How is C2 doing with mobile apps these days?

I'm referring to apps really, not games. I know that the C3 is already available and it facilitates in some aspects, but as I already bought C2 I intend to use it for a while. Here are some questions about C2 mobile development:

1 - What is the best way to handle fonts when it comes to a mobile app these day? sprite font?

2 - The best way to have an app published in the Play Store is still by exporting it with Intel XDK or do we have other better options?

3 - Today, for those looking to have an app published in the Play Store, what is the best way to add advertisements using C2? if you make mobile apps/games, what do you use?

4 - As my application handles various information in text, including some that the user can write, what would be the best way to 'save' these texts for the application to load again later?

5 - About text again: is the text box working fine? if the user touches the text box the android keyboard open and work as intended?

Thank you!

Bump!

Please guys, if someone can help me with this questions I'll be VERY thankful.

My answers for the questions I can answer right now:

1 - Webfonts.

2 - I use Cocoon.io, but you might want to wait for the official Scirra cloud build to support C2.

4 - I'd say try out localstorage, but last time I checked it erases every time the app is updated. Someone might prove me wrong on this.

"1 - What is the best way to handle fonts when it comes to a mobile app these day? sprite font?"

Yeah, Spritefont works great. Can't imagine what else you'd use. If you can't get it to work properly, let me know. It took some fiddling experimentation and reading to make it work on my end.

"2 - The best way to have an app published in the Play Store is still by exporting it with Intel XDK or do we have other better options?"

Cordova export works great for me, then use free Adobe Phonegap build, private build, enable debugging, name version to some letters in C2, otherwise it won't build.

"3 - Today, for those looking to have an app published in the Play Store, what is the best way to add advertisements using C2? if you make mobile apps/games, what do you use?"

Advertisements, I don't know. Seems a really low revenue source, so I though I'd just charge something reasonable for my game, then if you get a decent number of downloads, at least you make some money.

"4 - As my application handles various information in text, including some that the user can write, what would be the best way to 'save' these texts for the application to load again later?"

Think people use JSON for that or something. You can do some Googling on Scirra site and straight Google. Never needed myself.

"5 - About text again: is the text box working fine? if the user touches the text box the android keyboard open and work as intended?"

Think most people frown upon this sort of question unless you get lucky as this is something you could test on your phone with a quick capx easy.

But anyway, think I answered most of your questions. Maybe I can cash in at some point in the future? (wink)

"Maybe I can cash in at some point in the future? (wink)"

haha

Thank you very much for the answers guys!

There´s quite some stuff to think about regarding mobile stuff, recently I took that challenge myself and it was quite a cruise.

1 - What is the best way to handle fonts when it comes to a mobile app these day? sprite font?

I think sprite fonts are the fastest option, but webfonts work fine too for me. So I´d go with webfonts, as I think they are a bit easier to handle than sprite fonts.

2 - The best way to have an app published in the Play Store is still by exporting it with Intel XDK or do we have other better options?

Use Cordova CLI. I tried all the Phonegap/XDK etc. stuff... just use the CLI. Once you worked into it it´s easy peasy and much less of a hassle.

3 - Today, for those looking to have an app published in the Play Store, what is the best way to add advertisements using C2? if you make mobile apps/games, what do you use?

Cannot answer that, but I had some troubles with IAP and admob, so it´s disabled right now. For ads I might actually go a different route, instead of using some kind of ad-network, I will try to go the direct route and simply offer banner space, that I can add in myself. I can even add them without updating the app, as they are loaded from the server. (This version isn´t online yet though)

4 - As my application handles various information in text, including some that the user can write, what would be the best way to 'save' these texts for the application to load again later?

There´s a bunch of options for this. The mentioned JSON format is probably the best option. Also you might want to look into local storage.

5 - About text again: is the text box working fine? if the user touches the text box the android keyboard open and work as intended?

Yes and no. Textboxes are a bit on the weird side, and actually quite annoying, as different phones and OS handle it different. Even different android versions make a difference.

When user tap on it, the onscreen keyboard opens fine on all devices. But that´s about the only consistent thing. Now the on-screen keyboard shows and...

• Everything is fine, yay
• The keyboard covers a part or all of the input box, pretty annoying
• The app scrolls up by itself in order to compensate for the missing space
• The whole app shrinks to whatever space is left with they keyboard, also very annoying

I still haven´t figured out how to handle this perfectly. If I go ahead and add a fix so the keyboard doesn´t cover the input boxes, on the phones that already compensate by themselves the app will scroll way too high and at best just looks pretty ugly. Same goes for the phones that shrink it, while this usually happens on iPhones, some android phones have this too. Also it does not happen on all iPhones only on some, where I then need to compensate again, or the phone does it by itself, where I cannot compensate for it. Dunno if someone has a catch-all solution for this.

There´s quite some stuff to think about regarding mobile stuff, recently I took that challenge myself and it was quite a cruise.

1 - What is the best way to handle fonts when it comes to a mobile app these day? sprite font?

I think sprite fonts are the fastest option, but webfonts work fine too for me. So I´d go with webfonts, as I think they are a bit easier to handle than sprite fonts.

2 - The best way to have an app published in the Play Store is still by exporting it with Intel XDK or do we have other better options?

Use Cordova CLI. I tried all the Phonegap/XDK etc. stuff... just use the CLI. Once you worked into it it´s easy peasy and much less of a hassle.

3 - Today, for those looking to have an app published in the Play Store, what is the best way to add advertisements using C2? if you make mobile apps/games, what do you use?

Cannot answer that, but I had some troubles with IAP and admob, so it´s disabled right now. For ads I might actually go a different route, instead of using some kind of ad-network, I will try to go the direct route and simply offer banner space, that I can add in myself. I can even add them without updating the app, as they are loaded from the server. (This version isn´t online yet though)

4 - As my application handles various information in text, including some that the user can write, what would be the best way to 'save' these texts for the application to load again later?

There´s a bunch of options for this. The mentioned JSON format is probably the best option. Also you might want to look into local storage.

5 - About text again: is the text box working fine? if the user touches the text box the android keyboard open and work as intended?

Yes and no. Textboxes are a bit on the weird side, and actually quite annoying, as different phones and OS handle it different. Even different android versions make a difference.

When user tap on it, the onscreen keyboard opens fine on all devices. But that´s about the only consistent thing. Now the on-screen keyboard shows and...

• Everything is fine, yay
• The keyboard covers a part or all of the input box, pretty annoying
• The app scrolls up by itself in order to compensate for the missing space
• The whole app shrinks to whatever space is left with they keyboard, also very annoying

I still haven´t figured out how to handle this perfectly. If I go ahead and add a fix so the keyboard doesn´t cover the input boxes, on the phones that already compensate by themselves the app will scroll way too high and at best just looks pretty ugly. Same goes for the phones that shrink it, while this usually happens on iPhones, some android phones have this too. Also it does not happen on all iPhones only on some, where I then need to compensate again, or the phone does it by itself, where I cannot compensate for it. Dunno if someone has a catch-all solution for this.

Wow, thank you very much! That's some really interesting stuff.

It will help a lot.

In fact, I just want to use C2 for my app cause I'm no programmer. I took a look in that MIT engine too, that is made for mobile development and have a visual script. Unfortunatelly, it seems very simple... lacking much content. Let's see if C2 can handle my needs.

Again, thank you for the information!