HTML5 builds are now in “Open Beta”

20 March 2018

HTML5 builds are now in “Open Beta”

Good news! Today Corona is pleased to announce that HTML5 builds are in “Open Beta”. That means starting with daily build 2018.3238, you can now have Corona output a folder with the various HTML files and content necessary to run your Corona game or app in a web browser.

Simply upload the entire folder to your web server and access that folder through your HTML5 compatible browser. Due to JavaScript security restrictions, HTML5 builds only work if they are served from a web server.

If you have Python installed you can test locally by starting a web browser on your computer and accessing your HTML5 build folder in your browser. The easiest way to get it served on macOS is to drag your build folder on to Terminal.app then paste python -m SimpleHTTPServer into the terminal window. Then open http://localhost:8000/index.html in you web browser. For Windows, with Python installed, run cmd.exe and then use the cd command to change directories to your build folder and run the same Python command and then open your browser to the above URL. If you need to see the console log, please open http://localhost:8000/index-debug.html instead.

If your app makes calls to web servers, using API’s like network.request(), because of JavaScript cross-domain scripting rules, you can’t directly call REST type APIs. Instead you will need to write a local web script on the same domain that will make your REST API calls and then echo the returned data back to network.request().

We have opened a forum to discuss HTML5 builds. Please discuss your observations in the HTML5 forum.

Because this is still a beta product, we don’t recommend releasing your game the public yet. If you do, you should heavily test your game or app before releasing it. HTML5 build behavior is subject to change as we continue to work to bring it to a release status.

Most all current Corona-made and third-party plugins are not HTML5 compatible at this time. Many of our ad providers do not offer HTML5 SDK’s for us to build plugins against. Other plugins will take time for us to build HTML5 compatible versions where possible. For plugins in our Marketplace built by our community developers, it will be up to them to offer HTML5 plugins where possible or update existing plugins with HTML5 stubs where not possible. A tutorial on creating HTML5 plugins is coming soon.

This is a huge milestone for Corona. It will open the door for you to reach more consumers. It will make it easier to show your work off to early testers, prospective clients and more. Even game jams will rock even more. Our goal is to get this out of beta by the next public release where we will be including some other great features.

Please let us know your thoughts in our HTML5 forum.