I do know that all three can be used to make mobile games. And can create fast games. But i only know of openfl which i learned is something called nme but improved.
So i would like to know couple of things...first simply describe them and their relations..then their disadvantages plus advantages..and your preference and why.
Secondly, verify my assumptions...
you need to know haxe.
you need to understand openfl on top of ex. awe6?
Laslty can you summarize the workflow of how you go from idea to making app with openfl or and flambe/awe6...etc.
http://getflambe.com/
https://code.google.com/p/awe6/wiki/ProjectObjectives
OpenFL is not a game engine. It is a cross-platform tool based on Haxe and open-source implementation of Flash API. It allows to write and deploy applications to many different platforms from one codebase. Also you can find more info on OpenFL on its github page.
Unlike OpenFL, Flambe and AWE6 are game engines. They can be compared to HaxeFlixel, HaxePunk and other game engines based on Haxe. The main defference between these two is that AWE6 is using OpenFL to target platforms such as iOS and Adnroid, while Flambe is focused more on HTML5 and Flash games. It can be also used to target mobile targets, but native Android and iOS apps are packaged using Adobe AIR.
you need to know haxe.
Yes, but if you already have some experience with Flash API and you are using OpenFL, the learning should be very easy.
you need to understand openfl on top of ex. awe6?
AWE6 is based on OpenFL, so yes, but as far as I know, only basics. The main workflow is wrapped by game framework.
And the answer is "no" for Flambe, because it is not based on OpenFL.
Related
I am new to Xamarin and not sure if chose Xamarin.Forms to create a application for ios and android platform has a problem or not.
The application has some features below:
The application will be able to running some code in background without launching application by user.
The application can be launched by a href link or a notification.
The application is able to launch a builtin Camera application, and receive picture data from Camera application.
Thanks,
Bo
The features you are mentioning can be done with both. Actually, anything you can do on Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Android can be done with Forms. Because Forms is only an abstraction layer for the UI which is installed by a NuGet package.
Now, having that said when to use Forms or when to use iOS/Android? It is mostly about UI. Are you going to do some advanced or platform specific stuff is is easier to implement that with the platform specific project.
If you UI will be the same in both platforms and mostly consists of some lists and input fields, then that is a very good candidate for a Forms project.
Notice how I said it is easier to do in the platform specific projects. Again here, you can do anything in Forms as well by the means of Custom Renderers, it is just a bit harder to do.
Ideally try it out yourself and see what suits you best.
In regard with your need to execute code in the background. This will be tricky and is very dependent on the platform that you're on. You will definitely have to write platform specific code for that for which you can use the DependencyService to abstract it to your shared code.
However like AlancLui mentioned executing code in the background isn't something that is easy to do on mobile. On iOS it is restricted to accessing location data or playing music, but still your app needs to be running (in the background). Android has something called Services for this, which makes it a bit easier.
Is there anything available for Haxe which would be suitable for real-life enterprise application development? (i.e. A professional high level UI component framework.)
Just a note - I know we all love our tools of choice, but please try to keep it objective.. don't just recommend Haxe for something without thinking about whether it's really an effective tool for business requirements.
On one hand, as Jason suggested in his comment, there is missing a haxe-based native UI framework.
On the other hand, we don't really need a haxe-based UI framework, but using the UI framework available to the target platform is enough. Unlike building a library, which is better to be target independent, building a "real-life enterprise application" only requires targeting a specific platform. Since UI is highly dependent on the target platform, it means that we should use a target-specific UI framework. For example, the best UI solutions to an web app are probably jQuery, ReactJS, AngularJS etc., which all can be used in Haxe (jQueryExtern, react.hx, angular.haxe). For Flash/Java/C#, we can simply use any "native" libs by -swf-lib path/to/lib.swc, -java-lib path/to/lib.jar, and -net-lib path/to/lib.dll. For C++, however, although there is continuous improvement (watch the wwx2014 talk), it is still somewhat hard to use native libs.
We are making games in haxe + OpenFL + StablexUI. Not sure if it suitable to post their urls, so that you could see the quality. But it helps if you need your custom ui not native (iOS, Android).
Long time lurker, first time questioner here :)
I have been looking into our company's next software system architecture. We have been using CSLA.net, to some extent, as our business object framework and are thinking of building our new architecture around it. CSLA.net has support for the platforms mentioned in the title and we are looking for mvvm framework that would work well with it.
At the moment we only support windows environments but are also looking to support at least Android and iOS (also mono in general is under consideration). We are looking to share as much of the code as possible between the platforms and MvvmCross seems like really nice piece of mvvm (+) framework, especially in that context. I have watched few n+1 videos and what I have seen so far has been very impressive. I also like the Stuart's style of introducing the framework and concepts around it.
Has anyone tried to build a cross platform application that uses both of these frameworks (CSLA.net and MvvmCross)? If yes, what have been your experiences like? Also if Stuart could comment on the issue of how to merg the viewmodels of the two frameworks. I remember Rocky (Rockford Lhotka) recommending, as a general tip when working with mvvm frameworks, to inherit CSLA.net viewmodelbase(not viewmodel) and implement also mvvm framework's requirements into that class. You can find source of the viewmodelbase from https://github.com/MarimerLLC/csla/blob/master/Source/Csla.Xaml/ViewModelBase.cs.
Any input would be much appreciated.
Regards,
Harri
ps. I think, that this would make a great n+ video. Wouldn't it ;)
I've personally never used CSLA, but I have talked with it's original author, Rocky, both by email and in person.
CSLA presents itself as a business model object layer and that it can very successfully interoperate with independent Mvvm frameworks - see Rocky's post on CSLA+Mvvm
MvvmCross provides the more application and UI level support - and leaves application authors free to choose how they write their business services and models.
Because of this, yes I think it should be possible and even straight-forward to use both of the frameworks together if you want to. To get started, it might be useful to write some prototypes - and perhaps to look at the way other integration has been done - e.g. CSLA+Caliburn integration
ps. I think, that this would make a great n+ video.
I'd much rather see this type of article from someone who understands and uses CSLA. I would encourage all members of the MvvmCross community to contribute their own blog posts, articles, videos and github samples.
One caveat to this advice: I don't know if CSLA support Portable Class Libraries - if it doesn't then you'll probably need to use file-linking rather than PCLs in your app
Yes, you can use a multitude of MVVM frameworks; I've used CaliburnMicro and our own custom MVVM with success. If you haven't checked out Rocky's eBook series, you should definitely do so. One of the big gotchas is the limitations on reflection in Silverlight, hence also in WP8 and WinRT, so some reading up on that is well-advised.
Regarding Portable Class Libraries, you can't those for CSLA business objects (they require more stuff than is available in PCLs), so you do have to do the project linking. Typically, write the complete class in the .NET libary w/ pre-compiler directives, such as
#if !SILVERLIGHT
around code that can't be complied for Silverlight/WP8. I do use PCLs for some basic stuff, like enums and constants, but not for the business classes.
Xamarin have just released some updates that mean the latest framework 4.5 with async features can shortly be implemented...
I currently have a very simple memory game for Windows Phone that I would like to port over to iOS, Android and possibly Win8 using Xamarin tools.
I would like to centralize my business logic in one assembly and simply create the UI for each platform.
For the most part, the code is simple C#, but I do make use of Bitmaps to show the cards in the game. However, from what I've read, there is no standard support across the different platforms for using Bitmaps.
What would be a recommended approach to this problem?
I'm thinking I have to use something like MonoGame, but feel that is overkill for what I want to do.
You say your code is in C#. As far as I know Xamarin is the only way to get C# code to run on Android and iOS. Xamarin has a free starter edition that you might be able to use but your app will be size limited. Once you hit the size limit you'll need to pay for a license.
After you've decided to pay for a license there are no other costs involved if you want to use MonoGame for the port. If your game is already using XNA or you have some XNA experience I recommend using MonoGame. MonoGame is a port of XNA and is designed for making games, so many game related tasks are easier.
The alternative is to build your game as an app using the standard app building API. This is possible but I can't see any advantages doing it this way unless you are trying to save money by using Xamarin's free edition. If you plan to make more games in the future, you'd be better off biting the bullet and learning MonoGame.
Using bitmaps with MonoGame shouldn't be a problem. Although, you may need to convert them to PNG's first.
Centralizing the business logic in one assembly is sort of possible using Portable Class Libraries but due to the limitations of PCL's it's often easier to use file sharing. Basically you have a soft link to the files in each project. Updating the files updates them in all projects at the same time, but adding new files requires you to add them to each project individually. It's a little bit of a maintenance pain, but not much.
For sure, as a starting point you should separate UI and logic.
To reach this I highly recommend you to make console version of game. Using console it is possible only send commands with parameters to application. No mouse or real-time keyboards usages. All UI-related tasks will be left. Only business logic and commands to use will remain.
Then, you should try MonoGame. It's reliable enough for 2D games. Even more, If IL-code is not too much, it's free for iOS and Android!
Other way is... Unity 3D. Using that engine is depends of code you wrote. In some cases it's possible to use that game engine with shared business logic. Thanks to new Unity 3D policy, indie game developers could make and deploy their games for free.
In short, plan is:
Implement core functionality (with console I/O);
Then, choose engine and implement UI for target platforms.
I understand that with MonoTouch and MonoDroid that you develop against the native UI layer, which is a good thing. However, I was wondering if there were any cross platform Mono API layers for features such as camera, location, storage, notifications etc... ?
PhoneGap supplies a JavaScript a abstraction layer that does just this. Is there a Mono equivalent?
There is an official monomobile api project from xamarin - that provides camera, contacts and gps abstractions, plus there are discussions (but not firm roadmaps) about extending this further. See http://blog.xamarin.com/2011/11/22/introducing-the-xamarin-mobile-api/ for an intro
Beyond that:
some api's exist cross platform from the start - eg isolated storage can be used on all platforms.
I've seen a few other GitHub projects started - eg chrisntr's mono extensions
I've written a few abstractions (e.g. File, gps, camera) in http://GitHub.com/slodge/mvvmcross
I recently came across MonoDroid.Dialog. I have yet to use it, but if it is as easy as MonoTouch.Dialog to do tables then I will be very happy with it.