IwGame Engine v0.27 Released – Powerful Animation and XOML Support

January 5, 2012January 12, 2012 drmop

New here? What’s IwGame? IwGame is an open source free to use cross platform game engine for iPhone, iPad, Android, Bada, Playbook, Symbian, Windows Mobile, LG-TV, Windows and Mac, built on top of the Marmalade SDK. You can find out more and download the SDK from our IwGame Engine page.

After much bashing with hammers and sawing with saws IwGame version 0.27 is now available for download, including updated documentation. Some of you may get a little upset as we have completely replaced the old animation system with a brand new more powerful system. Sorry for that, but thought better to change it sooner rather than later.

Lets take a quick look at the changed for v0.27:

Added new customisable mark-up language XOML that allows you to declare most IwGame obects declaratively, including scenes, custom actors, images, resource groups, animations, animation timelines
CIwGameAnimManager has been removed and replaced with the much more powerful CIwGameAnimTimeline, paving the way for very powerful actor and scene animations
Animation system has been completely changed to use a proper key frame interpolation system
Support for animation targets to automate update of object properties
CIwGameActorImage initialisation no longer requires a scene or an animtion. CIwGameActorImage initial image source rectangle now matches the initial size of the actor
setCollisionSize() added to CIwGameActor to allow setting of collision size from a radius
CIwGameDataInput and CIwGameDataOutput stream classes added
Simple, fast pooled memory XML parser added (CIwGameXml)
CIwGameResourceGroup system added to encapsulate Marmalade resource groups
Global and scene local resoure systems added
CIwGameImage can now be instantiated 3 ways, from memory buffer, from file or from web file
CiwGameImage initialisation from memory buffer no longer requires specification of the is_jpeg flag
Blocking parameter can now be passed to CIwGameImage::Load()
CIwGameScene scenes can now be assigned a colour. All contained actors will be scaled by the colour, allowing flash and fade effects
CIwGameBitmapSprite::setSrcRect() now takes a CIwRect
FRAME_SPEED_LOCK_MS now added to set frame rate cap
CIwGame::Init() changed to CIwGame::Init(bool enable_http), passing true will boot up the HTTP manager and allow you to use it in-game
Bug Fix – CIwGameHttp crashed if a request came back after the object was shut down
Bug fix – CIwGameActor::setCollisionRect() bug fixed
Bug fix – All actors were being treated as though they were collidable
Bug fix – Sprites no lnoger try to render themselves if their associated image is not yet loaded

Yes, I know that’s a lot of changes! Lets take a look at some of these new changes in more depth

What’s this new XOML Mark-up Language stuff all about?

Ok, time for the old copy and past. After working two days flat on updating documentation I feel less obliged to write fresh content

I like to make code that is extensible but I also like to make life easier for myself without sacrificing too much versatility, so my coding style constantly strives towards balancing ease of use and extensibility. I’ve done a lot of Silverlight / WPF coding in the past which is where I came across Microsoft’s XAML mark-up language. I later came across Adobe Flex’s MXML mark-up language and decided that mark-up language was the way to go with game and app development. Being able to define my whole UI, game scenes, animations and even game logic using simple readable XML seemed like the best way to go.

IwGame adds some of the great functionality found in XAML / MXML allowing you to declare much of what will appear in your game using XOML (XML Object Modelling Language).

The major advantages of using XOL include:

Saves a whole bunch of typing
Design and layout scenes and actors using mark-up
Design resource groups and images using mark-up
Design complex animations and time line animations
No recompiling required to test changes
Add new content without resubmitting to the app stores
Add content that is streamed from a server

As you can see, we have some pretty neat advantages to switching over to using a mark-up language

Lets take a quick look at an example XOML file:



<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xml>
    <ResourceGroup Name="Audio" GroupFile="Audio.group" Preload="true" />
    <ResourceGroup Name="Level1" GroupFile="Level1.group" Preload="true" />
    <Image Name="Sprites" Location="Level1" Preload="true" />
    <Image Name="Buddy" Location="http://www.battleballz.com/bb_icon.gif" Preload="true" Blocking="false" />
    <Animation Name="PlayerImageAnim" Type="rect" Duration="0.8" >
        <Frame Value="0, 0,   36, 40" Time="0.0" />
        <Frame Value="0, 40,  36, 40" Time="0.1" />
        <Frame Value="0, 80,  36, 40" Time="0.2" />
        <Frame Value="0, 120, 36, 40" Time="0.3" />
        <Frame Value="0, 160, 36, 40" Time="0.4" />
        <Frame Value="0, 200, 36, 40" Time="0.5" />
        <Frame Value="0, 240, 36, 40" Time="0.6" />
        <Frame Value="0, 280, 36, 40" Time="0.7" />
    </Animation>
    <Animation Name="SpinAnim1" Type="float" Duration="8" >
        <Frame Value="0"   Time="0.0" />
        <Frame Value="90"  Time="2.0" />
        <Frame Value="180" Time="4.0" />
        <Frame Value="270" Time="6.0" />
        <Frame Value="360" Time="8.0" />
    </Animation>
    <Animation Name="ScaleAnim1" Type="float" Duration="4" >
        <Frame Value="0.1"  Time="0.0" />
        <Frame Value="1.0"  Time="1.0" />
        <Frame Value="1.5"  Time="2.0" />
        <Frame Value="1.6"  Time="3.0" />
        <Frame Value="1.65" Time="4.0" />
    </Animation>
    <Animation Name="ColourAnim1" Type="vec4" Duration="4" >
        <Frame Value="255, 255, 255, 0"    Time="0.0" />
        <Frame Value="255, 255, 255, 200"  Time="1.0" />
        <Frame Value="255, 255, 255, 255"  Time="2.0" />
        <Frame Value="255, 255, 255, 200"  Time="3.0" />
        <Frame Value="255, 255, 255, 0"    Time="4.0" />
    </Animation>
    <Animation Name="PlayerStates" Type="string">
        <Frame Value="State1" Time="0" />
        <Frame Value="State2" Time="0.5" />
        <Frame Value="State3" Time="1.0" />
        <Frame Value="State4" Time="1.5" />
    </Animation>
    <Timeline Name="Scene1Anim" AutoPlay="true">
        <Animation Anim="SpinAnim1" Target="Angle" Repeat="1" StartAtTime="0"/>
        <Animation Anim="ScaleAnim1" Target="Scale" Repeat="1" StartAtTime="0"/>
    </Timeline>

    <Scene Name="GameScene" CanvasSize="320, 480" FixAspect="true" LockWidth="false" Current="true" Colour="128, 128, 128, 255" Timeline="Scene1Anim">
        <Timeline Name="Player1Intro" AutoPlay="true">
            <Animation Anim="PlayerImageAnim" Target="SrcRect" Repeat="0" StartAtTime="0"/>
            <Animation Anim="SpinAnim1" Target="Angle" Repeat="4" StartAtTime="10"/>
            <Animation Anim="ColourAnim1" Target="Colour" Repeat="10" StartAtTime="2"/>
        </Timeline>
        <TestActor Name="Player1" Position="-100, 0" Size="100, 100" Angle="45" SrcRect="0, 0, 36, 40" Image="Sprites" Timeline="Player1Intro" />
        <TestActor Name="Player2" Position="0, 0" Size="100, 100" Angle="-45" SrcRect="0, 0, 36, 40" Image="Sprites" />
        <TestActor Name="Player3" Position="0, 100" Size="100, 100" Angle="0" SrcRect="0, 0, 64, 64" Image="Buddy" />
    </Scene>

    <Scene Name="GameScene2" CanvasSize="320, 480" FixAspect="true" LockWidth="false" Colour="0, 0, 255, 255" AllowSuspend="false">
        <Timeline Name="Player1Intro2" AutoPlay="true">
            <Animation Anim="PlayerImageAnim" Target="SrcRect" Repeat="0" StartAtTime="1"/>
            <Animation Anim="SpinAnim1" Target="Angle" Repeat="4" StartAtTime="10"/>
        </Timeline>
        <TestActor Name="Player1" Position="0, 0" Size="100, 100" Angle="45" SrcRect="0, 0, 36, 40" Image="Sprites" Timeline="Player1Intro2" />
        <TestActor Name="Player2" Position="100, 0" Size="100, 100" Angle="-45" SrcRect="0, 0, 36, 40" Image="Sprites" />
        <TestActor Name="Player3" Position="100, 100" Size="100, 100" Angle="0" SrcRect="0, 0, 64, 64" Image="Buddy" />
    </Scene>
</xml>

It may look like quite a bit of XML but the above would take many hundreds of lines of code to instantiate all of these classes and set up their data.

XOML is also extensible in that you can provide your own custom tags, allowing you to extend the syntax.

How to work with XOML files?

How is XOML meant to be used? Well that’s up to you, I’m pretty sure you already have hundreds of cool ideas bouncing around your mind right now. That said we do have some recommended usage and work flow ideas.

The idea is to define all of your different types of actors and / or scenes derived from IwGame base scenes and actors then add the creators to the XOML system. This allows you to declare them in XOML.

You should have very few if not a single global resource XOML file that contains all of your global resources. This gets loaded first when you boot the game.

You then create separate XOML files that contain either single scenes or scenes grouped by functionality.

Try to keep scene specific resources within scenes so they can be freed up when the scene is no longer needed, but try to balance resource group loading times with resource re-use.

The animation system provided by XOML is very powerful so try to use it wherever appropriate.

Start looking at your game as being driven by XOML rather than XOML being a simple data format.

How to load a XOML File

Loading a XOML file is incredibly simple:



// Load a test XOML file
IW_GAME_XOML->Process(this, "Scene1.xml");

The first parameter to the Process() method represents the parent class that you want to load all of the XOML data into. For example, if you load a XOML file that contains scenes then you should pass the CIwGame derived game object so that the created scenes will be added to the main game object. On the other hand if the XOML file contains a simple list of global resources then you can pass NULL. This kind of versatility allows you to split your game definitions across multiple files.

Its worth noting at this point that you need to ensure that IwGame::Init() has been called before using the XOML system as IwGame::Init() sets up important systems that are used by the XOML system.

What’s the future of XOML?

XOML was initially designed to simplify the mundane and time consuming tasks involved in creating scene layouts and animations etc, but luckily it turned into something much more. Over time XOML will evolve into even more with future with plans for the following addictions:

Data binding
Declartion of user interfaces
Declartion of physics materials and scenes
Support for styling
More IwGame class support such as support for video, data files, camera streaming, audio time lines and more..

New Animation System

Now XOML (the biggest addition to IwGame) is out the way, lets look at the new animations system. The new animation system supports proper key frame interpolation where key frames can be spaced apart in time in a none linear fashion. The new animation system also has support for animation timeline’s and more types of animation data.

Timeline animations are collection of animations that are played simultaneously on some kind of animation target. An animation can be anything such as an actor or a scene. In fact, any class that is derived from the IIwGameAnimTarget interface.

Animation target and animation target properties allows the animation system to automatically updated properties of target objects with their interpolated animation values.

The new animation system has support for boolean, floating point, 2d, 3d and 4d vector, image frames and string based frame data.

XML parser and Streams

Stream input and output classes and XML parser utilities have been added. The XML parser is basic but quick and uses tag / node pooling to reduce memory fragmentation.

Marmalade Resource Group Wrapping and Global Resources

Marmalades resource groups have been wrapped into CIwGameResourceGroup to enable then to be integrated into XOML and facilitate auto loading / destruction in scenes and the global resource syste,

A new global resource system has been added (use IW_GAME_GLOBAL_RESOURCES to access) which the XOML system uses to store application global resources. Scenes also support a local resource system for resources that should only exist during the scenes lifetime.

Other Bits and Bobs

Images can now be created directly from a web resource (no need to go through the file system)
Game scenes now have a colour and opacity that can be animated. Note that the colour and opacity will be applied to any contained actors (good for flashes and fades)

CIwGame can now initiate and take care of update and clean-up of the HTTP manager, so you no longer need to handle this from outside CIwGame.

In closing

Well that’s it for this update of the IwGame engine, our next update will include Box2D integration into the actor and scene system, maybe even into the XOML system too, we will just have to see.

The latest version of IwGame can be downloaded FREE from the IwGame Engine page.

Happy coding!

Warning: Up and Coming IwGame Changes

January 3, 2012 drmop

Just a quick message to say that if you are a mobile developer that has just started using IwGame then please refrain from starting any major developments with the engine for the next few days. IwGame has undergone some major changes which will require many changes to the documentation. Some of the changes include:

The animation system will be completely redone
Animation frame data manager will be removed
Support will be added for local and global resources
Marmalade resource groups will now be managed by the scene or global resource manager
Most classes will be able to be defined and instantiated from XOML (an XML based language similar to Microsoft XAML and Flash MXML)

These changes are necessary if we are to keep the development of IwGame on track.

The idea is to create a single extensible API that works across all platforms that is driven by a manually created human readable mark-up language or exported from a future game editor.

Merry Christmas!

December 25, 2011 drmop

Merry Christmas everyone, I hope all you nice, well behaved developers were left something nice from Santa!? Santa left me an HTML 5 game development book, so who knows, you may see some HTML 5 related tutorials appearing on drmop.com soon. Who knows, an HTML 5 version of IwGame may appear one day.

2011 has been a busy year, we’ve (Pocketeers Limited) released BattleBallz Chaos paid and free versions on iPhone, iPad, Android, Samsung Bada and Blackberry Playbook. We’ve also released Funky Cam 3D paid and free versions on iPhone, iPad, Android and Samdung Bada. In addition, we developed Murder Detective, Hampton Bridge Murder for Tournay Software on iPhone, iPad, Blackberry Playbook and Android as well as helped Honey Badger Studios port their Zixxby game over from Android to iPhone, iPad and Blackberry Playbook using the Marmalade SDK.

Now for a quck appraisal of the apps we developed this year:

Funky Cam 3D FREE has shipped over 500k units on Android, around 100k units on iOS and about the same number on Samsung Bada. Revenue income from Funky Cam 3D FREE is around $10-$20 per day (15k-20k impressions per day) across all platforms. Income from paid versions of Funky Cam 3D is very poor across all platforms. Funky Cam 3D FREE is currently the No 1 downloaded app for Samsung Bada on Samsung Apps. Reviews have been a mixed back, some love it whilst some hate it

BattleBallz Chaos got a fair bit of publicity in association with the Marmalade SDK, being featured on stage at the Blackberry Dev Con 2011 as well as in an official Blackberry Playbook gaming advert, Pocketeers also received a fair bit of attention from the Blackberry press because of the speed at which we converted the game over Playbook and had it live on the store (less than 24 hours). BattleBallz Chaos paid sales have been better than Funky Cam 3D by around 200%, but ad revenue has been incredibly bad (less than $1 per day). Reviews have been pretty positive across all platforms, although we have had some Android compatibility issues which has skewed our Android ratings somewhat.

This year was our entry into the mobile market, we came in from console development, so we have had a lot to learn. In summary:

Know your audience – We expected mobile gamers to play similar games to console (not so). We have been watching the top 100 apps and games over this year and discovered that mobile gamers do not want console style games. Instead they want low intensity, easy learning curve gaming, less competitive game play with highly colourful quality graphics and animations. Mobile gamers also expect a walk through or some kind of game introduction as opposed to a help screen that’s hidden away in the menu system.
Marketing is the key – App stores are filled with hundreds of thousands of apps so getting noticed is incredibly difficult. Genuine free apps for obvious reasons require less marketing as users are much more likely to download them because they don’t have to pay anything. Most app stores base their rankings on number of downloads in the last X hours / days, because of this Marketing is best done in bursts to increase the chances that users will discover and and install your app in a short period of time. To rise up the charts quickly requires a lot of marketing in a short period of time.
Ad Mobs v Facebook advertising – Both are quite useless unless you have a LOT of money to spend on a campaign, although we did find that Facebook ads did work better than AdMobs
Freemium – Although we have not tested the great freemium theory, a majority of app revenue is coming from the sale of additional levels perks , items and other in-game consumables (much like the Zygna facebook model), so this is something we are going to test out in 2012.
Android platform – Whilst the Android platform is cool and all, it just isn’t much use for making money. In fact, if the Marmalade SDK did not support the Android platform ten we would most likely drop it altogether. Its ok, if you want to make a few bucks from ads, but not worth investing a significant amount of money into. That said, we are yet to try out a freemium based model of monetisation, so we will give it another chance this year.
Price playing – We discovered that we can increase the visibility of an app or game by regularly dropping the price to very low or even free. Users notice the price drop and download discounted products in droves (everyone likes a bargain!). This can push your apps position up in the charts temporarily. We have found that dropping our price to free for 2 days can give you a sales boost for 7-14 days.
Lite versions – We found that releasing a limited lite version of BattleBallz Chaos didn’t affect sales much, we had very few converts to the paid version. That said, BattleBallz Chaos is the completely wrong type of game for the mass mobile market
Cross promotion – We found that cross promoting apps and games worked quite well. We placed a large full sized ad into each of our apps, effectively advertising each others availability. We may try a system such as OpenFeint’s in 2012 to increase exposure
Don’t expect to get rich quick and don’t expect anything to be easy – We’ve spoken to many mobile developers this year and the general consensus is that mobile development is easy, but marketing is incredibly difficult. Very few developers actually make it into the top 50/100 which is where the money is at. The journey to the top is long and difficult so be prepared for the long haul and wave good bye to a lot of time and money. if you are not prepared to gamble then walk away from mobile development altogether.
Cross platform is a MUST – If we had simply developed our products on either Android or iOS we would probably have packed up mobile development this year and moved onto something else. If it wasn’t for the Marmalade SDK’s cool cross platform technology we would probably not have stuck with it. Going cross platform will increase the chances of a hit as you are catering for many platforms with very little extra effort or costs. Going cross platform also generally increases your return on investment (ROI).
Don’t believe app the hype – App publishers, app stores and ad networks will say anything to hook you into using their services. Just be sure to research them before putting in the effort. Their advertised figures will usually be massively out of date. Insist on current figures and see what other developers are saying about them around the web.

We also began the development of IwGame this year, an open source cross platform game engine for the Marmalade SDK community. We began development of IwGame for a number of reasons:

Lessen the learning curve for Marmalade developers and provide a solid game engine on top of the Marmalade SDK
To help promote the Marmalade SDK to mobile developers
To help promote Pocketeers Limited’s development services and apps

So far we are very pleased with IwGame and plan on continuing its development all the way through 2012. We also plan on putting our own internal engine on hold for a while to focus on creating games and apps with IwGame to show developers live apps and games created using the IwGame engine. Also, depending upon the success of IwGame this year, we may port the engine to Windows Phone 7 and HTML5.

IwGame Engine v0.26 Released – Supports 12 Ad Providers, Accelerometer and Compass

December 22, 2011December 22, 2011 drmop

Well me, Santa and the elves have been very busy bees this week and between us we managed to hammer out another update to the IwGame Engine before Christmas (Thanks Santa, couldn’t have done it without those delicious mince pies!)

Here are the latest changeds for IwGame v0.26:

Bug fix – Actor crash bug when no camera assigned to the scene
Bug fix – Fixed CIwGameHttp crash bug
Bug fix – Fixed ad rendering crash bug
Bug fix – Deleted scenes are now removed at the end of a frame and not immediately
Bug fix – Scenes with no attached camera didnt set transform correctly
Bug fix – Sprite hit test could be called before transform was set up
Accelerometer support added to CIwGameInput
Compass support added to CIwGameInput
CIwGameAdsMediator added to mediate ad requests between multiple ad providers to improve fill rate
Support for VServ, Mojiva, Millenial Media and AdModa ad providers added
ExtraInfo added to ad requests to allow custom information to be passed to ad providers
Added URLDecode method to CIwGameString

I want to include a big thank you to all those that have reported bugs and documentation errors, especially Phillip who saved me many hours of proof reading.

As you can see from te list of changes there are a fair few bug fixes (sorry about that), but more importantly some new stuff:

New Ad Networks Added

Yes, we now support six ad providers (twelve ad providers indirectly), a couple which also deliver ads from other networks providing you with access to 12 ad networks in total. Here’s the complete list:

Inner-active
AdFonic
Vserv – Also provides support for InMobi, BuzzCity, JumpTap, ZestAdz / Komli Mobile and Inner-active
Mojiva
Millennial Media – Also provides support for AdMob, Amobee, JumpTap and Mojiva
AdModa

Many thanks to those ad providers that bent over backwards to support our integration efforts.

New Ad Mediation Support

Now we have so many ad providers we need some way of mediating ad requests between them all. Ad Mediation is the process of going through a list of prioritised ad providers requesting an ad, if the ad provider does not provide an ad then request an ad from the next provider. Keep on doing this until you get an ad that you can use. This should hlpe you attaina near 100% fill rate and maximise your apsp potential ad revenues.

IwGame provides automated ad mediation using the CIwGameAdsMediator. To use the mediator you create a CIwGameAdsMediator, populate it with ad party’s then attach it to the CIwGameAds object as shown below:



// Create ad mediator and attach it to the main ad object
CIwGameAdsMediator* ad_mediator = new CIwGameAdsMediator();
IW_GAME_ADS->setMediator(ad_mediator);

// Create Inner-active ad party and add to the mediator
CIwGameAdsParty* party = new CIwGameAdsParty();
party->ApplicationID = "Your inner-active App ID";
party->Provider = CIwGameAds::InnerActive;
ad_mediator->addAdParty(party);

// Create AdModa ad party and add to the mediator
party = new CIwGameAdsParty();
party->ApplicationID = "You AdModa App ID";
party->Provider = CIwGameAds::AdModa;
ad_mediator->addAdParty(party);

// Create AdFonic ad party and add to the mediator
party = new CIwGameAdsParty();
party->ApplicationID = "Your AdFonic App ID";
party->Provider = CIwGameAds::AdFonic;
ad_mediator->addAdParty(party);

As you can see, incredibly simple. The process of attaching the ad mediator will ensure that the ad object will attempt to collect ads from all ad parties should previous parties fail to collect an ad. You do not need to make any changes to the ad view, the system is completely automated.

Support for Accelerometer and Compass added to CIwGameInput

CIwGameInput now has support for reading the devices accelerometer and compass devices allowing you to integrate these alternative input methods into your games.

Well that’s it for this update. More features coming soon (probably in the new year).

Happy holidays everyone!

IwGame Engine v0.25 Released – Documentation Added

December 14, 2011December 17, 2011 drmop

Well I feel quite shell-shocked, I’ve been working flat out and its taken a few days but I finally got the first draft of the documentation done for IwGame.

The documentation consists of an 81 page document in PDF, Word and OpenOffice formats and is located in the Docs folder in the IwGame distribution. Its a first draft so please expect lots of mistakes including quite probably some quite embarrassing auto correction mistakes.

As I was producing the documentation I found a number of holes that needed to be plugged, hence an update along with the documentation:

Here are the changes for IwGame v0.250:

Added first draft of IwGame engine manual in PDF, Word 97 and OpenOffice formats.
Added CIwGame::BringSceneToFont() to allow bringing of scenes to the top of the scene stack
Added naming to animations in CIwGameAnim
Added ne findAnimation() methods to CIwGameAnimManager
CIwGameSound SetVolume and SetPitch() now taking floating point values
Added support for active and visibility to CIwGameScene scenes
Fixed some string comparison issues
Can now stop auto ad requests using CIwGameAdsView::setNewAdInterval(0)
Fixed issue where bad ad requests were not timing out in CIwGameAdsView

Now its time get back on with my life

Funky Cam 3D Top Downloaded App for Bada on Samsung Apps

December 14, 2011December 14, 2011 drmop

Funky Cam 3D Icon

Yes, you read that right, we are pretty excited to announce that our Marmalade powered Samsung Bada app Funky Cam 3D FREE has just hit the No. 1 top spot on Samsung Apps. You can a grab a copy of our No. 1 Christmas hit at Funky Cam 3D on the Samsung App Store

Funky Cam 3D is also available on the following platforms:

* iPhone and iPad

* Android (also available on most other Android stores)

You can find out more about Funky Cam 3D at http://www.funkycam3d.co.uk

If you are interested to know how many downloads that equates to per day then the value is 3000-4000 downloads per day. Just goes to show the marketing power of Samsung’s Bada platform.

Marmalade SDK Bitesize Tutorial – How to Determine Device Operating System

December 12, 2011December 12, 2011 drmop

Just though that I would sneak this quick bite sized tutorial in whilst taking a breather from documenting IwGame. Tell you something, I never realised just what a big beast IwGame has become.

Ok, I’m going to quickly cover how to determine which device operating system we are running on using the Marmalade SDK.

The Marmalade SDK has two neat little functions called s3eDeviceGetInt(s3eDeviceProperty property) and s3eDeviceGetString(s3eDeviceProperty property) which allow us to query details about the device that we are running our apps on. As the names suggest, one returns an integer value, whilst the other returns a human readable string value.

Using the property parameter you can query all sorts of things such as:

Device operating system (S3E_DEVICE_OS)
Device phone number (S3E_DEVICE_PHONE_NUMBER)
Device language (S3E_DEVICE_LANGUAGE)
Battery level (S3E_DEVICE_BATTERY_LEVEL)
Operating system version (S3E_DEVICE_OS_VERSION)
Floating point unit support (S3E_DEVICE_FPU)
Language- country code pair, e.g. en-us (S3E_DEVICE_LOCALE)
Device UDID / IMEI (S3E_DEVICE_UNIQUE_ID)

And all sorts of other useful info. Check 3seDevice.h for a comprehensive list of all properties that you can retrieve.

To find out which operating system you are running on you call:

int os = s3eDeviceGetInt(S3E_DEVICE_OS);

You can then test for which OS is running using a simple switch statement like this:

	switch (os)
	{
	case S3E_OS_ID_SYMBIAN:
		break;
	case S3E_OS_ID_WINMOBILE:
		break;
	case S3E_OS_ID_WINCE:
		break;
	case S3E_OS_ID_QNX:
		break;
	case S3E_OS_ID_BADA:
		break;
	case S3E_OS_ID_ANDROID:
		break;
	case S3E_OS_ID_IPHONE:
		break;
	case S3E_OS_ID_WEBOS:
		break;
	case S3E_OS_ID_WINDOWS:
		break;
	case S3E_OS_ID_LINUX:
		break;
	case S3E_OS_ID_OSX:
		break;
	}

IwGame Engine v0.24 Released – New Unified Ad Engine Support

December 11, 2011December 13, 2011 drmop

Its taken a few weeks and loads of chasing people up and tests but we finally got our unified ad engine integrated into IwGame. And to celebrate that event we are releasing the code as open source. You can download the latest version of IwGame Engine from here

Here are the latest changes to IwGame:

Bug fix – Headers are now applied to CIwGameHttp GET requests
Added CIwGameHttpManager::DetermineUserAgent() to build a browser compatible user-agent
Added CIwGameHttpManager::DetermineIPAddress() to determine the users IP address. Please change PING_DOMAIN to your own domain!
Added CIwGameString::Replace(char chr, char with) char string replacment method
Added CIwGameString::Contains(char chr) to check if a string contains a particular char
Added CIwGameString::URLEncode(const char* str) to url encode an ascii string
Added CIwGameUtils::GetGraphicModeName(int width, int height) returns VGA style naming graphics mode
Added CIwGameAd – Main ad request class which requests and retrievs ads from a variety of ad providers (Inner-active and Adfonic are supported at the moment)
Added CIwGameAdView – Requests ads at set intervals and displays them using animations, can cache ads
Added CIwGameAdsViewAnimator, a basic example animator that can be used to animate ads in a CIwGameAdsView

As well as the ad request and ad view classes you will notice a few other neat additions that may prove useful such as DetermineIPAddress() and DetermineUserAgent(). DetermineUserAgent returns the IP of the device that your app is running on whilst builds a browser compatible user-agent string for all supported Marmalade platforms. Yes, I know the user-agent is fudged bit it seems to work well and its a lot more compatible with other web API’s than the default s3e user-agent header.

We decided to separate the ad request class CIwGameAds from the actual ad renderer CIwGameAdsView to enable developers to simply use one without the other, so if you just want the ability to put in an ad request feel free to just roll with CIwGameAds. if on the other hand you want the complete package that requests ads at a regular interval, displays them and handles clicks then go with CIwGameAdsView.

We have provided an example with the test bed this update that shows you how to initialise, update and shut down ads (see main.cpp). Lets take a quick look at the code that has been added:

Application ID

All ad networks need some way to identify you and your app as the originator of the ad and click requests, without them you wouldn’t get paid, so ensure that you sign up with any ad network that you are planning on usng and get your Application ID. Each ad p[rovider may call the application ID something different, such as site ID or vendor ID etc.. No matter what they call it, we call it the Application ID and it must be supplied to IW_GAME_ADS_VIEW->Init(Application_ID_String);. Note that the current example will show House Ads from inner-active even with no Application ID (this is just to show you it working).

Note that you can change your Application ID in-between requests as well as which provider you are using, this is a good way to ensure that you get a close to a 100% fill rate maximising your revenue; if one ad provider does not return an ad then request one from the next ad provider. We will add support to automate this at a later date.

Whats Changed in Our Code

Firstly we added the following headers:

#include “IwGameAdsView.h”
#include “IwGameAdsViewAnimator.h”

Then we added an initialisation function to initialise the ads system:



void AdTest_Init()
{
	int width = IwGxGetScreenWidth();
	int height = IwGxGetScreenHeight();

	// Create ad view
	CIwGameAdsView::Create();

	// Initialise with Application ID (you get this from your ad provider)
	IW_GAME_ADS_VIEW->Init("");

	// Set ad provider
	IW_GAME_ADS_VIEW->setAdProvider(CIwGameAds::InnerActive);

	// Set ad request interval in seconds
	IW_GAME_ADS_VIEW->setNewAdInterval(30);

	// Force a request for an initial ad
	IW_GAME_ADS_VIEW->RequestNewAd(CIwGameAds::InnerActive);

	// Set total number of ads visible in the ads view
	IW_GAME_ADS_VIEW->setNumAdsVisible(1);

	// Tell animators to loop
	IW_GAME_ADS_VIEW->setLooped(true);

	// Create and attach an animator that fades the ad in over 1 second, pauses for 7 seconds and then fades the ad back out
	CIwGameAdsViewAnimator* anim = new CIwGameAdsViewAnimator();
	anim->Init();
	anim->setAdViewDataIndex(0);
	anim->setCanvasSize(width, height);
	anim->setInAnim(CIwGameAdsViewAnimator::AnimFadeIn, 1000);
	anim->setOutAnim(CIwGameAdsViewAnimator::AnimFadeOut, 1000);
	anim->setStayDuration(7000);
	IW_GAME_ADS_VIEW->addAnimator(0, anim);

	// Create and attach an animator that sweeps the ad in from the right the over 1,2 seconds, pauses for 7 seconds and then sweeps back out
	anim = new CIwGameAdsViewAnimator();
	anim->Init();
	anim->setAdViewDataIndex(0);
	anim->setCanvasSize(width, height);
	anim->setRestingPosition(0, -height / 8);
	anim->setInAnim(CIwGameAdsViewAnimator::AnimRightSweepIn, 1200);
	anim->setOutAnim(CIwGameAdsViewAnimator::AnimRightSweepOut, 1200);
	anim->setStayDuration(7000);
	IW_GAME_ADS_VIEW->addAnimator(0, anim);

	// Create and attach an animator that scales the ad in over 1.5 seconds, pauses for 7 seconds and then scales back out
	anim = new CIwGameAdsViewAnimator();
	anim->Init();
	anim->setAdViewDataIndex(0);
	anim->setCanvasSize(width, height);
	anim->setInAnim(CIwGameAdsViewAnimator::AnimScaleIn, 1500);
	anim->setOutAnim(CIwGameAdsViewAnimator::AnimScaleOut, 1500);
	anim->setStayDuration(7000);
	IW_GAME_ADS_VIEW->addAnimator(0, anim);

	// Create and attach an animator that rotates the ad in over 1 second, pauses for 7 seconds and then rotates back out
	anim = new CIwGameAdsViewAnimator();
	anim->Init();
	anim->setAdViewDataIndex(0);
	anim->setCanvasSize(width, height);
	anim->setInAnim(CIwGameAdsViewAnimator::AnimSpinIn, 1000);
	anim->setOutAnim(CIwGameAdsViewAnimator::AnimSpinOut, 1000);
	anim->setStayDuration(7000);
	IW_GAME_ADS_VIEW->addAnimator(0, anim);
}

Don’t be alarmed and think OMG this is much harder than using AdMobs or iAds, most of this code is simply for setting up animations. In fact, yuo can just strip out the animation code (marked in orange) and remove it, the adw ill simply sit in the middle of the screen quite motionless.

Now lets take a look at how we update the ad system:



void AdTest_Update()
{
	// Update the ads view
	IW_GAME_ADS_VIEW->Update(GAME->getCurrentScene(), 1.0f);
	// Draw the ads view
	IW_GAME_ADS_VIEW->Draw(GAME->getCurrentScene());
}

Nice and super simple. if you are wondering, the underlying rendering is taken care of by Iw2D.

And finally our Ad clean up code:

void AdTest_Release()
{
IW_GAME_ADS_VIEW->Release();
CIwGameAdsView::Destroy();
}

All nice and easy stuff. Now you can run ads across all Marmalade SDK platforms, depending on the Ad Providers support for those platforms. Thus far we have tested on iOS, Android, Blackberry Playbook and Bada and ads are delivered and clicks registered.

Hiding and Showing Ads

If you are using CIwGameAdsView to display ads then you can call IW_GAME_ADS_VIEW->setVisible(ad_visibility) to change ad visibility. Note that, if you make the ads view invisible then it will stop requesting and updating ads.

Displaying Multiple Ads

CIwGameAdsView currently supports display of multiple cached ads simultaneously. To enable this feature simply call IW_GAME_ADS_VIEW->setNumAdsVisible(ad_count); This will tell ads view to draw the last ad_count ads that have not expired. You will need to set the screen positions, scales, rotations etc for each separate ad unit by calling setPosition(), setScale(), setAngle() etc methods of CIwGameAdsView. The first parameter is the index of the ad slot you want to change. You cam do this manually or attach animators.

Which Ad Providers Are Supported?

We’ve spent most of the last few weeks trying to integrate with ad providers network API’s, which is made more difficult than it should be because some providers are a bit lax and even unhelpful when it comes to providing integration support, some have been pretty good though, especially Inner-Active, they are very on-the-ball.

We went ahead and left all of the code in there for all providers that we have attempted to integrate this far in case any of you want to pick up on where we left off.

The current list of providers we have attempted integration with includes:

Inner-Active – Works incredibly well across all platforms
AdFonic – Works, now has full support for carrier and WiFi
MobFox – Ads wont deliver over WiFi or carrier, trying to fix
InMobi – Ads wont deliver over WiFi or carrier, trying to fix
Madvertise – Registering impressions but never returns any ads
Mojiva – Awaiting app approval before we can test, so potentially works

We plan to ad support for most of the other major Ad players, once we find details of the REST based API’s

What Information Do I Need to Supply?

You should provide at least the following minimum information to the CIwGameAds class before requesting ads:

Application ID

If you want more targeted ads then you can also supply other information such as:

Users Age
Users Gender
Users Location
Application Category
Users Mobile Number
Keywords associated with the user

Note that not all ad providers will use all of the above.

Marmalade SDK Tutorial – Apple iPhone and iPad Deployment and Submissions

December 10, 2011July 11, 2012 drmop

This tutorial is part of the Marmalade SDK tutorials collection. To see the tutorials index click here

Its been a while since I posted any new Marmalade SDK tutorials because I have been so incredibly busy, I’ve also been focusing a lot of time lately on the soon to be released IwGameAds update to the IwGame engine (should be up on the blog today). Well, I’m now project free, nothing to work on for clients at the moment, so I have free time to blog.

Ok, lets move into the subject of the blog, debugging, deploying and app store store submissions for iOS devices (iPhone, iPod and iPad). I felt an urgent need to cover this subject as I have noticed many problems popping up on the Marmalade forums relating to iOS provisioning and app store submissions, so my insane desire to help out has got me caught up in an afternoons work of creating this useful guide.

iOS Development on Marmalade Introduction

The great thing about developing iOS apps with Marmalade is that by following a few simple rules your aop will run on any supported device as long as it runs on the Marmalade SDK x86 / Arm simulators. If you have come from a Cocoa / Objective-C background there are a few things to note when devloping with Marmalade SDK:

C/C++ is the primary language for development
You don’t have access to interface builder, instead Marmalade provides UI and font builder applications for creating complex user interfaces and fonts
Development can be done on both PC or Mac.
You can add code that has been developed using the iOS SDK / Objective-C via Marmalades extensions developer kit (EDK), but this code will not be cross platform compatible, so will only work for iOS deployments
Marmalade now supports native UI via IwNUI allowing you to create UI layouts that use native IOS controls (currently supported on iOS, Android, other platforms will fall back on Marmalade’s generic UI API IwUI)

For the duration of this article we are going to use a fictional app called “iScream Candy” that we are going to fictionally provision, develop and distribute.

iOS Provisioning Introduction

Well, I don’t accuse Apples account set up and provisioning process to be impossible but is has had me in tears before, fortunately in this article I am going to hopefully save many of you a bucket load of tears by providing a nice list of steps showing how to sort all this our quickly and quite painlessly,

What is provisioning and why is it needed by the way? In general terms. provisioning is the process of enabling development for a developer, allowing them to build and deploy apps to Apples devices and limiting access to those apps. This is needed to a) prevent software piracy and b) keeps control of who can develop apps on Apple devices.

The first thing you are going to need is an Apple Developer account. Go to http://developer.apple.com and create one.

Once you have your developer account, you need to click on “iOS Dev Center” to gain access to iOS developer resources. You will be asked to log in again. once logged in you will be presented with the iOS Dev Centre front page, you should note the “iOS Developer Program” menu down the right hand side of the screen

Here you will see 4 options, but we are only really interested in the first one for now “iOS Provisioning Portal”, click on it to go the provisioning portal.

Now take a look down the left hand side of the screen, you will see quite a few options. These options allow us to generate developer and distribution certificates, add devices that are allowed to run our apps, create app ID’s and provisioning profiles.

iOS Development Certificates

In order to develop and distribute products on the iOS platform Apple needs to know that our app is made by us and that our apps code is reliable and if something should go wrong Apple know where to go knocking. Security certificates allow developers to sign applications using their identity showing that they are “trusted” and not some malicious software developer that’s creating apps to destroy iOS devices or steal users personal details.

There are two kinds of certificates that you are going to need:

Development certificate – You need this to deploy your app to iPhone. iPad and iPod
Distribution certificate – You need this to deploy your app ro the Apple app store

Creating an iOS Development Certificate

In order to deploy our cool iOS apps to our iPhone, iPod or iPad we need to create a development certificate. This process starts with the Marmalade SDK. Here are the complete instructions:

1. Run the Marmalade iPhone Sign Request tool, this will launch Marmalades signing request tool which will create a developer key and a signing request for you
2. Click “Browse” and select a folder where you want Marmalade to save the signing request
3. Select “developer_identity.key” from the Key File drop down
4. Now enter your developer company name into the “Common Name” box
5. Enter the email address that you have assigned to your Apple developer account into the Email Address box
6. Finally hit the “Run” button

The tool will now generate a file called signing_request.csr in the folder that you selected in step 2. It will also generate a developer_identity.key key file in the \Marmalade\5.x\s3e\deploy\plugins\iphone\certificates folder (make a backup of this file)

Now over to the Apple side of things:

7. Go to the “iOS provisioning portal”
8. Click on the “Certificates” menu
9. Click on the “Development” tab
10. Click on the “Request Certificate” button
11. You will see a button at the bottom of the screen called “Choose File”. Click that button and select the signingrequest.csr file that you exported from Marmalades signing request tool
12. Click the “Submit” button. The certificate will be marked as “issued”. Click on the “Development” tab again to refresh the page (sometimes you need to refresh few times), this will add a button called “Download” to the right of the screen
13. Click on the “Download” button, this will download a file called “ios_development.cer”, save this file
14. Make a backup of this file and also copy and rename the file as \Marmalade\6.x\s3e\deploy\plugins\iphone\certificates\developer_identity.cer
15. Marmalade will now use the developer_identity.key and developer_identity.cer to sign your apps for deployment during development

Creating and Provisioning an iOS Application for Development

You probably already have test app or even a full app that you are waiting to test out on an iOS device, but before you do, there are a couple of changes you need to make.

The first thing you will need is an Application ID (App ID) which uniquely identified your app to the world. To create one we need to head back over to Apples iOS provisioning portal and carry out the following steps:

16. Click App ID’s option on the menu
17. Click “New App ID” button
18. Enter “iSCream Candy” as the app description
19. Enter “com.yourcompanyname.iscreamcandy” as the Bundle Identifier
20. Click the “Submit” button which takes you back to the App ID’s list

In order to deploy to an actual device we need to add our Apple device to the provisioning portal like this:

21. Click on the “Devices” menu
22. Click the “Add Devices” button
23. Enter a name for your device (anything you like)
24. Enter your devices Device ID. To get your devices ID carry out the following steps:

a. Plugin your device into the USB
b. Run the iPhone Configuration Utility
c. Select your devices in the left hand menu
d. In the summary tab you will see an “Identity” field, the long hexadecimal string is your Device ID
e. Keep the configuration tool open because you will need this in a moment to install your provisioning profile to the device

25. Click the “Submit” button

You will also need a developer provisioning profile, so head back to Apples provisioning portal and carry out the following steps:

26. Click on the “Provisioning” menu
27. Click “Development” tab
28. Click “New Profile” button
29. Enter “iscream_candy” as the Profile Name
30. Tick the box next to your certificate name to associate the certificate with this profile
31. Select “iScream Candy” as the App ID
32. Tick the checkbox next to your iOS device that is in the list of devices
33. Click “Submit” button
34. Click on the “Development” tab to refresh the screen
35. Click the “Download” button at the side of the “iscream_candy” profile name and save the file (will be called “iscream_candy.mobileprovision”)
36. Drag the provisioning profile file “iscream_candy.mobileprovision” onto the iPhone Configuration Utility
37. Select your iOS device in the left hand menu in the the oPhone Configuration Utility
38. Select the “Provisioning Profiles” tab
39. Locate “iscream_candy” and click the “Install” button that is shown next to it

Now we go back to the Marmalade side of things. We need to let the Marmalade deployment tool know a few things about your app before we deploy:

40. Open up your projects MKB file
41. Add a section like this:

deployments { ["iPhone"] name=’iScreamCandy’ caption=’iScream Candy’ manufacturer=’Company Name’ provider=’Company Name’ version-major=1 version-minor=0 iphone-appid=’com.companyname.iscreamcandy’ }

This deployment section will allow us to auto fill in the information that we provided when we use Marmalades deployment tool to deploy our app to our iOS device.

We are now ready to build and deploy our app to the iPhone, iPad, and iPod.

Building and Deploying our App to an iOS Device

Ok, now we have provisioning for development and we have a deployment section added to our MKB project file, lets get our app installed to the device for testing.

42. In Visual Studio / XCode change the build type to GCC (ARM) Release and hit go, the project will now build. Once built, Visual Studio will launch the Marmalade Deployment Tool.
43. Select “ARM GCC Release” as the Build Type then click the Next button
44. Select “iPhone” as the deployment configuration then click the Next button
45. Select “iOS” as the platform to deploy to then click the Next button
46. Click the “Deploy All” button
47. When the deployment tool is finished it will create two files in our iPhone release deployments folder (the deployments folder is located in our build folder build_iscreamcandy_vc10\deployments\iPhone\iphone\release

Its worth noting here that you should check the deployment log to ensure that all went well, to do this click the “Log” button

48. Drag the iscream_candy.ipa file from that folder onto iTunes
49. in iTunes select your phone on in the menu on the left of the screen
50. Click on the apps tab and tick the checkbox next to our iScream Candy app then click on the Sync button to install the app

All being well the app should now appear on the iOS device.

Word of caution, delete your existing app from the iOS device before redeploying. Unless you change the version number of your app in the MKB file, iTunes will not install the same version number of an app if it already exists on the device.

Creating an iOS Distribution Certificate

So now you have a finished product and you want to submit it to the Apple app store for approval. The first thing you are going to need is a distribution certificate

In order to deploy our cool iOS apps to the app store we need to create a distribution certificate. This process starts with the Marmalade SDK, here are the complete instructions:

51.. Run the Marmalade iPhone Sign Request tool, this will launch Marmalades signing request tool
52. Click “Browse” and select a folder where you want Marmalade to save the distribution signing request
53. Change the name to “distro_signing_request.csr”
54. Select “distribution_identity.key” from the Key File drop down
55. Now enter your developer company name into the “Common Name” box
56. Enter the email address that you have assigned to your Apple developer account into the Email Address box
57. Finally hit the “Run” button

The tool will now generate a file called distro_signing_request.csr in the folder that you selected in step 2. It will also generate a distribution_identity.key key file in the \Marmalade\5.x\s3e\deploy\plugins\iphone\certificates folder (make a backup of this file)

Now over to the Apple side of things:

58. Go to the “iOS provisioning portal”
59. Click on the “Certificates” menu
60. Click on the “Distribution” tab
61. Click on the “Request Certificate” button
62. You will see a button at the bottom of the screen called “Choose File”. Click that button and select the distro_signingrequest.csr file that you exported from Marmalades signing request tool
63. Click the “Submit” button. The certificate will be marked as “issued”. Click on the “Distribution” tab again to refresh the page (sometimes you need to refresh few times), this will add a button called “Download” to the right of the screen
64. Click on the “Download” button, this will download a file called “ios_distribution.cer”
65. Make a backup of this file and also copy the file as \Marmalade\6.x\s3e\deploy\plugins\iphone\certificates\distribution_identity.cer
66. Marmalade will now use the distribution_identity.key and distribution_identity.cer to sign your apps for distribution to the app store

Creating and Provisioning an iOS Application for Distribution

We need a fair few bits and bobs in order to create an app that is ready for distribution to customers that are foaming at the mouth ready to spend their hard earned dollars on your new masterpiece (I wish lol). The first thing we need is a distribution provisioning profile that we can include with the app during submission, here’s how to generate it:

67. Click on the “Provisioning” menu in the iOS Provisioning Portal
68. Click “Distribution” tab
69. Click “New Profile” button
70. Ensure that “App Store” is selected
71. Enter “distro_iscream_candy” as the Profile Name
72. Select “iScream Candy” as the App ID
73. Ensure that the “Distribution Certificate” says “Company Name (expiring on {Some date in the future})”
74. Click “Submit” button
75. Click on the “Distribution” tab to refresh the screen
76. Click the “Download” button at the side of the “distro_iscream_candy” profile name and save the file
77. Copy the saved distro_iscream_candy.mobileprovision file to the Data folder in your build

Now over to the Marmalade side

78. Open up your projects MKB file
79. Update your deployments section to look something like this

deployments
{
  ["iPhone"]
  name='iScreamCandy'
  caption=''iScream Candy'
  manufacturer='Company Name'
  provider='Company Name'
  version-major=1
  version-minor=0
  iphone-appid='com.companyname.iscreamcandy'
  iphone-splash="data/Default~iphone.png"
  iphone-icon="data/icons/iPhoneIcon.png"
  iphone-icon-ipad="data/icons/iPadIcon.png"
  iphone-icon-high-res="data/icons/iPhone4Icon.png"
  iphone-sign-for-distribution='1'
  iphone-provisioning-profile="data/distro_iscream_candy.mobileprovision"
}

You will notice a few other extra pieces of information have appeared in the MKB file. As we are getting ready to distribute our app we also need to provide icons and splash screens. If you app is a unified iOS app (compatible with iPhone and iPad) then you need to supply splash screens and icons for both platforms.

Getting ready for iOS App Store Submission

Before we can submit our super cool but hastily named game to Apple for approval we need to create app icons, splash screens, screen shots and text / keywords etc..

80. The iOS expects the following sized icons (see above MKB deployment section to see how to include them)

iphone-icon – Standard iPhone icon (57 x 57 pixels)
iphone-icon-ipad – Standard iPad icon (72 x 72 pixels)
iphone-icon-high-res – iPhone with retina display (114 x 114 pixels)

81. In addition, you need to supply 3 different splash screens that need to have specific names:

Default~iphone.png – Standard iPhone splash screen (320 x 480 or 480 x 320)
Default~ipad.png – Standard iPad splash screen (768 x 1024 or 1024 x 768)
Default@2x~iphone.png – iPhone with retina display (640 x 960 or 960 x 640)

To ensure that these files get included in your build you need to add them to the assets section of your MKB file like this:

assets { (data) “Default~iphone.png” Default@2x~iphone.png “Default~ipad.png” }

82. You also need the following additional graphical items:
* 512 x 512 iTunes Artwork Icon – This is a hi-resolution version of your app icon
* At least 3 iPhone screen shots (320 x 480 or 480 x 320)
* At least 3 iPad screen shots (768 x 1024 or 1024 x 320)

iOS App Store Submission

We are finally there, woohoo, I’m so glad because my fingers are starting to break!

83. To submit an app to Apple you need to log into iTunes Connect (menu option beneath Provisioning Portal) on the iOS dev web site
84. Click on “Manage Your Applications”
85. Click on the “Add New App” button to create a new application
86. Enter “iScream Candy” as the App Name
87. Enter SKU number (put anything you like or that’s relevant to how you track apps)
88. Select “com.companyname.iscreamcandy” as the Bundle ID
89. Click the “Continue“ button
90. Select availability date to some point in the future (choose 2-3 weeks from now, you can change this when the app is passed)
91. Select price tier (to find out what the tiers mean in dollars click the “View Pricing Matrix” link)
92. Click the “Continue“ button
93. Fill in the app information, add app icon and screen shots etc..
94. Click the “Save” button
95. Click on the View Details for your app
97. Click on the “Ready to Upload Binary” button at the top right of the screen
98. Select “No” when asked about export compliance (unless you are using encryption) then click the “Save” button

The next screen will tell you how to download and install XCode so you can gain access to Application Loader (a small app that lets you send you binary to apply for certification)

99. Click “Continue”
100. Locate and run “Application Loader” on the Mac (Minimum version Mac OS X 10.5).This should be located in /Developer/Applications/Utilities/Application Loader.app. if not then you will need to download and install either the latest version of XCode or iOS SDK 3.2
101. Click “Next” on the application loader welcome screen
102. Log in with your iTunes Connect log in details
103. When asked to “Choose Application” select the iScream Candy application from the drop down list and click “Next”
104. Check that the application metadata information is correct then click “Choose” to browse and select your applications binary zip file
105. Click the “Send” button to send the application binary to Apple
106. Once the application has finished uploading you will see a thank you screen, click the “Done” button to close it. If the application was not signed properly you will be notified here

Enabling Push notifications

For some odd reason Apple knocks all our apps back that are not push enabled (even though we do not use it), here’s the additional steps you will need to carry out to enable it.

107. Click “Configure” link next to the app ID for iScream Candy
108. Tick the “Enable for Apple Push Notification service” check box
109. At the side of the “Production Push SSL Certificate” click the “Configure” button
110. A window will pop up, click the “Continue” button
111. Click the “Choose File” button and select the signing_request_dtstro.csr file from earlier
112. Click the “Generate” button
113. Click “Continue” button then the “Done” button

And that’s it, you’re app is now in Apple heaven. It usually takes between 7 and 21 days to get approval, less if it is an update.

A few Additional Notes

I asked you to back up your certificates as you generate them earlier because when you install a new version of the Marmalade SDK you may lose them as you uninstall the previous version of the SDK. If you back them up you can simply copy them back into the \Marmalade\5.x\s3e\deploy\plugins\iphone\certificates folder
Provisioning profiles expire so you need to renew them now and again. Your IOS device will usually remind you when you need to renew a provisioning profile.

Well that’s its for this article. With any luck I have saved some of you much pain and suffering and hopefully a few buckets of tears

Marmalade are Having a Christmas Sale!

December 6, 2011 drmop

Whilst I’m not much keen on Marmalade on my toast, it certainly tastes nice when it comes to cross platform game and app development. Not only can I write code in a single language, but I can also deploy to over 10 platforms with ease, including iPhone, iPad, Android, Bada 1.0 / 2.0, Blackberry Playbook, LG-TV, Symbian, Windows Mobile, WebOS, Mobile Linux, Windows and Mac OSX!

The people behind the best cross platform native SDK (that’s the Marmalade SDK for all you inter-galactic new arrivals) are now having a Christmas license sale. All licenses are now 20% off! If you have been toying with the idea of buying a license then I suggest you get it now and save yourself 20% off the usual price, bringing the basic license down to $134 and the pro license down to $399.

Don’t forget you can also get yourself a free license by getting accepted into Marmalade’s apps program or by contributing code to the community.

So go to Marmalade’s web site and grab a license whilst prices are stupidly cheap.