From the Forum — Issue #122

09 May 2016

From the Forum — Issue #122

Welcome to the latest installment of From the Forum. In this series, guest blogger Alex Jackson highlights outstanding threads from the Corona Forum. The goal is to bring attention to the most captivating, interesting, and thought-provoking discussions taking place in our very own backyard.

Please visit the forum to join these conversations or start your own!

Accessible desktop logging

By now, we’re all intensely familiar with debugging methods on mobile devices. ADB logcat, Xcode interfaces, and lines upon lines of monochrome text invade my dreams at this point, and I don’t think I’m the only one!

When developing and deploying on desktops, though, it’s even easier to access the logging done by your app. Be it Windows or OS X, it’s easy to obtain. Check out the original thread below to grab the locations, and don’t forget to bookmark them!

https://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/62935-how-to-get-logs-for-macosx/

Easily handle resizeable windows

Desktop deployment for Corona SDK is getting more and more mature with every day that passes. New features are being added, more APIs are being opened up, and more tires are getting kicked to squeeze every last drop of performance out of our apps and games.

Window size is one feature that wasn’t necessary to address in the mobile world. We all know that scaling on mobile devices is paramount, but in a desktop environment, it can be beneficial to have one specific window size to accommodate the scale of the graphics you are implementing. Games with pixel art and utilities with a large amount of widgets are just a couple examples.

It’s relatively simple to set this feature up in your project, but what if you want to have both a fullscreen and windowed solution? Corona engineer Joshua Quick provides some code snippets to enable bouncing between either option. Head over to the original thread to get the lowdown!

https://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/62982-fullscreen-cant-change-window-type-on-launch/

Leave mobile devices at the door

It’s not all that common to see an app that is trying to fill a niche. These days, the software landscape is so crowded with choices, it can be a hindrance to make your product available on only a select few devices.

However, there are some circumstances when this is the only option. Perhaps you’re leveraging a specific control type for your gameplay, or you are developing a utility that will only be relevant to users in front of their desktops. Whatever the case, these situations certainly can emerge. Recently, one developer wondered how they can ensure that their app is only available for Android TV devices instead of every single Android device that is currently supported. It turns out that it’s technically feasible, but with a few caveats. Slide over to the original thread to get some more information on how to accomplish this in your own apps!

https://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/62876-support-only-tv/

About Alex

Alex Jackson is an indie developer and the founder of Panc Interactive, specializing in retro-style gaming. He has created several mobile applications, enjoys long walks on the beach, pixel art, and reading the Corona forums. Contact him by email or follow him on Twitter: @pancinteractive. Check out his new game Segreta on iOS, Android, Windows Phone and Amazon devices.