September 10, 2011

At Last!!!

Posted in Android Development, iPhone development tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , at 10:29 pm by tetontech

At long last (big sigh of relief here by me) QuickConnectFamily 2.1 is finally available for download.  It involved a lot of work by many people and has come together well.  There are some big changes for both the iOS and Android platforms.  These enhancements and changes have been driven by requests from developers like you.

Both:

  • This one is BIG.  The JavaScript functions now exist inside the qc name space.  In other words where you would have used the handleRequest method it is now the qc.handleRequest method.  The old behavior is deprecated.
  • Another BIG one.  In order to make the Control Function code more readable and more easily comprehended for those new to the framework all Control Functions MUST return one of the following three values (see the documentation for more information):
    • qc.STACK_CONTINUE – This instructs the framework to execute the next control function in the stack.
    • qc.STACK_EXIT – This instructs the framework to terminate all further stack execution.
    • qc.WAIT_FOR_DATA – This instructs the framework that a call to database or remote data has been made or a call to device specific behavior such as showing a map, displaying the camera, email editor or other native behaviors.
  • Work has been done to improve the asynchronous call stability in the underlying framework.  (Thank you to the team at affinityAmp).
  • Miscellaneous bug fixes and enhancements.

Android:

  • Bug fixes
  • Expanded database support and fixes
  • A major rework of the underlying Android Java code to make it match the design changes in iOS.  This is in preparation for QC Plugins and some new features such as ‘window-in-window’ that will be part of the next release as a Plugin.  The ‘window-in-window’ code is in there now but not official until it is converted to a plugin and the same behavior is available for iOS.
  • Added a hybrid sqlite database example

iOS:

  • Bug fixes
  • Removed the native footer code since libraries for scrolling and others such as Sencha, JQTouch, etc. are now of good quality.
  • QC Family Hybrid Plugin API and design spec completed.  There is an example of how you can add to QC on your own.  If you thing these additions could be useful to others you are free to charge for them, or not, host them yourself, notify me and I will add them to the plugin list on the QC plugin site.  If you are willing to donate them to the QC community send them to me for review and I will put them into the git repository and list them on the QC plugin site.
  • Updated all the examples to use the new return values and the new qc name space.
Now that this is out I will be creating a Key/Value store for Android and presenting it at the next AnDevCon.  I’m also looking forward to adding Android build support back into the QC Hybrid build process so you can write your app once yet build and run it in the iOS simulator and the Android emulator with one click.
As always I hope this is helpful for you.  I enjoy working on QC and hope to be able to do so long into the future.  If you find any issues please let me know via the google group.
Lee
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