Web and WebWorks Development

[oros]

@appcannon: The recommendation would be to build with the latest SDK and resubmit. I'm investigating this issue across a larger set of developers and will be talking with Lou about what can be done for canvas devs regarding the Port-A-Thon.

@Bulow: I would retry with the latest tools first.

Overall it seems that the current OS release may still have canvas issues preventing rendering. We announced our Gold SDK launch for December 11th, and testing with newer versions of the OS I'm seeing the majority of canvas resolved. Unfortunately the App World team will not approve applications if their test build (currently 1103) fails to run the application. I'm still figuring out all the pieces, but please feel free to email me at eoros@rim.com with the BAR files you want to test, and I will verify whether the issues are fixed on a newer build.

[appcannon]

With rebuilding with the latest SDK, will that push me back past the deadline for approval/resubmittion if something goes wrong again?  I'm rather worried that they'll tell me too late that I still have a problem with the sizing of my app and I won't get my money.

[oros]

We're able to be lenient with resubmissions, but the final approval date is December 16th (i.e. has to be in and approved by AW team by then.)

I would repackage with the latest SDK and test on the latest simulator. If it works there, you should be good to go. If you want to verify on a physical device, feel free to send it to me and I can provide feedback.

If you still see issues, fire me an email (eoros@rim.com) with the BAR and I'll test on a newer OS and provide what feedback I can. If it's a matter of simply being an OS issue and the newer version resolves it, then we'll need to wait for the Gold SDK and repackage/resubmit once they're available (current release for those is Dec. 11th)

In the meantime, I'm going to see what can be done in terms of leniency for canvas developers in this situation. I can't make any promises, but it's the best I can recommend in the meantime.

[appcannon]

I might take you up on that testing offer

Did the latest SDK disable click events?  The objects that are supposed to respond on click are not working in the simulator.

[oros]

I've seen issues if SDK 1.0.2.9 was used to build an app and it's being tested on the latest OS (i.e. 10.0.9.1103), however building with the latest SDK (1.0.3.8) has seemed to resolve any inherent touch issues. The latest SDK with the latest OS should handle touch just fine in my tests. Are you just implementing standard HTML5 touchstart, touchmove, and touchend event listeners?

And by all means do reach out to me via email. In general after some testing, here's what my latest findings and recommendations are.

Canvas issues (i.e. black screen, no rendering) appear to be related to landcape orientation (i.e. portrait apps seem to work.)

The current public build (10.0.9.1103) continues to see these issues. However I have tested on a more recent internal build where these issues are now resolved.

The App World team can not approve an application until it runs on their test build (currently 1103) but I will see if it's possible to bump that version up sooner than later.

The Gold OS/SDK is slated for Dec. 11 which (as far as I am aware) should incorporate the canvas fixes (not a guarantee though). That still leaves 5 days until the approval cutoff (Dec. 16) to repackage / test / resubmit / get approval for applications. This may have to be our last resort. If we are forced to wait for Dec. 11 for resubmits, please let me know (eoros@rim.com) that you were experiencing canvas issues and I will try to get your apps expedited for review.

I wish I had a complete solution right now, unfortunately these canvas issues didn't come up, in any of my previous samples that I've been working with, prior to the Port-A-Thon.

[appcannon]

For the game controls, I was implementing touchstart, touchend, etc, but for the game menus I was just using the click event.  I actually don't think it is that.  I bypassed the menus, and it appears that my game tick isn't even running (like some Javascript error is preventing it from continueing).  Is there some way to debug within the simulator to see what is going on (it works just fine in Ripple and in a normal web browser)?

[appcannon]

I think I figured it out.  It seems that the SDK update broke HTML5 audio, as my .ogg files are what broke the game.  I also tried playing .wav files as was specified in the documentation here, and Webworks still froze up.

So either I leave the game without audio, or there is a fix I don't know of

[borceg]

I hope that we will still qualify for port-a-thon rewards

[Bulow]

@ appcannon: I did some testing and found that only images are not displayed. I was able to react to user input and change the background color. Try constructing similar tests to see if you game logic runs

@Erik: If we can get it to work in portrait mode, may we resubmit it in portrait and rotate the canvas 90 degrees? (Also if this fails, can I upload a bar file that was converted from an APK made using phonegap? (works))

[appcannon]

With a canvas?  I'm not even dealing with a canvas  I have absolutely positioned divs that make up my game, as I knew canvas wasn't working well when I started it.