BlackBerry 10 and Construct 2

Hello all,

I was hoping to get some community feedback here but first I just want to introduce myself. My name is Erik Oros and I'm an Application Development Consultant with the Developer Relations team at Research In Motion. My area of expertise is in the HTML5 space and my primary focus is on gaming with BlackBerry (Canvas2D, WebGL, etc.)

I've been speaking with a handful of our developers lately and Construct 2 is a common topic that comes up, but I also hear that there is a little bit missing in terms of getting Construct 2 applications built for BlackBerry 10. I also want to admit that I am very new to Construct 2.

I went through the process of creating a very basic Construct 2 application, exporting to HTML5, and then using our BlackBerry 10 tools separately to package it up into a BlackBerry 10 application, and it seemed to run well.

However, I also hear from our developers that there's the potential for creating a plugin that would help simplify this for developers. Another question is how to use WebWorks APIs (our JavaScript APIs for native API access) within a Construct 2 application. I haven't gone this far in my testing yet, but would be happy to hear your feedback on your experience.

And that's what I'm looking for right now. From my initial tests, it seems that Construct 2 to BlackBerry 10 is possible through the HTML5 export, and manually building. But what is it that you (as a Construct 2 developer) would want to see improved and made simpler in order to make that transition easier?

Feel free to overwhelm me with information :-) I can't make any promises for overnight solutions, but I want to do what I can to help.

Thanks for reading! Looking forward to your insight.

I don't own blackberry device and haven't made applications destined to this target, but what I can tell is that if you want to make some plugin for C2, what you need is C2 SDK and you can also check the JavaScript SDK development forum.

I appreciate that, will take a look through.

WaterlooErik - I recently heard from a user that WebWorks rejected files with '-' and '_' characters, which are crucial for Construct 2 to work. Has this (silly) limitation been fixed?

Also, I don't have a BB10 device. I would be willing to spend some time making sure C2 can export to BB10 easily if I had a real device to test with... any chance you could send me one? Feel free to email me at ashleyrhi@scirra.com if you want to discuss further.

Hi Ashley,

I'll double check that it's been fixed, but I have used the '-' and '_' symbols recently in my applications and hadn't noticed any issues. If it is a problem though, I'll raise it with our WebWorks development team.

As for a device, I'll run it past a colleague and will send you an email (eoros@rim.com) once I know more. Many from our team are traveling to our conference in Thailand next week so my response might be just a little delayed, but I'll definitely let you know.

It would be great to get them in your hands and have a proper export option for BlackBerry 10 out-of-the-box.

Cheers!

I exported 10 games to bb10 and apparently work well.

I'll be waiting for that exporter, was a headache so.

Cheers

Hello, i've developed some games for BB10 during Port-A-Thon, it was a great event. I had to run games on Ripple and then export to simulator, but BB10 simulator had a bug couldn't render Canvas, otherwise Playbook runs fine.

It's nice to have a plugin and exporter that we couldn't have time to access private API.

I guess Ashley can make another exporter which generate config.xml for BB10 like he did for PhoneGap. Then export to Ripple. You should contact him.

Most APIs for BB10 we would require like Application, Camera, Context, Current User, Dialog, FileTransfer, Push, Invoke Elements, etc.

I have no big experience to use Javascript SDK to integrate BB10 APIs.

I'm sure you will love Construct 2, you make games sooo faster without writing the codebase, just click events and type variables.

Thanks!

Now were talking business. Great forum post. Its awesome to see RIM really get behind developers and support them like this. Hopefully you can help make the process easier. BB10 is the only one left for construct to be able to export to as a platform. Maybe Ashley and WaterlooErik can work together to make this as easy for construct 2 developers to export for BB10. Another thing on the list though should be issues with the sound that people have commented on. I think the exporter and the sound are the most important issues with construct 2 being able to run on BB10. The other things are just a bonus. It would be great as BB10 is another market to sell apps on. I hear blackberry users pay for apps more than iOS users!!!

Regarding the canvas issues, it's something that we became aware of during the Port-A-Thon. I'd created canvas applications in the past and never come across it myself, but I saw the issue in a sample app I created afterwards; haven't identified the difference between the working/not working samples yet. I logged the issue blackberry.com/jira/browse/BBTEN-417 and have seen it fixed on newer builds. Now working to get it into the public builds ASAP.

ronval: Could you please elaborate on the sound issue? I've seen some threads regarding OGG support, and for this I can file a feature request against the actual OS. The quickest workaround in the interim though would be another file format. Or is there more to the issue / any thread you can point me at?

Joannesalfa: Luckily HTML5 is closing the gap in a lot of these places (i.e. file access, camera via getUserMedia, etc.) but I certainly see the value in getting full native API support down. Will keep you posted on this front as we progress.

Thank you for the comments and and certainly do keep the feedback coming. In the meantime, I'm going to keep familiarizing myself with the tools.

Kudos to RIM for this.

I'm looking forward to try that exporter.

For the sounds people were having issues with the volume going full blast. check out this post scirra.com/forum/blackberrymax-sound-volume-bug_topic57633.html it seems to be a common complaint.

Im not sure if the latest updates to the OS fixed some of these things. As for using other file types looking at this forum post a member changed to file type but it was giving him the same problem. again im not sure if the latest OS update has fixed these things. you can see a post on it here

scirra.com/forum/blackberry-playbook-html5-built-game-volume-issue_topic50692.html

hope that helps out a bit

ronval: I appreciate the information on that. I'll put together some tests on my end to see if we can produce this with the latest BlackBerry 10 system, and if so will raise it with our development teams for further investigation.

If there's any additional feedback from the community, please don't hesitate in sharing. As noted, I want to ensure as many obstacles as possible are removed for this community.

Thanks ronval told me here.

On Playbook:

1.As Ashley said, naming issue is annoying.

Symbols/Space limitation make things harder from game making to packaging.

2.WebGL not supported.

http://supportforums.blackberry.com/t5/Web-and-WebWorks-Development/TEXT-object-cause-black-screen-after-OS-2-1-0-1032/td-p/1938303

3.Blackberry Graphical Aid is not a reliable tool, same as Ripple.

http://supportforums.blackberry.com/t5/Web-and-WebWorks-Development/Can-t-build-Bar-from-zip-by-Blackberry-Graphical-Aid/td-p/1861711

4.By the webwork tutorial I've followed, I think BB10 and PlaybookOS are not the same structure of development. The SDK I have to download for Playbook is different to the SDK for BB10beta. When the resolution of BB10 and Playbook are very different, It's not easy to make a game once and publish to both BB10 and Playbook; and I am not sure WaterlooErik's plugin work will help both BB10 phone and Playbook, or only BB10 phone?

Last week I got paid from RIM,

compared with iOS/Android/Win8, the paying speed is amazing.

However, with the problems above,

I am very sorry to get those money by a game lack of minimum standard performance.

gonzdevour

Perhaps that's why I haven't seen the symbols/space issue, I've been building with the BlackBerry 10 SDK. I'll double check on the latest PlayBook SDK, though I can't guarantee an update would be possible as essentially all development efforts are on BlackBerry 10 nowadays. If the fix is small, perhaps it could be added in.

I'll have to take a closer look at the WebGL issue; WebGL as a whole is definitely supported on the PlayBook platform, however if there is a component that is breaking WebGL, that's something that we'd need to escalate to our development teams to have fixed. Have you by chance already submitted a bug report on this to the development teams?

For Ripple, if you're still seeing issues, please fire me an email to eorosxmv@rim.com and we can work together to get it working properly. I can set up a phone call if you like too and we can talk it out. Are you using the standalone Ripple installation? The standalone was EOL'd a while back and isn't maintained anymore. The recommended Ripple currently is the Chrome Extension version 0.9.10. There are a few things we need to double-check to get the default localhost working, which I'd be happy to work with you on. Alternatively, a local web server is what I generally recommend.

While there are two separate SDKs for PlayBook and BlackBerry 10, this is because PlayBook applications exist within an AIR container, and BlackBerry 10 applications are HTML5 that hook directly into native (C/C++). There are some API changes, and some config.xml changes, but overall the process and structure should be very similar.

I agree that screen resolutions can be a nightmare to manage, which is why we've standardized our touch-screen devices to 1280x720 and keyboard devices to 720x720 moving forward. There will still be some adaptation required, but you shouldn't need to make these adjustments with every new device launch as was the case in the past.

Any plugins created will target BlackBerry 10 first, with the potential for PlayBook. Since the PlayBook is going to be upgradable to BlackBerry 10 eventually anyways, the tradeoff between effort and importance comes into play.

Perhaps that's why I haven't seen the symbols/space issue, I've been building with the BlackBerry 10 SDK. I'll double check on the latest PlayBook SDK, though I can't guarantee an update would be possible as essentially all development efforts are on BlackBerry 10 nowadays. If the fix is small, perhaps it could be added in.

Thanks.

I'll have to take a closer look at the WebGL issue; WebGL as a whole is definitely supported on the PlayBook platform, however if there is a component that is breaking WebGL, that's something that we'd need to escalate to our development teams to have fixed. Have you by chance already submitted a bug report on this to the development teams?

Yes. I 've sent a zip not only to the development teams,

but also to an Application Development Consultant Mr.Wong in RIM HK.

However, maybe it's hard to discover what happened by the zip,

I think the C2 exported files are not simple enough to debug.

If you are trying C2, just put a text object and turn WebGL on/off to see what happened in .bar.

I am not sure if this issue fixed. It's about a month ago and I found Playbook OS has updated.

For Ripple, if you're still seeing issues, please fire me an email to eorosxmv@rim.com and we can work together to get it working properly. I can set up a phone call if you like too and we can talk it out. Are you using the standalone Ripple installation? The standalone was EOL'd a while back and isn't maintained anymore. The recommended Ripple currently is the Chrome Extension version 0.9.10. There are a few things we need to double-check to get the default localhost working, which I'd be happy to work with you on. Alternatively, a local web server is what I generally recommend.

Thanks, you are kind.

I am using command line to ensure all things worked and pop out the real reason if error,

It's enough for me right now, but I think a much more friendly Ripple is necessary.

While there are two separate SDKs for PlayBook and BlackBerry 10, this is because PlayBook applications exist within an AIR container, and BlackBerry 10 applications are HTML5 that hook directly into native (C/C++). There are some API changes, and some config.xml changes, but overall the process and structure should be very similar.

Got it. If there're plugins and exporter to deal config and API integration,

It will be a great inducement for C2ers to try RIM platform.

I agree that screen resolutions can be a nightmare to manage, which is why we've standardized our touch-screen devices to 1280x720 and keyboard devices to 720x720 moving forward. There will still be some adaptation required, but you shouldn't need to make these adjustments with every new device launch as was the case in the past.

While iPhone5 and Win8 makes their screen 16:9,

I think 1280x720 is a nice idea. It helps the developers easier to make cross-platform plans.

Any plugins created will target BlackBerry 10 first, with the potential for PlayBook. Since the PlayBook is going to be upgradable to BlackBerry 10 eventually anyways, the tradeoff between effort and importance comes into play.

Playbook is an old guy........but I can understand that RIM has no superiority to join the Arm Race.

As a game constructor, what we need is a platform with 60 fps for all the game genre.

Hope BB10's software acceleration can make it with HTML5.