Ludei Plugin Outdated

The plugin for CocconJSAds is way out of date by almost 6 months. I updated it manually, but this is something that should be kept up-to-date, since Ludei is one of the better export options. Although, it does break all people's projects that use it from the older plugin. Maybe you are working on it already? Just pointing it out.

Ashley

Lol, there is a lot of controversy here. Check the forums - And bottom line the blame can be pointed at ludei. Don't expect updates... ashley tried continuously, he has done everything in his power... but in the end I agree that his time is better spent on crosswalk.

I do not want to ship a built-in plugin for whom there is nobody officially maintaining it. We used to maintain the plugin, but Ludei repeatedly broke it and failed to provide any kind of guidance on how to update it, so we gave up and told them to maintain it. Then they released it on github for "the community to support" which we took to mean they were not interested in maintaining it either. On top of that, the version they released on github has been broken and is now incompatible with the one we ship with Construct 2: they mangled all the plugin IDs so old projects using the old plugin can no longer open with the new plugin - it will either fail to open or corrupt the project. They presumably did not read our documentation that states you cannot change the plugin IDs after release (link, "A number uniquely identifying this... saved to the project XML, so you may change the rest of the parameters after releasing your plugin, but not the id.").

So updating the plugin means breaking lots of existing projects and having no clear owner for maintenance to address things like new features and bug reports, which there inevitably will be. This does not meet the quality bar that we set for official features.

On top of that CocoonJS has various bugs and incompatibilities that Ludei have never fixed, despite my repeated attempts to contact them and guide them to solutions so users don't have to keep running in to the same old things (memory management being an excellent example of this). Overall users appear to be having a bad time with CocoonJS, and Ludei have made it almost impossible for us to easily support it, and this repeatedly reflects badly on us as well since it adds to the reputation that "mobile support doesn't work" (where Crosswalk and Ejecta ought to be working better). So at this point to be honest I am thinking more about deprecating support for it than making any motions to keep supporting it. Deprecating means the same thing as happened to the Intel AGI: it's hidden by default so new users are discouraged from going down that route, but for users who need to keep using it for existing projects (or have figured out a way through all the problems) can do so by right-clicking and showing the deprecated options. We'll work hard to get any bugs or missing features sorted out in Ejecta and Crosswalk. And with Android L and iOS 8 on the cusp of coming out in a couple of months, PhoneGap will be a great solution from then on too, which I think is the ultimate solution and allows us to get rid of this minefield of non-browser engines once and for all.

As far as I know, it seems ludei is trying to make cocoonJS work based on the html5 export itself(could be wrong though), and since it is really a minefield of problem nobody can really workout on your side, and they don't seem to care, you should depreciate it, as this is just doing free advertising for their services that is hurting scirra in the long run, with it being depreciated, it means that people can still use it, but it is not recommanded and you cannot be taken responsible for it.

Just my opinion (not only mine I would say though).

I tracked down a github user that is working on adding facebook functionality. He so far can login to facebook, which is more than anyone else has been able to do in a while.

Ashley

dont forget that cocoonjs maybe is complicated but faster and performance accelerated using canvas + and support as well web-gl better than ejecta

Ashley, Crosswalk is more buggy in my opinion and Phonegap is just really slow (almost 5x slower) on a Samsung Galaxy S3 which is most of the mobile market for the mid-tier smartphones. The speed isn't bad on Crosswalk, but it caused breaks in my project (and Phonegap obviously will never be a solution for me to export to since it is a really slow engine). I just do not see a reason to move to Crosswalk, Ludei's plugin works good the only issue is that it breaks old projects. Lazy Rocket uses Ludei 2.0.2 fine although yes there are bugs, but I managed to work around them. The ads are a little buggy for MoPub networks, but it is likely just user-error on my part since I seen someone have it working just fine.

I trust Ludei will pull through. I do not like cutting off Android 2.3.6 on my marketshare either. If I have to, I will do the plugin work, such as flipping the IDs to work with old projects. Will branch it out and see how it goes.

Ashley

dont forget that cocoonjs maybe is complicated but faster and performance accelerated using canvas + and support as well web-gl better than ejecta

It is not complexity the problem, it is than not only it is not based on a browser technology (ejecta suffer the same issue), it cannot be edited in any way possible by scirra (ejecta atleast can be modified incase of a big issue, I think crosswalk can also be modified too, and phonegap rely on the device itself to do everything), AFAIK there is no way to compile your application offline, or to an ancien version (crosswalk suffer the same issue I think, unless there is a way to mount a crosswalk app offline?), the memory management C2 does is not compatible with cocoonJS and it does not seem to be in ludei's plan to change that, also I think there are solutions to have advertisement and in app purchase in crosswalk and phonegap, not sure about ejecta though, so this argument is for iOS only, CocoonJS does not support all of C2's basic features, and if they do ANOTHER breaking update, user will complain to scirra once again, it is not about JS performances only, it is also about compatibility, you cannot make a big game on cocoonJS nor use all of C2's feature.

It should not be advertised as an export option of C2, since scirra has 0 control over it (ludei does not seemto care about the request of scirra, scirra cannot correct things by themselves, they cannot do anything, at least intel is listening, while crosswalk has issues, it is still better to make it work than to rely on cocoonJS, and ejecta can be modified in case of a big issue), and so should be depreciated (still usable, but not listed as the others exporters are shown) because it is not a main target of C2.

As for the main subject of the thread: The plugin is now maintained by a third party only (the community), so it is a third party plugin, but a note about that in the plugin description would be nice to have(with a link to the github maybe?).

As for the main subject of the thread: The plugin is now maintained by a third party only (the community), so it is a third party plugin, but a note about that in the plugin description would be nice to have(with a link to the github maybe?).

I agree, also Construct 2 fails at export still after 2 years. It should be their main focus right now. I can use any other engine, or code my own game which will far surpass Construct 2's speed and performance, but I am a developer and tend to try to avoid programming at all costs. It is something I do, but I just hate reinventing the wheel if other developers are doing it for me.

> Ashley

> dont forget that cocoonjs maybe is complicated but faster and performance accelerated using canvas + and support as well web-gl better than ejecta

>

It is not complexity the problem, it is than not only it is not based on a browser technology (ejecta suffer the same issue), it cannot be edited in any way possible by scirra (ejecta atleast can be modified incase of a big issue, I think crosswalk can also be modified too, and phonegap rely on the device itself to do everything), AFAIK there is no way to compile your application offline, or to an ancien version (crosswalk suffer the same issue I think, unless there is a way to mount a crosswalk app offline?), the memory management C2 does is not compatible with cocoonJS and it does not seem to be in ludei's plan to change that, also I think there are solutions to have advertisement and in app purchase in crosswalk and phonegap, not sure about ejecta though, so this argument is for iOS only, CocoonJS does not support all of C2's basic features, and if they do ANOTHER breaking update, user will complain to scirra once again, it is not about JS performances only, it is also about compatibility, you cannot make a big game on cocoonJS nor use all of C2's feature.

It should not be advertised as an export option of C2, since scirra has 0 control over it (ludei does not seemto care about the request of scirra, scirra cannot correct things by themselves, they cannot do anything, at least intel is listening, while crosswalk has issues, it is still better to make it work than to rely on cocoonJS, and ejecta can be modified in case of a big issue), and so should be depreciated (still usable, but not listed as the others exporters are shown) because it is not a main target of C2.

As for the main subject of the thread: The plugin is now maintained by a third party only (the community), so it is a third party plugin, but a note about that in the plugin description would be nice to have(with a link to the github maybe?).

i agree with all what you say but just one thing about memory management

i , (other users) prefer that the game lunched slow at start (with cocconjs) and be playable quick and fast than run faster and take some lag between layout and on lyout (ejecta memory management)

i prefer to load every thing at start and wait for some seconds than load fast and have lags on game ...

thats why ... iam going to turn into cocoonjs

i see one game on appstore wich have super explosion bomb effect and i try it on my old 3gs and it run perfectly wihout any lagging ... this game was compiled with cocoonjs

If you have issues with Crosswalk, please report them. Intel have so far been very cooperative and receptive to issues. It's also a much better route to go for mobile exporting since it's based on a real browser engine and is highly compatible with (almost identical to, in fact) Chrome for Android. Its feature support is excellent, whereas non-browser engines like CocoonJS are probably never going to be able to support things like XML parsing, WebRTC multiplayer, form controls, and so on. Android 2.3 is down to about 13% marketshare right now, which I think is low enough to be worth disregarding for the far better compatibility of Crosswalk (as well as likely being available on more powerful devices which will perform better).

I would re-emphasise that yes, despite PhoneGap being slow right now, it is hardware-accelerated with WebGL support and full JIT capability from Android L and iOS 8 which are both due out before the end of the year. So that is really the ultimate solution: they are real browser engines, and they don't come with the overhead of Crosswalk (particularly the ~17mb filesize overhead). We basically only need to wait for these versions to come out and gain wide marketshare and problem solved. We will likely even deprecate Ejecta at that point. Android does take a while to gain marketshare with the latest versions, but Crosswalk serves nicely to cover the ~85%+ of devices running Android 4.0+ until Android L support is widespread.

With that on the horizon there's really no point researching other platforms, wrappers, or even native engines - good browser technology has finally reached native apps with iOS 8+ and Android L!

Right, I may consider switching to Crosswalk soon - thanks for the response.

i still hope theres an official update with cjs plugin, even with ios8 & android L support for webGL, it'll take years till most devices are up to date. :/

i still hope theres an official update with cjs plugin, even with ios8 & android L support for webGL, it'll take years till most devices are up to date. :/

Yeah. Android 2.3.6 will phase out in about 2 years to around 3%. Which 10% is a considerable amount of people, and in no way should we ignore these numbers. 3% is a more reasonable number. Android L will only be 30-40% of the Android population in 2 years.

i still hope theres an official update with cjs plugin, even with ios8 & android L support for webGL, it'll take years till most devices are up to date. :/

Word. I'll definitely switch to PhoneGap when the user base (and tech) is ready. It'll take about a year if you compare to eg. iOS 7. I'm planning to release two games before that.