Other B4A v4.00 BETA has been released

[Erel]

B4A v4.00 BETA is now available for download. Users who are eligible for a free upgrade will receive an email with the download link.
Note that starting from this version Basic4android is named B4A

New features and improvements:

• Rapid debugger memory handling was rewritten to provide better performance and to avoid memory leaks.
• Three new View methods: SetLayoutAnimated, SetVisibleAnimated and SetColorAnimated. With these methods it is very simple to add nice animations effects to your app.
  See this thread for more information: Simple animations in B4A v4.00
• Designer animations - Layouts added with the designer are (optionally) animated.
• Support for constants: Dim Const x As Int = 2.
  Constant variables are assigned when declared. Their value cannot be later changed (enforced by the compiler).
  
• Screen video capture - Requires Android 4.4+. Very useful for demonstrations.
  
• Activity_ActionBarHomeClick event - Handles the action bar icon click event. This event replaces the event from StdActionBar library which doesn't work on Android 5 devices.
• Better handling of the internal message queue on Android 5 devices.
• Visual designer supports custom fonts.
• Visual designer supports adding borders to views that use ColorDrawable. Borders can also be added with ColorDrawable.Initialize2.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• New Application object with the following properties:
  • LabelName
  • VersionName
  • VersionCode
  • PackageName
• Activity.DisableAccessibility - Workaround for this Android bug: https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=55933
• IsDevTool keyword - Useful when reusing code with B4J/B4i.
• Designer - Select all files option.
• Designer - Double click on view's name to add to the script.
• Libraries list - Checked libraries are listed at the top of the list.
• Duplicate line shortcut - Ctrl + D.
• AutoComplete shortcut - Ctrl + \ (same as Ctrl + Space).
• Hide other modules option when right clicking on the module header.
• Clear logs when program starts option.
• 3 new warnings related to the manifest editor:
  • No android:targetSdkVersion.
  • targetSdkVersion is lower than 20 and no theme is explicitly set.
  • AndroidManifest.xml is read only
• New logo.
• CurrentStatement and breakpoints colors are configurable in the xml file.
• B4A-Bridge was updated with several fixes and the PHONE_READ_STATE permission was removed (it was used in the past to show the device id).
• Bug fixes.

The minimum Android version is now version 2.0.

This is a beta version. You are advised to backup your projects before loading them in the new version.

Thank you for your help with the development of B4A and the other tools.
Please start new threads for issues related to the beta version.

 

[Erel]

The Take Screenshot tool is not a new feature. Don't confuse it with the new Video record feature.

Both features will only work with USB debugging.

 

[SteveTerrell]

Just noticed:

The app info for B4A Bridge says it is v2.11 but the App screen has v2.10 at the bottom

 

[SteveTerrell]

The Take Screenshot tool is not a new feature. Don't confuse it with the new Video record feature.

Both features will only work with USB debugging.

Thanks, would be good if both did work with bridge though.

 

[Erel]

The app info for B4A Bridge says it is v2.11 but the App screen has v2.10 at the bottom

I've uploaded a new version...

 

[Erel]

Thanks, would be good if both did work with bridge though.

They are based on features that are only available with USB debug mode.

 

[Touch]

Grazie!

 

[chuck3e]

Erel, your B4 products are remarkable and extremely robust. The way you keep providing these upgrades shows how much you care about your creation, and the way you personally provide support on this forum shows how passionate you are about its success and making a quality product. This is rare and unique. You and your B4x's have my utmost respect. Thanks for making this little part of the world a whole lot better.
-Chuck

 

[Douglas Farias]

@Erel how to use the video capture?
i have opned the b4a-bridge, my app is on debug, i press record and say
not device connected

my device is a moto g 4.4 kitkat, and is on usb

this works only with emulator?

 

[dealsmonkey]

Thanks Erel, much appreciated

 

[Erel]

See the message at the top of the screen:

It will not work with B4A-Bridge.

 

[chrjak]

great work man!
but i am asking why the animation wont be shown on android 3- ...
btw. erel. check mailbox please

 

[chrjak]

Think i discovered a bug. if you do that layoutanimation with a label the text size is the same at the end. not like a button would do!
Also i think it would be a great idea to send some subs for the color animation and the layout animation. like timer:tick event.

 

[Erel]

but i am asking why the animation wont be shown on android 3- ...

Because this feature is based on APIs not available on Android 2.x. Note that the change will still happen on older devices.

View.SetLayoutAnimation doesn't change the text size. It changes the view size and position.

If you want to handle events related to the animation then you should use Animation or AnimationPlus libraries.

 

[chrjak]

View.SetLayoutAnimation doesn't change the text size. It changes the view size and position.

If you want to handle events related to the animation then you should use Animation or AnimationPlus libraries.

What about that video where your move button changed its text size?

Does this send me the subs of this "basic animation"? Edit: I have the Animation library already checked. but what to do for the subs?

 

[Erel]

The text size is not changed. It might change during the animation if the size difference is large. However eventually the text size will be exactly as it was.

 

[chrjak]

The difference is really big but the text still is the same. in your video the text changes everytime...!?

 

[Informatix]

Because this feature is based on APIs not available on Android 2.x. Note that the change will still happen on older devices.

View.SetLayoutAnimation doesn't change the text size. It changes the view size and position.

If you want to handle events related to the animation then you should use Animation or AnimationPlus libraries.

Another animation library is NineOldAndroids. It provides the ability to animate any property of a view, for any Android version.

 

[ivan.tellez]

Dear @Erel

This is great, a whole new major version. I have some suggestions for this release

As a major version, please consider adding more tools to the toolbars to avoid using the menus. For example:

• More options on the debug's tool bar as in this post
• Make the Abstract designer Top Most when the Designer is, or add the optios to control them indicidually.
• The Bridge its a really usefull tool, but its sometime a pain in the ass using it on the menus, specially when the ip changes. Please add it to the tool bar; An icon showing connected/desconnected status, Connect Bluetooth, Connect WiFi and Disconnect buttos, and a combo to conect to recent IPs.
• In the files tab, add a boton with the "Open files folder" option

I really loved the conditional compiling, but, there are some issues:

• The android.jar path shuld be part of the project's Attributes, or even better, configurable in the Build configurations. Different projects require different API levels. The path in Paths configuration, should be only like a "Default Path"

The new Application object its a really usefull info for the developpers, please consider adding more properties:

• IsInDebugMode (Internally)
  
• lastUpdateTime (From the PackageInfo)
  
• firstInstallTime(From the PackageInfo)

Rapid debugger:

• When I want to debug a project with Widgets, its impossible to use the Rapid Debugger's change code option because the error "CreateRemoteViews can only be called once per Service". (Maybe not possible to Change code of the widget, but changing the activity code should be possible)

This is optional but important:

Talking about widgets, this are a very important part of some apps, but their support is really limited on B4A, please consider bring better support making native and in a easy way the exposed by corwin42 in his post Multiple instances of the same widget, for example:

• A possibility to start a configuration Activity for your widget to make individual settings
• A possibility to update only a single widget instance and not all of them
• A possibility to get a list of widgets created by the widget service
• A way to decide which widget fired a click event
• Better Resizing support.

Tanks

 

[LWGShane]

Awesome updates and neat "grown-up" icons! Now if only these IDEs were cross-platform

Excited to see the upcoming website redesign.

 

[Erel]

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Another animation library is NineOldAndroids. It provides the ability to animate any property of a view, for any Android version.

Android 2.x devices are becoming less and less relevant. Less than 10% of the devices now run Android 2.x: https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html
The new methods will work on these devices without the animation effects. It is better to rely on the native methods instead of adding a dependency on another project into the core library.

@ivan.tellez this is not the place to suggest new features. You should post it in the wishlist forum.

The difference is really big but the text still is the same. in your video the text changes everytime...!?

The text size is not changing. The text size at the end of the animation is the same as it was before.