[PLUGIN] appMobi Plugin Updates

Hey all, as I go through and expand the appMobi plugin. I figure I will post the updates as they are ready instead of making you wait until there is an official update with all of them.

Update #1 Details: Added audio support with the following actions

• Preload Sound
• Start Audio (background music)
• Stop Audio
• Toggle Audio
• Play Sound (sound effects)
• Unload Sound File
• Unload All Sounds

Plugin:https://github.com/koza/appMobiC2Plugin

Example .capx

https://www.dropbox.com/s/lsuzlgr8s4yl7ye/audioDemo.capx

Give it a try, let me know what you think. And as always, I take requests. :) So if there is something you need implemented sooner then later, just let me know.

Hi Tap, thanks for the good work. I am quite keen to see an appMobi oauth plugin as most third party API's require oAuth 2.

Thanks

Mike

Great to hear about Appmobi updates!

tap

I try to test the new feature as a complement of the C2's internal Audio/Play sound. I use it to play narration for a childeren's storybook (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hpoodhffejkmofghgbkjkghagiicdgmo)

In C2 I can play sound by name, so can construct the audio file name like this:

"Story" & StoryActive & "Page" & ActualPageNumber

So can play progamatically the Story1Page1, Story1Page2...Story1Page30 and also Story2Page1, Story3Page1 ...Story10Page1.

Could you add this kind of playing logic for the AppMobi plugin please!

This is the only thing prevents us to publish the app, we can not push it if the bg music and narration not works.

I will be happy to assist to you by testing the music playing, stopping functionality - as the Android/iOS complementer of the C2's actions.

Hey Epox,

First off, thanks for using appMobi to build your app! :)

As for a way to play a sound file by name, sure thing. That's not a problem, I will add that functionality today and get the update posted as soon as possible so as not to hold up your development.

If you have any other questions about the plugin or appMobi in general, just let me know.

Thanks!

Thank you tap!

Great to see the activity from AppMobi's side. Since you change your solution's pricing, I would like to ask if there is an easy way to implement the AppMobi's AppAds in my app.

We would like to push out the app for free, and I think we will not have more than 10 000MAUs in several months... :) But till than the update is an unavoidable feature, so I consider to include Ads.

Do you plan to make ad placement easy for C2 users by the plugin? Unfortunately I do not know your ad system, so can not tell what I would love in C2, but the IsInAppMobi could be the starting point before the display of ads.

Thanks for your kind reply in ancipation!

No problem at all. I'm happy to help.

The zip file has been updated. You should see 3 new "by name" actions to use.

As for your question about ad's. At the moment they are still under development so you won't / can't add them to your app. However you are still able to build and use the cloud services. So once you implement the updated plugin, you can build and deploy without issue.

I hope that all helps. Let me know when your app is live, I would love to check it out. :)

Is it possible to port a phonegap plugin to something that can be used with Appmobi and Construct?

Hey ctceismc, I don't know the specifics of what you would like to do, but it should be possible. We do have a plugin system at appMobi, the documentation for that is here: appmobi.com/documentation/nativeplugins/index.html and it should be relatively "easy" to port the code. After that it would be a simple javascript plugin to interface C2 with your plugin.

Let me know if I can be of further assistance.

Thank You tap! I'll place the new events/action to handle AppMobi audio, run the tests, and will notify you if the app will be build for production.

I wounder if you can tell me how can I publish now, when the Ads plugin is not ready for include in my app. I just read the Read more, and How does it work (whitepaper) pages of the LiveUpdate.

Well, I cant imagine to avoid several updates with bug fixes. Can you help me to find a long term strategy for publish my free app by AppMobi?

Ways I see:

A: Dont use cloud services:

+ free

• cant update, publish bug fixes

B: Wait for Ads plugin

+ Free up to 10 000 MAUs

+ Can update the app with LiveUpdate

• I do not know when it will came out... :(

C: Use 1Touch

+ Free up to 10 000MAUs

+ Can update

• I'm not in the stage where it is ethical to charge any amount for the app (should be in several months, but not now)

D: Go live with payed cloud (no ads, no in-app-payments)

• 25-50-100USD/month fee

+ Can update

+ Can publish now

About AppMobi's audio feature usage in C2

-----------------------------------------

From a viewpoint of a C2 game/app maker I have now 2 ways to go to Android/iOS: the most ready for production is AppMobi. Altrought the CocoonJS - even if is not ready and available for prod. - solved to handle the C2's standard audio features: I have great results with 2-3 parallel audio play.

To find the longterm production way I see that to use AppMobi publishing, I'll need to add the alternate audio actions, additional conditions, and programatically disable the C2's standard audio actions to avoid conflicts (double played audio).

I see that it may be much easier to update the AppMobi plugin with the audio features, and this could be the best way to start, but do you plan to switch to support C2's standard audio actions somewhere in the future?

Please note, that I wouldnt want to be offensive, I just tell my feeling so you have some feedback and maybe can make better decisions.

Sorry tap, It seems that I have some trouble about the new features of the AppMobi plugin. :(

The most easy way to let you understand my situlation is to descibe my app's audio logic. It's a simple childeren's stroybook app with currenctly 2 stores, 38 pages each.

I have a bg music, it starts like this:

Play AlpineCrocoBGMusic looping (Tag "Music")

I have narration for every page, when a new page display is fired, the narration work as follows:

Play "Story" & StoryActive & "Page" & ActualPageNumber not looping from Music (tag "Narration")

Cause of the tagging the narration can be stopped anytime (Stop "Narration"), and I can start a new narration.

In the AppMobi plugin the music do not have tagging, so I can not stop the "Narration" when the "Music" is keep playing, can I?

Well, after the real-world test I need to tell that Cocoonjs also have bugs with audio. My narrations were not played in ful lenght, and the BG music sometimes stops. :(

So I'll go and test the AppMobi plugin and try to use Music for BG music and Sound for Narrations. Will post the results! :)

Tap, Thanks for the reply. What I am trying to do is use Construct to control external devices through various native SDKs. As a first step I would like to control a Sphero robotic ball. Using the Sphero native SDK someone has created a Phonegap plugin that I would like to access using Construct. github.com/orbotix/Sphero-Phonegap-SDK

How might we get this working in Appmobi using Construct?

tap I've done the test modification with the new AppMobi plugin.

IfAppmobi - Play BG Music by - AppMobiPlugin/PlayAudio

IfAppmobi - Play narration by - AppMobiPlugin/PlaySound(by name)

The C2's default audio actions were placed in an Else of the IfAppMobi condition to avoid double play.

In the emulator(XDK)

---------------------

It starts to play Music, but do not plays narration, and I get tons of 404s in Chrome dev tools:

"GET localhost/eventlight.alpinecrocostory/3.4.0/media/Story1Page2.m4a 404 (Not Found) "

Checked the file were here but with lower case characters (story1rage2.m4a), and as I renamed it to uppercase it started to play correctly.

In the Test anywhere(Android 2.3.6):

Loads the game, what is super fast (paging, story loading), but the narration not works, and the bug music not started for about 2 minutes. After that - when my phone gone to sleep - it suddenly started the bg music, but as soon as I get out from sleep, it stopped again.

I trought to use the debug from AppHub, added the debug script into the index.html, reloaded in XDK, pushed into the cloud, received an update in my phone...

The debug window now shows 1 client, but not any console log is here. :(

What can I test or how can I capture more debug info now? Do you have any documentation about the debug feature? Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks for the feedback Epox. No worries about being offensive. Honest feedback is a good thing. :) I'm going to outline the answers below.

Q: I wounder if you can tell me how can I publish now, when the Ads plugin is not ready for include in my app....

A: The same way you would if they were ready. Except you won't have ad's (you wont get billed or anything) <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle">

If you are using our XDK for testing you can upload the app from there via the build for app store feature. If you do not want to use the XDK, you can just login to appHub and upload a zip file then build. We have a pdf that walks through appHub's features and shows you how to build: http://www.appmobi.com/amdocs/lib/Article-appHub.pdf?r=127 If that does not help or you still have questions just let me know.   

Q: ... do you plan to switch to support C2's standard audio actions somewhere in the future?

A: Probably not. With the way our api/build system works I do not see this happening. If you want have the same C2 game/app on the web and mobile device, you can still use the appMobi audio api. When you build for Chrome, Facebook or Web we include some JS in our appmobi.js file that makes that possible.

Q:What can I test or how can I capture more debug info now? Do you have any documentation about the debug feature?

A: The Debug in appHub uses weinre, and operates very much like the Chrome developer console.

Thanks for the further details on what you are trying to accomplish. I think I have a clear understanding of what you want to do. I will contact you via PM/email and lets one on one see if we can find a solution that accomplishes what you need.

Thank you tap! I'll do some preloading tests with the narration and get back with the results.

Unfortunately I have some trouble with the AppMobiXDK Chrome plugin nowdays. On my home laptop it were about 30 minutes to start it (I used to restart Chrome, restart computer, and finally the uninstall/reinstall the plugin solved).

Now I doing the same in my day-time working machine, but with no success. The net work, uninstalled/reinstalled, restarted chrome, restarted the PC, but nothing... :(

I'll try to simplay upload the app as a zip to the build.