TechBASIC program sharing

Saw this pass by on one of the blogs I read: http://itunes.apple.com/app/techbasic/id470781862?ls=1&mt=8

I like the scientific bent; but I was more interested in how they got around (or if they got around) Apple’s rules about code import/export. I also like that they have more I/O - accelerometer, bluetooth, compass, camera.

Apparently, they use email - you can export a program’s source to an email message, bam. You then cut and paste from email to import it. It doesn’t appear (on quick examination) that they have tabs or modules or such, so that’s not a complication.

Messing with the mail app, it looks like select-all is easy enough (something that isn’t often said for web pages) - are we making any progress with single-paste-splits-into-multiple-tabs? I had missed that you can now one-tap copy a whole project - that’s almost as good (and better in some ways) as tap-to-email. (Remember posterous? I do).

But moreover - they have file sharing turned on. So importing a program is grab it on a computer, plug into itunes, bam. I want to say we had that (and can do it with third party stuff) - can we maybe look at this?

PS. I forgot my ipad at work - where are we at with Codea Play for iphone? I’ll tell ya - I have a 4s, I’d like to see it full-on compatible. Yes, it’d be ugly to program on, but in a way so is the ipad. There’s a whole class of apps (like a pedometer) that are practical on something I can slip in my pocket, but not practical on the ipad.

@Bortels I am planning to add a feature that lets you paste correctly formatted projects from the clipboard directly as new projects (by touching-and-holding the + new project button). But I am unsure if this will be in violation of any policy — after re-reading the policy several times I don’t believe it would be.

Regarding Codea Play: It’s mostly that, as spectacular as the user submissions for Codea Play were, none of them will work for iPhone. So I have been hoping to find the time to build some iPhone compatible Codea projects to ship with a universal Codea Play, I still haven’t been able to have the time to do so.

That said, I am working on a very special universal Codea-related app that I hope a lot of people will enjoy.

Edit: I also want to turn file sharing back on, like it is in the beta. Apple rejected Codea 1.0 over having this feature, but I believe that on appeal we could convince them otherwise. It’s just that an appeal could take a long time!

I am thinking that techbasic doing that sort of thing is a fairly good excuse (of course, we’ve thought that before). I’m still optimistic that Apple will come to their senses about this over time.

I think the “none of them work on the iphone” thing is a chicken-and-the-egg issue - you won’t see awesome iphone apps for codea naturally fall out until you have codea for the iphone. I’ll be blunt - I’m ok with insanely teensy text, and a general “this was made for ipad, it runs on the iphone but you’re on your own” - just make it universal, that’s all. (And yeah, I also understand that while I may be ok with that, Apple may say “uh, this is nigh-unusable” and reject it). I mean - it should just be throwing a switch on the compiler, or close to that, no? The iphone 4s has the same resolution as the original ipad… i think? (I want to say that there’s a jailbreak app that just tries to run ipad stuff on the iphone anyway… never tried it. maybe I should)

And the file-sharing thing - yes, that was the point. They made us turn it off - but they’re letting techbasic have it on. So - mistake? or policy evolution. I’m good giving Apple the benefit of the doubt, and hoping they’ve become wiser, or at least having them explain why. Maybe this is screwing over techbasic…

I understand this is all a giant pain, and has risk. But - I truly believe that easy code sharing is what makes this sort of thing awesome. (Question: At one point, someone had suggested “Codea Pro” as an alternative track for this sort of thing, so we could put the risky stuff into a different version…)

I absolutely agree with you about the reason why they don’t work on the iPhone — I wasn’t optimistic that they would. I plan to make my own set of examples to start people off (and maybe beta users will be happy to contribute).

File sharing is generally allowed to be turned on, several of the GLSL apps have it on, for example. So I think it was a mistake that they disallowed it. However I believe they will disallow it should I submit again — and then I would have to appeal the decision. Alternatively I could leave the reviewer a note saying “Hey I turned this feature on, other apps have it, you can’t actually upload code using it. I believe it abides by your policy”. And I might still do that.

I think it’s worth a shot - especially with a slew of apps in a substantially similar scenario that already do it. You were breaking new ground before; it should be old hat today.

Still want the “pasted text is parsed into tabs” feature. :slight_smile:

The newest build has the pasted text parsed into tabs feature.

LOL - what is good in life? When you ask for a feature, and it shows up in the beta the next morning. :slight_smile:

Works like a charm, incidentally. W00t, gentlemen. Woot indeed.

Just a footnote about the file exchange issue: techBASIC does allow the use of iTunes to move files back and forth between iOS and a desktop computer. So do Logo Draw and LogoPlus. There may be others; I have not done a comprehensive search. Does anyone else know of a programming tool that allow file exchange with iTunes?

.@0geek thanks for the clarification. We were told to turn the feature off, but after thinking about it, I can’t imagine how it violates policy.

Maybe you just had a reviewer who was having a bad day or was just a bit anal about the “letter of the law”.

Good luck with the latest submission - can’t wait! :slight_smile: