Traveller needs iOS apps

[agorski]

Searching the app store I couldn't find a single app for Traveller. Correct me if I'm wrong. IMHO, this needs to change.

Over the past few years I've written a slew of Mac apps for Traveller using Xojo (nee RealBasic). I did these for fun and give them away for free. Submitting an app to the Mac app store is somewhat arcane in the Xojo world and made my eyes glaze over (i.e., not fun) so I haven't done it.

I've avoided Xcode as Objective-C made my eyes glaze over (i.e., not fun). But now, it looks like Swift 2.0 is maturing into something useful and actually fun. Xojo is nice but it's gotten more expensive while Xcode is free. So I'm learning Xcode with an eye to doing iOS apps written in Swift. Anyone else out there?

I think I'm going to start simple by making a little character database app to store your PCs and NPCs in. Each character will have all the info provided on a TAS Form 2 and you can edit anything and everything. I'm thinking of including a database of CT skills and common equipment for adding to your character record. Will probably allow the creation of new skills and equipment as well. Sounds like fun.

Anyway, just thought I'd mention this and see what this thread turns into.

 

[aramis]

Searching the app store I couldn't find a single app for Traveller. Correct me if I'm wrong. IMHO, this needs to change.

Over the past few years I've written a slew of Mac apps for Traveller using Xojo (nee RealBasic). I did these for fun and give them away for free. Submitting an app to the Mac app store is somewhat arcane in the Xojo world and made my eyes glaze over (i.e., not fun) so I haven't done it.

I've avoided Xcode as Objective-C made my eyes glaze over (i.e., not fun). But now, it looks like Swift 2.0 is maturing into something useful and actually fun. Xojo is nice but it's gotten more expensive while Xcode is free. So I'm learning Xcode with an eye to doing iOS apps written in Swift. Anyone else out there?

I think I'm going to start simple by making a little character database app to store your PCs and NPCs in. Each character will have all the info provided on a TAS Form 2 and you can edit anything and everything. I'm thinking of including a database of CT skills and common equipment for adding to your character record. Will probably allow the creation of new skills and equipment as well. Sounds like fun.

Anyway, just thought I'd mention this and see what this thread turns into.

Swift has the same interface hooks as ObjC, at least if I read the description correctly.

It's got the slice notation and arrays from Python, tho', and that's a plus.

 

[Pthor]

iOS apps

What are people looking for in iOS apps? Are people looking to have Traveller apps for iOS? How many people out there might be interested?

Swift 2.0 is really great. It is starting to look like a production level language now.

 

[Otto Harkaman]

What are people looking for in iOS apps? Are people looking to have Traveller apps for iOS? How many people out there might be interested?

Swift 2.0 is really great. It is starting to look like a production level language now.

Character generation and character management, equipment inventory; combat resolution; encounter generation?

 

[Pthor]

CT character generation will always have that alert telling you that your character is already dead. :rofl:

 

[agorski]

CT character generation will always have that alert telling you that your character is already dead. :rofl:

Easily achieved in code just by having your chargen app terminate unexpectedly.

 

[robject]

I've got a Traveller calendar app that never made it to the store -- the process of getting it there was difficult, and the app itself was little more than a curiosity. How many times do you want to translate between calendars?

 

[aramis]

Looking at Swift programming - Swift is, not to be punny, pretty swift for development. Great syntax, simple to code...

The problem is Apple's walled garden approach, and apparently that Apple bounces a lot of stuff simply because no one in the approval process understands what it's about.

Traveller Software is pretty esoteric, on a good day.

I'm not promising ANYTHING - It took me 20 hours to figure out how to make a proper hello world in swift 2, due to a paradigm shift in how the IDE links stuff. (and since there's no equivalent to inkey$, and obtaining a line of text from the console's a pain, I can't even make decent console apps with it...)

 

[Pthor]

There is good news about the walled garden. When iOS9 and Xcode 7 come out of beta, anybody will be able to download the tools for free (which you can do now), and install any apps you build in Xcode on your own phone without a paid developer account.

 

[aramis]

There is good news about the walled garden. When iOS9 and Xcode 7 come out of beta, anybody will be able to download the tools for free (which you can do now), and install any apps you build in Xcode on your own phone without a paid developer account.

been that way for a while, Pthor. Xcode 6.3 or earlier.
Most users, however, won't compile from source, and note that swift has msjor changes with sach update....

 

[agorski]

swift has msjor changes with sach update....

I've wondered about this. Will it be a pain to maintain existing apps?

On the other hand, it looks like there was only about a half dozen changes from Swift 1 to 2, and Xcode looks like it will flag everything that's changed and will even suggest a fix.

 

[aramis]

I've wondered about this. Will it be a pain to maintain existing apps?

On the other hand, it looks like there was only about a half dozen changes from Swift 1 to 2, and Xcode looks like it will flag everything that's changed and will even suggest a fix.

It made it a pain to find a Hello World example that compiled...

 

[whartung]

Most users, however, won't compile from source, and note that swift has msjor changes with sach update....

Modulo all the nits of apparently distributing the source code is verboten anyway, otherwise a bunch of this stuff would be on github by now anyway.

 

[Pthor]

Modulo all the nits of apparently distributing the source code is verboten anyway, otherwise a bunch of this stuff would be on github by now anyway.

I'm not sure what you mean by that. There are plenty of iOS apps on Github and I think they all include source code. Just do a search on Github for "iOS".

 

[Pthor]

Whether or not apps are easily distributed on the iOS platform, the question of why there aren't that many iOS Traveller apps is really down to the individual hobbyist developers.

In my case, I'm interested in doing them, but I have so many other things taking up my time that I don't have much to work on them. Between work, kids, theater (OH GOD, WHY DID I START??), yard work, physical build projects, and app requests by my wife, I have a limited amount of time. I'm sure it's the same with a lot of people.

Then, you also have the limited number of people that want to dive into iOS app development. I think this last bit has been true no matter what the language/platform is. There has always been a limited number of hobbyist developers. Finding ones that are interested in both Traveller and software development along with the time to do it is tough.

 

[robject]

1. GunMaker Plus

I can see many of the *Maker tools ported to an iOS app.

GunMaker
ArmorMaker
VehicleMaker

These three are similar enough to benefit from one solution framework, and they're simple enough to be do-able in a reasonable amount of time. Finally, they can all use the built-in UI widgets.


2. Library Data

Since TravellerMap exists, there is no need for an OTU map app.

The Calendar app I have, but have not published, is merely a curiosity. However, if I added access to Don's Integrated Timeline (fetched from the web but then cached locally), and added access to Library Data (also fetched but cached), then it might be marginally useful :/



3. NPC Generator

A character generator would be interesting to see, but usually character generation is a tangible and social exercise.

HOWEVER, an NPC GENERATOR would be nice.



4. World Builder

WorldBuilder: interacting with the UWP, its primary, its orbital distance, albedo, and greenhouse level (etc) would be very very useful. OK, I'm going to do that next. Providing an integration point with Travellermap is a plus.

Mapper: taking a UWP and programmatically, deterministically generating world triangles, terrain hexes, regional hexes et al, complete with terrain symbols, could be very very nice indeed. Drill down and get an animal encounter table.

BeastMaker: generating animal encounter tables on the fly would be helpful.

 

[jawillroy]

I would dearly love an app for the iPad to plot out and track book 2 style vector combat... allowing you to place planetary bodies, add to vectors, calculate laser fire, add missiles and sand... all that fun stuff.

 

[zorakzoran]

I would like to see an app version of the Excel file worldgeneratormap4 because it makes great maps and quick details about politics based on UWP. The best part is it creates random versions from the same UWP.

I'd like to add a button to save the good versions to a database or file for later use. It is difficult to find good hobby apps on the mac.

 

[Meteoric Assault]

OS Apps

Agorski,

If you ever have the time to create a World Builder (Book 6) and Shipyard (Book 2 with mods)... I will name my next child after you....

 

[Pthor]

I'm rather confused by the licensing. Are we allowed to charge for apps? Do we need to sign some kind of licensing agreement with Marc?