Intel XDK Release 3900

Okay, you know what - I am kind of a lost now.

So I just had a crazy idea of making a silly mobile game for my son and some of his friends. If they would like the game I'll push it to the global market (google play first). I will need AdMob plugin for that and perhaps some way of IAPs later down the pipe.

Now What?

year ago I would just make the thing, port it to XDK, publish on Google Play and call it a day. What am I supposed to do now? Any up-to-date tutorial for such case? For Construct 2 of course.

Or do I really have to start migrating to Game Maker already? :/

> I mean, if I make a mobile game in C2 and export it, can I use the Scirra service to generate the APK ?.

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Yes, that's the idea.

Oh you mean just the thing that should be there from the very begining and which we requested countless times before?

You know, that thing that might had save you from troubles of doing it now in a rush?

Yeah. That thing. Nice to hear it'll be worked on after all those years.

Just a bit late, so to say.

I'm a pure novice when it comes to gamedev. I chose C2 over other game engines because of its ease of use. It bothered me the first time why I had to use an outside resource to export my apps. But I disregarded it and dove in anyway and used C2 as well as learned how Intel XDK works with it. It's even on Scirra's front page advertising XDK.

But now I'm on a loss and confused. As Unconnected mentioned, PhoneGap and Cocoon.io have it's limits compared to XDK. I have apps on Google play and App Store. I'm hoping C2 to C3 service build will come soon enough before XDK export vanishes. I'm even willing to pay a little bit extra if they incorporate a build tool. I just feel, as other did, a C2 export build should have been incorporated a long time ago to prevent novices like me scrambling looking for other solutions. It's like Scirra is saying: "you use our game engine but we don't care and dgaf how you publish it..." and just sugar coat it with "..because these build tools are better.. (since we can't come up with one)"

AFAIK, PhoneGap Build has identical support to the XDK. So you can just use PhoneGap Build now. They are both based on Cordova.

The main reason we postponed our own build system is the XDK did the job for free. It's a shame they are retracting a free service, but since nobody ever paid for it, it's not really that surprising.

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> > ugh...XDK is what I use as well... I wonder why they nixed it?

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> Probably because they've provided their services for free and never charged.

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Actually it's because Android Nougat does not require the webview engine anymore.

It kinda sucks for us because the projects that run on webview will face some issues on devices running latest version of Android Nougat.

Android has not needed Crosswalk acceleration since 5.0 (Lollipop) was released. If your only interest in Crosswalk was a good performance webview (which is true for most Construct2 users), then you can limit distribution of apps built with Crosswalk to Android 4.x devices, because Android 5+ devices have a webview that is updated regularly by Google (no guarantee of how often it is updated for non-Google stores).

If you have imported your app into the Intel XDK, and Crosswalk is enabled for that project, the config.xml file we provide using the PhoneGap Build/Cordova CLI export tool will result in including the Crosswalk library when built with either PhoneGap Build or Cordova CLI. The APK you get using that config.xml will be a "multi-architecture" APK, because the PhoneGap Build interface will only return a single APK file to you. That APK will be larger than the one you normally get from the XDK because it contains both a 32-bit x86 Crosswalk lib and a 32-bit ARM Crosswalk lib, but only one APK needs to be submitted to your Android store.

If you have a project in the XDK, I recommend you do the export so you can get the config.xml file it generates for reference, especially if you are going to permanently move away from the XDK and move to using either Cordova CLI directly or PhoneGap Build. There are a few bugs we are working on, but by and large what it generates now will work.

PS -- if you remove the spec="#.#.#" part of the Crosswalk plugin tag in the config.xml file you'll get a build that will use the most recent version of Crosswalk, which is version 23. Likewise, if you remove the <preference name="phonegap-version" value="cli-6.2.0" /> tag you'll get the latest CLI build from PhoneGap Build (what you get with Cordova CLI depends on the version you installed).

Does this mean we will lose access to our apps that were published with XDK using Cordova since the KeyStore we used is on XDK? If we export them from XDK are we able to import them elsewhere or is the export for XDK only?

The keystore you've been using with the XDK has always been available to you. Use the Certificate Management tool under the Account Settings section of the XDK (upper right corner "person" icon). From there you can download your keystore (see the docs for the PhoneGap Build/Cordova CLI export tool).

Even when the XDK build server has been retired, you'll still be able to download the keystore file, which you will need if you use either PhoneGap Build or Cordova CLI to build your app.

NOTE: retrieving the keystore only makes sense if you ALREADY have an app in a store. If you have never published your app, there is no need to retrieve that keystore from the XDK.

Exporting to mobile is about to get either much more, or less complicated.

It's kind of hard to tell right now.

AFAIK, PhoneGap Build has identical support to the XDK. So you can just use PhoneGap Build now. They are both based on Cordova.

The main reason we postponed our own build system is the XDK did the job for free. It's a shame they are retracting a free service, but since nobody ever paid for it, it's not really that surprising.

PhoneGap is paid and limited. Are you telling me to spend even more money...?!?

Hi xmnboy

thanks for the explanation. It is a pity that Intel decided to abandon the build server, it would be better if you introduced a fee for this service

I knew where to export it.

I wasn't sure if it was a universal export/import.

Thanks.

PhoneGap is paid and limited. Are you telling me to spend even more money...?!?

PhoneGap Build offers one free "private" slot. You can use that private slot to build as many apps as you want. The private slot doesn't remember the name of the app you've built with it, so if you have three apps you can build all three with that free private slot. After you build "appA" just upload a ZIP of "appB" into the private slot and build that, etc.

They do limit the size of the ZIP you can upload into the private slot, but for most users I don't think the size limit is an issue.

Of course, the Cordova CLI option is completely free, which is exactly what PhoneGap Build and the Intel XDK build tools are based on. Both create Cordova CLI apps.

> PhoneGap is paid and limited. Are you telling me to spend even more money...?!?

>

PhoneGap Build offers one free "private" slot. You can use that private slot to build as many apps as you want. The private slot doesn't remember the name of the app you've built with it, so if you have three apps you can build all three with that free private slot. After you build "appA" just upload a ZIP of "appB" into the private slot and build that, etc.

They do limit the size of the ZIP you can upload into the private slot, but for most users I don't think the size limit is an issue.

Of course, the Cordova CLI option is completely free, which is exactly what PhoneGap Build and the Intel XDK build tools are based on. Both create Cordova CLI apps.

Ahh finally some good news. Thx buddy!

There is a 50mb limit with PhoneGap, that doesn't bode well...

> PhoneGap is paid and limited. Are you telling me to spend even more money...?!?

>

PhoneGap Build offers one free "private" slot. You can use that private slot to build as many apps as you want. The private slot doesn't remember the name of the app you've built with it, so if you have three apps you can build all three with that free private slot. After you build "appA" just upload a ZIP of "appB" into the private slot and build that, etc.

They do limit the size of the ZIP you can upload into the private slot, but for most users I don't think the size limit is an issue.

Of course, the Cordova CLI option is completely free, which is exactly what PhoneGap Build and the Intel XDK build tools are based on. Both create Cordova CLI apps.

yea but the game must be under 50MB. So nothing fancy.

But okay. I can manage. What about AdMob/IAPs support?

yea but the game must be under 50MB. So nothing fancy.

But okay. I can manage. What about AdMob/IAPs support?

Like the Intel XDK cloud-based build system, the PhoneGap Build system also does not allow the use of Cordova CLI "hooks scripts." These "hooks scripts" are special scripts included with plugins that allow the plugin to perform extra tasks before and after the build process. In the case of the Intel XDK build system they were disallowed, primarily for security reasons, because there are no limitations on the actions those scripts can take.

Given that limitation, if you have successfully incorporated and used a plugin with the Intel XDK build system you should be able to use that same plugin with the PhoneGap Build system. Our plugin restrictions have generally been stricter than the PhoneGap Build restrictions, and many plugin writers have alternate versions of their plugins that are specifically directed at and tested on PhoneGap Build, so I do not see any plugin compatibility issues for users of the Intel XDK build system that migrate to PhoneGap Build.

Also, given that Adobe maintains a faster and more complete adoption rate for their PhoneGap Build system, I would expect more flexibility and better results with their build system than with ours.

Well crap, 30 R$ per month just to use a phonegap paid plan