Category: news

AppStudio 5.0.13 is now available. It includes a number of fixes and new stuff.

1. Controls: Style and Class properties should work for all controls.
2. Controls: Containers cannot be nested.
3. Controls: Grid.addRows(), addCols() add one each if no arg.
4. Code Window: Do not capitalize style.
5. Setup: Get Info for Windows now shows all data.
6. Sample: Fixes to Background, Sprite, LabRotation
7. IDE: Problem opening projects with code files fixed. (like upload.nsx)
8. IDE: Projects cannot be saved with illegal file names.
9. MakeEXE: New windowStyle property.
10. MakeEXE: New EXE.execPython() function.
11. MakeEXE: new execPython sample.
12. Properties Windows: return takes you to the next property.
13. Docs: Locale files updated.

Tip: It’s worthwhile to uninstall the previous version. If you’re on Windows, delete c:\Program Files\NSB AppStudio to get a completely clean install.

AppStudio 5.0.12 is now available. It includes a number of fixes and new stuff.

1. Samples: All samples now have BASIC and JavaScript versions.
2. Samples: new jPlayer streaming video sample (Thanks, Adrian!)
3. Samples: new ResponsiveRotation sample.
4. Build: Fix Mac OS ‘Get Info’ data.
5. Controls: Don’t set button margin to 0 if position is relative.
6. StyleHeaders: Process last, so its rules have precedence.
7. StyleHeaders: Update Design Screen on close.
8. Translater: Fix ‘else’ embedded in variable name.
9. Translator: Fix regular expression error in array/function.

AppStudio 5.0.11 is now available. It includes a number of fixes and new stuff.

1. Controls: Add min, max values to Date Pickers – speeds up Android.
2. Controls: Allow vh, yw sizes (viewport height, viewport width)
3. Controls: Fix error in jqWidgets Tabs control.
4. Controls: NavBar, FooterBar: All spaces are now converted to underscores for event argument.
5. Controls: NavBar, FooterBar: Design time style now used at runtime.
6. Deploy: Get project path to jqWidgets correctly.
7. Form: Default form height is now 100vh.
8. Make EXE: Unicode characters are now allowed.
9. PhoneGap Build Status: Improve iOS message.

The current Android Chrome DatePicker has a number of problems. The most significant one is that it can take 4-5 seconds to load. It’s figuring out how to format many months ahead and behind in advance. You can speed this up by specifying an min and max for the date value, so it doesn’t do as much work. There are a couple of other bugs here and here. We expect Google will fix these soon. (Thanks to Doug Allrich for tracking this down!)

As always, we’re fixing bugs as fast as we find them. If you see any, let us know.

We’re always listening, so please send comments, suggestions and words of encouragement to support@nsbasic.com.

AppStudio 5.0.10 is now available. It includes a number of fixes and new stuff.

1. Design Screen: Error when deleting control in a Container fixed.
2. Samples: New sample using Chartjs library.
3. Controls: Grid cellstyle property used when adding new rows.
4. Controls: Make a number of controls behave better when using Responsive Design.
5. jqWidgets: The path to the jqWidgets controls is now a Project Property.
6. Controls: Formatting of NSB.MsgBox improved.
7. Script Window: Allow other windows to be edited.

There is one breaking change. If you are using a local copy of jqWidgets, you need to set pathTo_jqWidgets in Project Properties, instead of each of the controls. Much easier and a lot less work in the future!

We’re fixing bugs as fast as we find them. If you see any, let us know.

We’re always listening, so please send comments, suggestions and words of encouragement to support@nsbasic.com.

Premature optimization is the root of all evil. – Donald Knuth

You’re probably aware by now that we made a lot of improvements in AppStudio 5. One thing we did not do right away was optimize everything. It’s safer to make sure the code is solid and stable before looking for all the ways to make it fast.

In 5.0.8 and 5.0.9, having identified the bottlenecks, we got to work on making the IDE fast. Some of these date back to very early versions of AppStudio: some from new features added since. It is quite possible that AppStudio 5 is now the fastest version we have shipped.

Here are some of the things we did:
Continue reading “Speed, Speed, Speed!”

AppStudio 5.0.9 is now available. It includes a number of speed improvements, especially for larger projects, plus some other fixes and new stuff.

1. Code Window: Much faster. Lag between keystrokes on large projects eliminated.
2. Script Window: Lets you display code, but no longer to modify it.
3. Modal Forms: Overlay parameter fixed.
4. Design Screen: CSS files work again.
5. Samples: New OpenStreetMaps/Leaflet sample (Thanks, Adrian!)
6. Controls: Tune Footerbar defaults.
7. Controls: List control had a problem with empty list.
8. Code Window: Fix intellisense not working all the time.
9. Documentation: Offline Wiki files updated.

AppStudio 5.0.8 is now available. It includes a number of speed improvements, especially for larger projects, plus some other fixes and new stuff.

1. Design Screen: Adding controls more than twice as fast.
2. Project Explorer: Moving controls up and down about 8 times faster.
3. Code Window: Intellisense for user functions much, much faster.
4. ServerStorage: Docs for installing on your own server are now available.
5. Controls: jqxGrid now handles % heights properly.
6. Design Screen: Copy and Paste of Containers fixed.
7. Design Screen: Zero value for designHeight, DesignWidth fixed.
8. Project Explorer: Dragging and dropping sound files fixed.
9. Design Screen: Scrollbar no longer appears when fullscreen is false.
10. Controls: Select no longer shows gray circle for custom icon.
11. Samples: New Swipe sample. (Thanks, Mike Burgher!)
12. Localization: Thai is complete. (Thanks, Theprasit S.!)

AppStudio 5.0.7 has been released. It has some new features as well as important fixes.

Probably the most useful is that a message now pops up if there is a runtime error in your code. Before, there was no way to know whether there was an error without opening the Chrome Debugger.

You can turn this off with the new stopOnError project property.

Here is what else is new:

1. Deploy: A message now appears if errors are encountered at runtime.
2. Project Properties: New stopOnError property to hide runtime error messages.
3. Controls: MsgBox appearance improved.
4. Forms: Modal forms now have onhide and onshow events.
5. EXE Files: Put on Start menu, not Startup files list.
6. Code Window: False negative on location = fixed.
7. DropBox: DataStore API is being deprecated by DropBox.

This update has improvements to Form bounds, plus a number of fixes.

1. EXE files: Icon handling improved.
2. Forms: Bounds now in a group
3. Forms: Bounds can now be percent, “auto” or a value.
4. Deploy: Code is only minimized when requested.
5. Design Screen: extra time during startup allowed for.
6. Controls: Minor path error in jqxDateTimeInput fixed.

This release brings two related new features.

First, there are now a bunch of new properties to help you create Windows exe apps. You can now specify your icon, the window size, etc. That increased the number of project properties, making it a bit unwieldy, which was solved by…

Second, properties are now grouped. The exe properties have their own section in the Properties Editor, along with PhoneGap, bounds, borders and fonts. It’s now much easier to find the property you’re looking for.

Here is the complete list of what is new in this release:

1. EXE files: Support added for localStorage.
2. EXE Files: new properties for publisher, icon, title, height and width.
3. EXE files: now run as a localServer
4. Controls: jqxGrid was not initiated properly in jqWidgets 3.8.
5. Deploy: fix encoding mode on LaunchIcon57.png.
6. Deploy: jsmin fixed.
7. jQuery: updated to 2.1.4
8. Properties Window: Properties now have groups.
9. Properties Window: Borders, Bounds, Fonts are grouped.
10. Properties: for Chrome Packaged Apps removed.
11. Samples: Grid sample cellrenderer fixed for jqWidgets 3.8.
12. ToolBox: Function list was sometimes not refreshing.
13. Translator: add some semicolons