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State of the Salad Q3 2019 - Late but not forgotten.

adent42adent42 Posts: 1,406Key Master, Head Chef, Executive Chef, Member, PRO GameSalad Employee
edited September 23 in GameSalad Kitchen

It's way past time for a quarterly update, so here goes...

Unfortunately the biggest thing people are waiting for is still in "we're still working on it" category, which is fixing the Mojave experience. Things are thornier and more vexing than expected and we're still working it out.

To avoid shipping nothing to you this quarter, we decided to put that on hold and tackle a few other things, all still in QA but Coming Soon (TM):

HTML5 Engine

  • Rewritten font rendering. No more artifacts, cut-off ligatures, weird vertical alignment.
  • Fixes to a dynamic collision bugs (i.e. when you use rules to change collisions and stuff just disappears).
  • Reverting to our original Box2D implementation which is more efficient with memory (fan doesn't become a jet engine when the app is open for a while).

iOS

  • IronSrc. Same mediated networks as the Android Version.

  • Update Ad Network SDKs

    • AdMob 7.49.0
    • Tapdaq 7.2.0
    • Chartboost 8.0.1

  • Removing Bluetooth for non-ad builds.

  • Removing / upgrading a whole bunch of deprecated code to minimize future issues with new versions of iOS.
    • Apps are compiled to target iOS 12.1. No more armv7 support, so 32bit iOS devices will no longer work.
    • Removing TweetSheet specific code and letting users choose between the iOS Sharing UI or posting via the Twitter App or Twitter.com. The hope is to do direct tweeting in via the twitter API in the future.
    • Upgrade the Web behavior from UIWebView to WKWebView
    • Upgrade from UIAccelerometer to CoreMotion (faster accelerometer updates).
    • For alerts, use UIAlertController and not the deprecated UIAlertView (no changes for users here).
    • Removal of dead/unused code based on upgrades.

Again, this is all still in QA. I'm hoping to ship the HTML5 engine updates before the end of the week as testing looks good. I want to ship the iOS updates before the end of the week as well, but iOS is always more thorny to test, and seeing as how I'm literally uploading the builds to QA as I type this, we'll see.

Once the iOS update passes RC, we will finally update both Android and iOS to the new "Standard" build (as both will now support IronSource).

So what's in store for the near future?

  • Address any outstanding android issues with the current build.
  • More plugging away at Mojave / Catalina compatibility.
  • Continuing to refine the HTML5 based editor with an eye towards handling big projects.
  • IronSource banner support in iOS. Our internal Banner interface code isn't compatible with the way IronSrc does banners, so we'll need to refactor a bit. Not too hard, but with all of the other stuff in this release, we decided to put that off.
  • Adding an option in publishing to use a different format for network communications that's more friendly.

Comments

  • freneticzfreneticz SwedenPosts: 708Member, PRO

    Nice to hear that some work being done 👍

    Homepage: freneticgamez.eu/

    https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=FreneticGamez

    https://itunes.apple.com/se/artist/mikael-johansson/id854593487

  • ArmellineArmelline Posts: 4,764Member, PRO

    Thanks for the updates!

    Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 10 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support

  • AlchimiaStudiosAlchimiaStudios Posts: 1,024Member, PRO

    Awesome. Thanks for updating us!

    Follow us: Twitter - Website

  • CasualEvolutionCasualEvolution Posts: 415Member, PRO

    Thanks, we will be pending :)

  • HypnorabbitHypnorabbit SingaporePosts: 202Member, PRO

    Nice! Please keep us informed.

  • Machinist AppsMachinist Apps Posts: 57Member, PRO

    Thank you for the update!

  • pinkio75pinkio75 Posts: 818Member, PRO

    Thank you for the update!

    ✮My Full Games Source Code✮

  • indra.azizindra.aziz Posts: 78Member, PRO

    Thank you for the update!

  • HypnorabbitHypnorabbit SingaporePosts: 202Member, PRO

    Thank you for the update!

  • blobblob Posts: 209Member, PRO
    edited October 2

    Loving these 2: :)

    @adent42 said:
    iOS
    * IronSrc. Same mediated networks as the Android Version.

    and

    * Removing TweetSheet specific code and letting users choose between the iOS Sharing UI or posting via the Twitter App or Twitter.com.

    Very Important for Viral looping!!!

    Thanks @adent42

  • adriangomezadriangomez Posts: 77Member, PRO

    I am excited about IronSrc for iOS. How is the testing going?

  • adent42adent42 Posts: 1,406Key Master, Head Chef, Executive Chef, Member, PRO GameSalad Employee

    Hey, testing was going well, but I was taking on some other stuff last week so I didn't respond to the testing input.

    Basically everything looks good EXCEPT Tapdaq, which crashes the engine (my bad, the Tapdaq API changed and I didn't remove some old code).

    Now the next decision I need to make is whether to remove Tapdaq. It looks like Tapdaq is almost completely and ad mediation network. I think the exchange network still works, but we would have to publish a game before seeing exchange ads, meaning we can't really test Tapdaq ads. And it's not worth adding the mediation adapters, since the would conflict in some places with the IronSrc adapters.

    So I'm going to compile in Tapdaq for this build on the off chance that someone is using exchange network, but I think this will be the last Tapdaq build.

    Just like last time, I hope to have something out by the end of the week to RC. Cheers!

  • adriangomezadriangomez Posts: 77Member, PRO

    Thank you. Yes, Tapdaq is mostly a mediation network. I won't miss it if you remove it. (I speak only for myself).

  • Braydon_SFXBraydon_SFX Posts: 8,964Member, Sous Chef, PRO, Bowlboy Sidekick GameSalad Employee

    Thanks for the update, Tan!
    Thanks for all the hard work.

    My GameSalad Academy Courses! ◦ Check out my quality templates! ◦ Add me on Skype: braydon_sfx

  • HypnorabbitHypnorabbit SingaporePosts: 202Member, PRO

    Thanks heaps for your work. Yep, I won't miss Tapdaq either as I don't use it. Quick question @adent42 and I think @blob asked this before - is Gamesalad working on the latest version of Mac OS? Forgetting Catalina of course, cos it just got released.

    Tossing up whether to go back to Mac or stay on Windows. I do like the multi-project open-at-once thing on Mac as I like to copy stuff from all my old templates. You can't do that on Windows (AFAIK).

  • indra.azizindra.aziz Posts: 78Member, PRO
    edited October 12

    I received this email from Google Play,

    "Hello Google Play Developer,

    This is a reminder that starting November 1, 2019, updates to apps and games on Google Play will be required to target Android 9 (API level 28) or higher. After this date, the Play Console will prevent you from submitting new APKs with a targetSdkVersion less than 28."

    It says all my apps are affected. What does it mean, and what should I do?

  • adent42adent42 Posts: 1,406Key Master, Head Chef, Executive Chef, Member, PRO GameSalad Employee

    @indra.aziz for now generate a new app with the "RC" (meaning Release Candidate) version of GameSalad using the "Build RC" button.

    We are about to push the iOS version to RC. If no major problems arise from that within this week then we will promote both versions of the new engine to mainline and you can generate your apps like normal.

  • NKBDLNKBDL Posts: 88Member, PRO

    Thank you

  • indra.azizindra.aziz Posts: 78Member, PRO

    Got it, thanks!

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