yes, you'd have to make a runtime for the plugins, but what I'm saying is even just sprite with only position actions and expressions and box collision, text, and touch, 2 or 3 basic system actions, and no behaviors would be useful. that was about what I made in android last time, so I definitely know it's possible and of a manageable workload. I don't mean to make an exporter that gives you complete ready to use files, but gives you files you can load and have ready to compile in the target language, like a cap translator.

the programmer would be required to write a Drawing function for the runtime, and for each plugin, and set up the main loop where the bulk of this copy pasting finding replacing would occur.

you would also specify how something included in the cap file would have to be included in the target language. You would have to create equivalent functions for any ace you will use in your cap. If you didn't care about time delta, you could ignore it. if you needed platform really badly, then you could include only the functions you needed.

I could do alot with just sprite, and no behaviors, and I'd love to have a basic tool like that for android or iphone running natively. I have a few ideas of how the most of the translation process could be generalized for use with different languages, and automated with an app.

Also, it was reading that blog post that gave me the idea. and then after having a look through C2's files, I think it's doable. obviously Ashley knows what he's talking about, and making a complete runtime is infeasible for pretty much anyone but scirra and html5 right now, but a very limited runtime could still be useful, just like c2 was in it's infancy.

it could also be opensourced for people to do what they wanted/could, and if there were even half as many devs trying their hand at it as there are making plugins with js, but just adding features from c2 or specific behaviors, or objects new or old. maybe with some time, a specific platform could even get a respectable feature set.

Edit:

Hmm... interesting idea. What about exporting to something like allegro or SDL? Could then C2 hit Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android with one exporter? Or are there too many differences between the platforms even using a framework like those?I don't know about those specifically, but I would guess most languages, aside from scripting languages, would need at least some platform specific code,

right, exactly, even without an edk, I imagine you could just make a translator from event sheet xml to equivalent functions in the target language. You could even limit the workload by establishing a set of bare bones ACE like Start of Layout, Always, sprite object with movement, resizing, touch commands, and text object with the same commands plus set text. and it could still be useful in many contexts. you could even ignore the edittime, and use the current one (which wouldn't give you any of the benefits of the target platform). Just using the xml and either a parser, or a find replace script, possibly several steps, but doing something like I did with CC and android, I'd imagine you could get much further given how well structured the c2 capfiles are. if/when my schedule eventually opens up, I'd like to try it, at least as an experiment.

I would say that's asking for trouble if you're trying to find loopholes in copyright law. Might not get noticed if the game isn't played much, but when you have as much money as the music industry, you can blur all sorts of legal lines

In the "Why HTML5?" thread in the C2 forums, the EDK was mentioned a few times. For those that don't already know, the EDK is the Exporter Development Kit that Ashley has mentioned eventually wanting to create for C2. I have no idea of the timeframe for it, I imagine it's quite a while away -

but out of curiosity how many out there actually plan on using the EDK when it's released? I personally want to try to make an Android runtime. I dabbled with Android development(java) for a short time, and I enjoyed it. It was very straightforward, and easy to find example code online for anything you needed to learn how to do.

At one point, I had made some android functional equivalents to some basic construct classic system and sprite actions, so you could export a very basic cap to text(simple sprite actions like changing angle, position, and dimensions) do a few find and replaces in a text editor, and it was working android code. It was rewarding work, and I imagine working with the EDK would involve alot of the same things. Once I had time to start on a runtime though, I'd definitely want to at least try to assemble a team.

How many other developers out there plan on trying to do something with the EDK? alone or in a team? open-source? commercial? what platform? etc

I think a good move for Scirra is to release the EDK first, this way they can let users work on the exporters and they can worry about what they think it's more important.I'm not sure how close what Ashley's currently working on is to an EDK. For all we know, writing the edk may be as much work as writing an exporter. But if it is more like the combined time it takes to add 2 or 3 major features like local variables, grouping, and families - then I don't about whether it's a good move for scirra, but personally that'd be the feature I'd most look forward to.

Ashley is probably weighing the potential userbase for the EDK into how much of a priority it is. I know of at least a few people in the forum who are experienced enough with coding they could make a runtime, and there's probably well over 200,000 construct downloads between classic and 2, so there's bound to be many more out there, but there aren't many users who've mentioned in the forum they'd like to use the edk, just the desire for the runtimes people would make with it.

I personally would like to start such a project with android, and hopefully recruit a team. I've worked with android development before, and I enjoyed working with it, and it'd be an awesome platform to be able to make native apps for with c2. I'd be curious to know if there was anyone else who would want to contribute to such a project?

> ...............

If there was a possibility of exporting a capx to Classic, there would be no problem and all problems would cease to exist.

oh yeah, forgot to respond to this. classic already exists, and it has the exact same type of event system as c2, it would make no sense to do this. C2 is a vastly superior, albeit less complete(at this time) product. just messing around in the ide, everything works much more smoothly, and c2 improves on everything that was wrong with CC. Things like the file format, ide responsiveness, and ide stability, and greater extendability.

However, from your statement, and many others like it, I think Construct Classic's brokenness is hugely overestimated in the C2 community(the part that doesn't also use CC). Obviously it had enough problems at it's core that Ashley thought it better to begin anew, rather than continue to iterate a flawed codebase. This is something to keep in mind, because it does have it's quirks, and bugs. Transitions don't work well(not sure if C2 has transitions), so you don't use transitions. Sometimes the IDE starts up with a blank layout, and you have to doubleclick your event sheet in the properties pane to bring it back into view before you begin. You have to save frequently, because the IDE is known to crash now and then.

However, that being said, it's not so broken it's unusable, and the runtime(which is what really matters in the end) is stable. You can make games with it, that work on everyone's PC, run ridiculously fast(seriously, it's fast), and look as good as is possible in 2d on a pc.   I personally have some plans for webbased projects in the future, and Construct Classic, even in it's quirky state gives me enough confidence in Scirra that I have no doubt c2 is the best way to make web games(and eventually - any games). But right now, I'm working on projects that require that exe speed, so I use construct classic.

The skills for both are interchangeable, and we're one big happy community, I really don't see why the "when will there be an exe?" crowd don't just buy the C2 license now, so they have it when they need it, and to support scirra since Construct Classic is free, and use CC in the meantime.

HTML5 needs... gaming, game-pad support ( I have already seen this, but this just started ), much better full screen ( also know this is being worked on )

it sounds like most of the problems you have are indeed being worked on, and this is just what you've heard of. you're not the only one who thinks the platform is incomplete. html5 isn't even done yet. I would say everything's moving amazingly quickly, as everything always does in the computer world. I mean, I didn't even hear about webgl until fairly recently, and now it's already supported on the chrome beta for android. adobe abandoned flash because of html5 and js(there are flash games on steam). There are plenty of big players who are looking to make it faster, better, etc.

as far as very old machines? even construct classic requires dx9, and though there were a few people complaining about that, almost anyone can run a construct classic game. the best supporters of older machines in the industry as far as AAA titles go I'd say would be valve. and you'll notice some of their newer games, like portal 2 and left for dead 2(which was released a little over 2 years ago) don't run on older machines, at least not at any playable framerate. valve is known for their games having reasonable system requirements.

ow long does this seem it's going to take?

I don't think any of us know, probably a little while. my own personal pessimistic prediction is that within two years, some combination of these web technologies will be comparable to flash speeds, but I think 1 year is closer to the mark. also, I can't speak for scirra, but I'd think within 5 years, work on the next exporter would be begun, or the edk, or the web platform will be approaching the needed maturity.   if you need exe's support now, honestly, use construct classic. It's got your working audio, game pad support, full screen, exe, etc. especially if you're planning to develop a game so quickly that you're concerned about waiting a year.   it's already been stated that native exporters and/or the edk are in the cards. C2, js, and html5 are being worked on hard by people that are probably much more diligent than ourselves. it's not going to arrive faster by being upset it's not here yet. Honestly, cc is probably your best bet, or if you want to sacrifice alot of ease of use for more crossplatform compatibility, Unity is your best bet.

theres a few reasons why this happens, none of them make sense, so I won't list them right now. suffice it to say, this will happen sometimes.

the solution is simple though, in the project bar(on your screenshot, it's on the bottom right), expand the application 1, then double click the event sheet, and the layout. usually the first one you double click will restore sanity

I guess I see about the busy-ness.

but I also see how it can be very effective, it's like you see a normal page, and realize you can scroll down a little, so you do(it's almost involuntary) and then you keep finding large very informative stuff, so you're all like "whoa, physics?", "facebook", "wow!", etc

noticed the first one by accident searching for actual search reasons, tried a few other things, but I think these two are great for scirra exposure, just wanted to share. some great exposure imho

google search: exe wrapper for html5

google search: what's the easiest game maker

there's this other version of construct in development, not quite as stable, but more fully featured, and exports to exe. it's called construct classic. you can learn more about it here, and download the latest version here.

while a desktop exporter of some kind is most likely in the cards for c2, and would be supremely awesome given c2's ide stability, it would probably be premature to begin on one now, and slow down c2 development before it's even fully featured.

at the current time construct classic has more plugins, can use pixel shaders, and can have 1000's of objects on screen with no slowdown. it uses dx9 hardware accelerated graphics, and runs natively on windows, and is fully open source, so you can add any missing features you like. you can probably download it and get your game up and running in less time than it takes to beat a dead horse.

kayin, Metal_X,@davioware, and anyone else with crashing caps on layout switches.   thanks to R0J0hound in the other recent crash thread, I now know that an OR condition during a transition can cause crashes. I've done a little forum searching, and apparently xaudio playing during a layout change causes crashes, and having the No Serialize attribute sometimes alleviates crashes. If anyone who has a crashing cap can try removing any of those conditions(conditions meaning circumstances, not construct conditions) see if it fixes it, or if anyone else remembers any little nuggets about what types of things cause or fix these crashes, when I have more time I'll look into it.

Another question that might help narrow things down if someone has noticed, when it crashes with a transition, does it crash right when the transition should begin? or after it's complete?