Post Publishing Editing

Photics

History has shown that many members of this community are very talented, creative and resourceful. But unfortunately, GameSalad is closed. We can't team up to make the software better.

...or can we?!

When I woke up this morning, I started thinking about the things we can — and can't — do to the app that is generated with GameSalad. So, here are some questions to kick-start the conversation...

Compress Images?!

I've been using ImageOptim to compress my images. So, what's the problem?! The issue is that GameSalad is generating the low-res versions for iPhones and iPod Touches without Retina Display. Those images aren't being processed by ImageOptim... or are they?

I went back to an old App and I found the low-resolution images in the project folder. I ran it through ImageOptim and I was surprised to see 0% compression. At first, that didn't make sense to me. I wasn't compressing my images before. But then I realized... GameSalad might be doing it for us. So, that means one of two things...

1 - Using ImageOptim is a waste of time, as GameSalad is already compressing images for us.
2 - The files are locked somehow, preventing editing.

Edit info.plist

The CodeResources file appears to have keys to prevent the editing of the project. OK, that's cool. GameSalad doesn't want us ripping off their hard work. However, if I could change the info.plist file, I might be able to trick the app into thinking it's a universal binary.

So, can the info.plist file be modified without breaking the app?

I'm not suggesting that people try to break the license agreement.

Is it OK to make improvements to the app if it can be done manually... or does GameSalad frown on this? Is it OK to go messing around with the info.plist and CodeSignatures?

Can Pro Users add their own videos?

If can figure out a way to replace the gamesalad_intro.m4v with my own video, is that OK... or will that violate the license agreement... even if I'm a pro subscriber? I think BOT would look better with an Intro video.

Rob2

It would be nice if pro users could have their own intro vid certainly, this has been mentioned before and is surely only a couple of hours work.

As for the universal binary bit, well our projects aren't so whats the point. It is easy enough to e*** *** ***** *** *****n but why bother?

Image compression, a quick yellow post as ever would answer this and a million other performance questions.

StusApps

I spent about 3 hours this afternoon trying to resign a tampered binary to add a custom vid and to put a URL scheme into the info.plist. You can only resign .app files and not the .ipa from the appstore. Interestingly I had success in signing an old GS .app file but they appear to now have added their own signing to the process. Re-signing a newer one launches the app fine from apple's perspective but you now get a GS generated message to say that 'the game license' is incorrect. Seems to add an additional layer of security.

I think it is possible to get round it, but I got bored quickly.

StusApps

Photics said:
The CodeResources file appears to have keys to prevent the editing of the project. OK, that's cool. GameSalad doesn't want us ripping off their hard work. However, if I could change the info.plist file, I might be able to trick the app into thinking it's a universal binary.

Really you couldn't. The process of creating a universal binary is a little bigger than changing a value in the info.plist. GS could do (and probably are doing) a re-write of the engine to list things by screen relative sizes, then additional device specific keys would be needed for differing chunks of code.

StusApps

**edit - my bad, can't read**

Photics

I remember now... from back when the screenshot uploading problem occurred... the images couldn't be deleted afterwards. They had to be deleted before the app was created.

StusApps said:
I think it is possible to get round it, but I got bored quickly.

So... the project is locked twice?! Ones from GameSalad and again by the key from Apple?

This is a bit unfortunate, as these are two simple settings that Pro users should be able to manually override. Maybe I'm oversimplifying things, but we could add video intros and universal binary support with two minor changes.

StusApps

Photics said:
This is a bit unfortunate, as these are two simple settings that Pro users should be able to manually override. Maybe I'm oversimplifying things, but we could add video intros and universal binary support with two minor changes.

If we could resign a binary then:

Video splash - Yes
URL schemes to relaunch our apps from a browser URL - Yes
Splash screen changes for non-pro members - Yes
Universal Binaries - No

A universal binary contains both armv7 and armv6 builds within it. It has to be compiled as a universal binary. Plus a whole world of other bits of code that are needed. Not possible from a compiled app.

Photics

StusApps said:
A universal binary contains both armv7 and armv6 builds within it. It has to be compiled as a universal binary. Plus a whole world of other bits of code that are needed. Not possible from a compiled app.

An iPhone / iPod Touch app can be both armv6 and armv7... no?

When I test apps in the simulator, I can switch between iPad and iPhone. If there's some extra pieces of code required, I don't know what it is. The Textbook app is a universal binary. I'm pretty sure the only thing I changed to make that happen was an info.plist setting.

Sure, this is better handled by GameSalad itself. I'm surprised that things take so long though. The settings are right there. It seems odd that Universal Binaries and Video are pushed all the way back to the Fall.