A short article to describe what's new in ELIPS Studio, this time for Beta 4 (out today), and what's coming next in Beta 5. Beta 4 is out!Beta 4 has just been released, here are the goodies we've been preparing for you!
We have been hard at work this time on... Mac alpha version!
By (very) popular request we focused our tool team on bringing you a Mac version as soon as possible, and here we go!Mac ScreenShot Let's face it we still have some issues with it, but we need you to iron the last ones. It's why we are giving it only to the lucky ones who are asking for it :-) ... and so are ready to help us to tackle the last issues, please send a message to [email protected] to be enrolled!
The Mac release allows you to... build for Windows Mobile, iPhone and Android on a Mac (yes sir it works!), Symbian is not there yet but will follow soon.Also our simulator hasn't been fully ported, but you can already do most of your work that way (and as you are on a mac, it is just that easy to use the iPhone simulator :- ) )
Oh! Wait... You are on windows? We have something for you also...
Windows iPhone Development toolchain!
Yes you will be able to build an iPhone "development" application right from your Windows PC. See the subtile "development" everywhere, this means that the application we generate for iPhone, will run only on "some iPhones that are able to run unsigned applications", more on this website - https://jatapp.com/services/application-development/. Also, the generated application code is (temporarily) not fully optimized.This is very useful for development phases, but you will still need a Mac to sign the app in order to post it on the AppStore.But watch what's coming next: as Apple is kind enough to use an open-source signing toolchain, you will see signing coming to windows later on, in addition to the full optimization of the code generated by this Windows toolchain.
To use it, simply select "Generate IPA Package" in the iPhone properties, see screenshot below:
Ipa Tollchain Selection
Need more? Why not mixing native objectiveC code with your flex iPhone application?Native ExtensionsIt was already here, undocumented in the previous beta, but here it is: Native Extension, Emmanuel is posting a walkthrough [UPDATE: Done, check it out here]in the tutorial session right now, be prepare to play with the itunes library right from your AS3 code... Without any help from us!Of course this is coming to other platforms, the next one being Android! And of course it is alpha for now...
Your new friends are storeImageFileFromCamera and storeImageFileFromGallery from the openplug.elips.services.SystemAPI class, WinMob and Symbian are coming later. And of course a handful of bug fixes and enhancementsAs always Patrick has cooked a very complete Release Note (to be found in the download section, here) for you to learn everything about all the wonders of this new release.
TweetMWC - (3) Lessons Learned
[See how one can develop and deploy an application on iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile and Symbian in just 1 week and have it published on top app stores]
This last article regroups some Lessons Learned about ELIPS Studio just one month and a half after TweetMWC was first published on the top stores. ELIPS Lesson Learned #1: Code once, runs everywhere!The first lesson I would like to raise is that: YES, IT WORKS!!! The promise of a real cross-platform development with a single code base in Flex to address multiple targets with different OSes, capabilities and screen-size is kept.
This was made possible via several ELIPS Studio build-in mechanisms:
The Device Capabilities API gives access to platform information and specific capabilities which enables putting in place conditional coding.
Resources Management gives developer a way to define different graphical assets per screen-size and yet to use a single code base. This mechanism will become even more powerful with the support of CSS that is planed in a future release.Tools in ELIPS Studio allow simulation and generation of application binaries for the various supported platforms one-click away.See my previous post for the full implementation story.