could be cool for google "+1", "FB Likes", or any other Web implementations.

Actually i can use FaceBook login (via a FB web app talking with my game) in this way without using the predefined integrated facebook lib .. the only problem is i have to tell the user to come back to the app for google plus it's the same thing. it could open a lot of possibilities And this kind of system is cross platform even if FB lib (or other thing) doesn't exist for the OS. It could permits to use a unique way to interact with social networks (or anything else) without the need to change the code according to the host OS.
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