Lori M Olson #OPED
Of all the new coolness introduced at WWDC, SwiftUI is definitely my personal fav. John Sundell notes that SwiftUI views can be made Codable. Of course, with great power comes great responsibility, and it’s up to us to ensure these fun new toys don’t get broken, right out of the gates. I really hope we can get to a point where we can make use of SwiftUI from RubyMotion/DragonRuby. – wndxlori
#FITS: Featured in the School
Just one item for the School this week, but it’s one we think you’ll find really interesting: we have a complete set of videos for RubyMotion testing including the basics, functional testing and integration testing. These are currently part of the 6 Pack Apps course but, I suspect that the general lack of good examples of RubyMotion testing means they will be useful to a larger audience, so they will soon (July) be available as a stand-alone set. Sign up now for your introductory discount!
#DRGTK: DragonRuby Game Toolkit
We have a couple of interesting items this week, both worthy of your attention:
There was a new build for the DRGTK released earlier this month. A lengthy post by Ryan C. Gordon provides a detailed blow-by-blow of everything that’s in the new build.
We won’t repeat all that here, but here are a few things which caught our eye: first, replays! Yep, you can now record a session of your game and play it back whenever you want; next, rendering of primitives now has subpixel precision which at first sounds like it might actually be impossible. But it’s a real thing to increase apparent resolution; finally, there’s the new Dragon Console which addresses some rather tiresome developer chores. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg, so check out Ryan’s post, for which we thank him and the team at DragonRuby.
Here’s another things we really love about the folks over DragonRuby: even with all their success they have not lost touch with those just starting out. To wit, did you know there is a way to obtain a license for the DRGTK at no cost if you can’t afford it? A little paperwork is required, but depending on the circumstances, it could be well worth your while. Amir provides details in this thread from the Motioneers Slack.
#MSH: Motioneers Slack Highlights
Another gentle reminder if you are not already a member of the Motioneers Slack team, becoming one is a really, really good idea. Just look at an example of what you have been missing:
Felipe Luz poses the question: Hi guys! I am trying to install Firebase pod. How do I replicate this step in RubyMotion? As of right now there were 74 replies so far! Where else can you get that kind of detailed, knowledgeable and prompt support at a price which simply can’t be beat. Free.
The indefatigable Amir at DragonRuby provides a timely heads-up for those who have Mac apps in production. Gatekeeper in Catalina is much more aggressive. Don’t be fooled by all those calming seascapes on the The Big A’s website: Amir recommends you get all of your apps notarized before the Catalina tsunami sweeps in and then carries you out to a sea of troubles.
#GOTW: Gem of the Week
We have a red hot #GOTW this time around:
Guernsey-based consultant Jason Magee tried his hand at line charting with DragonRuby recently and shares his experience in a post to his blog. The results are beautiful in our opinion: crisply rendered and to-the-point which is what every chart should be. Also of incidental interest is Jason’s choice of subject: a Global Temperature Chart. Once you’re finished scaring the crap out of yourself, you might also be interested in his data source which is DataHub. That latter nugget is worth the price of admission alone.
Would you like your gem of a gem to be featured in #GOTW? By all means, let us know and we’ll be happy to feature it in an upcoming edition of #RMW.
#COMM: Community
We have a couple of items for #COMM this week:
Patrick Balestra, who is an iOS Engineer at no less than Spotify, provides a very thorough run down on The Things You May Have Missed at WWDC 2019. For us poor sods who didn’t get to WWDC (again!) what we missed is actually everything. We are therefore eternally grateful to Patrick for his excellent summary. It is almost as good as being there. But not quite, boss. Thanks again, Patrick!
Based on his reading of the Updates to the App Store Review Guidelines (someone actually reads those?) San Francisco-based Ben Sandofsky of Halide plaintively asks “Wow. Apple sign-in support is mandatory?” This triggered a very robust Twitter thread on the subject. It’s well worth your time. Check out the Halide app, too. Wow.
#AHOTW: App Highlight of the Week
This item could also have appeared in the #DRGTK section. However, we didn’t want anybody to think #AHOTW had gone away forever, so we popped it in here. It has the no-problem-getting-to-the-point name of Basic Gorillas. For the record, it’s a clone of the old Qbasic GORILLAS.BAS game from IBM in 1991. Besides, if “type numbers on your keyboard and press enter to throw an explosive banana” doesn’t make you want to give it a try, you may want to check your pulse.
#TWIL: This Week I Learned
Tired of your code looking utterly lame in your tweets? We have absolutely, positively found the thing to cure what ails ya: Carbon from Dawn Labs. That is one of best demo screens we have seen in a long, long while and leaves us in awe of other people’s imagination and ingenuity. You have got to give it a try.
That’s a Wrap
We’re away for some well-earned vacation next week, but the week after we’ll be back with the next issue. If it’s unthinkable you might miss any future issue of #RMW, then think about subscribing. It’s simply the right thing to do. You can also follow us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn and we really hope you to see you on those platforms.
Until then…let all your code be tweeted with Carbon.