[ANN] Release 9.6.0 RC-1

Mark Waddingham mark at livecode.com
Tue May 12 09:03:05 EDT 2020


On 2020-05-12 13:45, Ralph DiMola via use-livecode wrote:
> Monte/LC Team,
> 
> I understand that you have limited resources. Could there be a
> comprise here to share the workload? Instead of LC having to support
> and change the iOS standalone options every time there is a new iOS
> device format we(LC USERS) could pickup this pain. If there could be 2
> options for splash screens this could work out for all.
> 1) Users can use the present 9.6 rc1 storyboard options.
> 2) Users could supply a file of resolutions and associated image names
> for each specific resolution the user wanted to supply a custom image
> for. If there is not a match then the images in the current 9.6 rc1
> standalone splash screen implementation would be used.
> 
> This would put the splash screen implementation of current and new
> screen specs squarely in hands of the LC user while retaining the
> current seamless transition from splash to card 1. (if the LC user
> wanted to put in the effort).

Unfortunately I'm not sure this is possible.

Apple are (soon) going to require all apps to use a launch storyboard - 
specifying launch images is no longer viable if you want your app in the 
AppStore.

When we started adding storyboards I asked Monte to see if there was a 
way to allow current settings to work (i.e. build a storyboard which 
uses the same images currently specified in the same way), and also 
offer a simplified option (which is what has transpired in 9.6)...

Unfortunately it would seem that storyboards do not allow images to be 
chosen based on screen size - just device type (iPhone vs iPad) and 
generalized layout types (normal vs compact) - this means there appears 
to be no way to replicate what you could do with simple launch images.

Apple HIG for this is a great ideal - but in reality (as far as I can 
see) the only apps which can do that are those which use only iOS native 
controls (the idea is that you have a launch storyboard which contains 
skeleton controls from your first screen). Any app which relies on 
customized controls (even intermingled with iOS ones) cannot achieve 
what Apple suggests.

What we have wasn't something we just quickly did at the last minute 
there was a concerted effort (as there always is) to preserve what we 
already had, but we did not manage to find a way :(

That being said, it is possible that we have missed a storyboard 
capability somewhere, so if someone can figure out how to create a 
launch storyboard which *does* select images based on screen size (in a 
similar way to launch images work), then I can be pretty confident we 
will be able to generalize it to provide similar settings to the current 
ones in the S/B.

Currently the plan is to (in 9.7 hopefully!) to try and allow a custom 
storyboard - so you can design one in Xcode and then provide it along 
with the assets it needs to the standalone builder to build into your 
app. We think we can do this (there are some technical details with 
referencing the assets and such) but for the reason outlined above, this 
still won't bring back the much simpler 'provide many launch images' 
capability.

Warmest Regards,

Mark.


-- 
Mark Waddingham ~ mark at livecode.com ~ http://www.livecode.com/
LiveCode: Everyone can create apps




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