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AppStudio 4.1.1 released!

AppStudio 4.1.1 has been released. It has a number of fixes:

  1. Code Window: Fix problem with Style/Style End
  2. Controls: HeaderBar icons can be set to ‘none’.
  3. Controls: PictureBox’s hidden property set on start.
  4. Controls: RadialGauge style property works now.
  5. Deploy: Mime types fixed so IE can run localServer.
  6. Deploy: Put files into the correct place in OfflineApp.manifest
  7. Deploy: Sound files are now give the correct name on deploy.
  8. Design Screen: Japanese characters were crashing app.
  9. Documentation: Local and Wiki files updated.
  10. IDE: External files are read in as unicode.
  11. IDE: Problem starting first time on a Mac fixed.
  12. IDE: Unicode problem on AppStudio startup
  13. Project Explorer: Drag and drop an image fixed.
  14. Samples: Update Ajax sample to work with PhoneGap Build.
  15. Translation: All language files updated.
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AppStudio 4.1 Released!

AppStudio 4.1 has just been released. It has two important changes:

  1. PhoneGap’s new authorization scheme is now supported. If you are using the default account, you do not need do anything other than install the new release. After May 15th, releases before 4.1 may not work. If you have your own PhoneGap account, read this:
    http://wiki.nsbasic.com/PhoneGap_AuthToken

  2. “Run in Desktop Browser” now uses localhost. Certain features only work when the app is actually deployed. AppStudio now sets up a localhost so these features work even when running on your local machine. There should be no change to your work flow. Everything should work as before, except you no longer need to deploy to nsbapp or to your own server.

AppStudio 4.1 is free for all existing AppStudio 4 users. If you have an older version, you can order it from our order page.

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The 2014 Programming Contest is on!

Our fourth NSB/AppStudio Programming Contest is underway. We’re looking forward to cool entries which take advantage of the capabilities of devices and AppStudio.

We have four categories:

  • Business
  • Fun – Sports, Games, Personal interest – anything!
  • Education – Assignments, Lesson Plans or administrative tools
  • Showcase – Screenshots of your app

All registered AppStudio users are welcome to participate. Prizes are $100 USD in each category, with the exception of Showcase.

Continue reading “The 2014 Programming Contest is on!”

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BASIC is 50!

BASIC is 50 years old today. The language has introduced millions of people to programming and is an important language for education and business.

The charm of BASIC, which it still very much has, is that it is easy to just start working and get results. There are very few concepts that need to be mastered before writing your first program, and the learning process to become an expert is a smooth and gradual one. It is a reliable way to get good results, whether you are teaching it or getting an application done.

I’ve hung out with some of the creators of famous BASICs: Tom Kurtz, Steve Wozniak and others. I have had the good luck to work on successful implementations of BASIC for Newton, Windows CE, Palm OS and now iOS, Android and Window Phone.

It’s been great to be able to keep the core of the language intact, while adding features to make it work well with the modern technologies of the web and mobile devices. It’s more powerful than ever and still easy to use.

Here are a few great articles for BASIC’s birthday:

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What the $(“#?

Here’s a great question from the web board. What is it with the $(“# you will sometimes see in the code?

It’s a jQuery thing. Valid function names can start with a letter or certain special characters. “$” is a valid character to use in a function name. In this case, it’s the entire function name: $().

(jQuery is a utility library which is included in AppStudio apps)

jQuery’s $() function is a selector. It looks for elements in your app. It has a lot of different ways to select them:
http://api.jquery.com/category/selectors/

You may see something like

  $("#Button1").css("color","red")

The # means to look for an element with the id of “Button1”. What follows is the function to perform on the selected elements. There are a lot of functions that can be called:
http://api.jquery.com

By the way, you can also do the above as follows:

  $(Button1).css("color","red")

Rather than using a selector, we reference the control directly.