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.

 

[beacon]

Thank you very much Erel.

I have gone through all my apps upgrading them.

I did notice that the line

Activity.TitleColor = Colors.Blue

has no effect. Is this a case of mea culpa?

Kind regards.

David.

 

[Erel]

Only Android 2.x allowed you to change the activity title color. I will add a message about it in the documentation.

 

[stevel05]

I've been testing the Beta and haven't come across any problems, but just wanted to say that I think the layout animations add a touch of class to the apps without any user effort, a nice addition. Thanks Erel.

 

[eSolution]

If we start recording the screen in portrait mode, if we change the screen orientation during the recording the resulted video will not show the screen rotated, it will show the portrait screen with half of the landscape screen in the middle. I tried to see a video in one of my app and to see it full screen I must rotate the device to change orientation to landscape, in the resulted recording the screen is still portrait and the movie that I'm watching is shown as landscape on half of the screen ... is like looking to the device trough a rectangular keyhole while the device is rotated behind

 

[Levit]

Nice work Erel.
So far so good
thanks

 

[bluedude]

Can you make animation default off in designer? I think it is kind of annoying to have to go over all my layouts to set this to 0.

 

[Erel]

This thread is about the beta version. It is not the correct place to post it.

The default animation period will not be changed.