Hello,
First of all, i will introduce myself. My name is Eric Dodji Gbofu and I have been using Codename One since its first days. I was already a user of LWUIT before the creation of CN1 so the migration to CN1 was natural for me. I am also the author of the french and first book on Codename One released in 2015. You can read more about that on this page https://www.codenameone.com/blog/book-continued-migration.html . This message is not only for CN1 team but also for all developers who use this framework. I have been seduced by CN1 since its creation and i always don’t understand why it does not meet the much deserved success yet. So, i just post this message to make some propositions to the CN1 team, but also to allow other developers to give their opinion on everything I'm going to write. I think it is time to contribute more seriously to the success of Codename One. *First point :* On CN1's official website, it is important to add links to Codename One external learning resources. Google is not enough. People need to notice on the CN1 website that other people are also creating resources for CN1. For instance, when you visit other’s framework website, you could find links to others resources like books, videos and articles created by other developers. These resources are put on a dedicated page. This kind of things makes life easier for beginners who can, for example, look for resources in their native language. From 2013 to 2015, I had a website in French about CN1. This site is no longer online since 2015 but I will surely relaunch another site this year. For example, many people don’t know that there is a book (in French for now) about CN1 since 2015. It would be nice to put this resource and others on a dedicated page on the official website. The resources provided by the CN1 team itself are not enough to make other people understand that the framework interested other developers. *Second point:* Some community members like Steve Hannah (who works with the CN1 team) have created some great stuff that is little known and deserves more recognition and adoption. Take, for example, the topic of CN1 theme creation. Despite the fact that there are some videos on the subject, it's something that people struggle to create properly. Some have expressed the wish to create their themes with CSS and Steve has fulfilled this wish by creating CN1 CSS. CN1 CSS is cool and really simplifies life to create themes if you know about CSS and don’t want to fight with CN1 designer's theme editor. This library is unknown and the CN1 team does not really put it forward despite the fact that people needs it. There is also another cool tool like CN1ML which is an ambitious project and which also deserves to be known. Same for the tool that allows to use CN1 with PhoneGap / Cordova. What I propose on this second point is to integrate CN1CSS (priority) and possibly CN1ML directly in the API of CN1. Once these things are integrated, you can for example put them in the CN1 project creation wizard. This will allow new (and even old) developers to know that this or that tool exists and is there to help them. Here is an example of what the content of the CN1 project creation wizard should look like. • CodenameOne Project (*DONE!)* • CodenameOne Library (*DONE!)* • CodenameOne Themes with CN1CSS • CodenameOne Phonegap / Cordova Project • CodenameOne CN1ML Project *Third point:* Almost two years ago, I announced the arrival of a marketplace for CN1 for the month of July 2016. For those who had missed the announcement made by Shai on this subject, read this article: https://www.codenameone.com/blog/codename-one-store.html . This marketplace has not finally arrived because of some problems I had. First of all, I apologize because I was quiet since July 2016. Now, everything is OK and I will talk about it in this third point. I want to launch this marketplace because I noticed that some developers wanted premium themes for their apps. In addition, other developers (like me) had also created great plugins for their own projects but didn’t want to give them for free (normal thing that I understand perfectly). Two years later, I am now very convinced that CN1 needs a marketplace and I have definitely come back to launch it. Now it's serious and nothing will stop it because I'm finalizing the last points with my team. The domain name has changed and the new address is www.codename1store.com . You can already visit the website and put your email for news. Launch dates are already available on the homepage. I am available to answer any questions about this marketplace. That said, if you are a developer and you use CN1 intensively, you can already start preparing or creating themes, plugins (CN1LIB), templates and even complete applications for sale on this site. About this third point, I think it would be cool that the CN1 team adds a menu in the plugin to directly access the marketplace with the browser. A good shortcut to simplify the life of developers. It remains a suggestion and not an obligation. *Fourth point:* To simplify the life of the CN1 developers, I intend to create and offer desktop tools to CN1. I am good in desktop development with the Qt framework (in C++) that I used to develop a lot of tools. I want to recreate in a complete and modern way certain tools of CN1. Currently there are various default built-in tools to the Codename One Designer software. Some are not so easy to take for beginners. Others are not intuitive. Personally, i have no problems with CN1 Designer but I see too many people around me (especially those who start with CN1) who didn’t find this tool intuitive. Currently, I’am building a better internationalization tool (application) for CN1. This is a simple to use and more complete application than the one built into CN1 Designer too. I was inspired by Qt Linguist app so i named this app Codename One Linguist ;-). I would like to ask Shai and Chen if they will accept to integrate this tool to CN1 if i give them this software for free ? They will of course test it before it launch next month (in May). In the case they don’t use to accept my gift, i will prefer to sell it in the marketplace. Need your reply here Shaï and Chen ;-) *Fifth point:* CN1 API is becoming big with more and more features so I think it would be good to start removing some classes and functions that are deprecated. Not all but the oldest that have been marked deprecated for long time. I would like to have your thoughts on that too. *Sixth point:* Publish on your blog interviews of developers and companies that use CN1 to create their applications. Corona and Unity, for example, often do it. Here are some examples here https://coronalabs.com/stories/ . PS: I use Corona too to build games. This is why I put their link there. *Seventh and last point:* I think many will agree with me that we need a new theme editor for CN1. I know that the CN1 team is very busy with a lot of things and I propose to the community that we take care of it. I really want to create new modern and easier to use software to create themes in CN1. With this app, developers will have the choice to use a visual editor or to code everything in CN1 CSS if they want. What do you think about that ? Is this something that interests you? If so, are there people who will join me to do that? Only developers who know how to use the Qt framework. Thank you for taking the time to read this long message. I am curious to know what you think about each of these points. Thank you again and look forward to reading you all. Long live toCodename One ;-) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "CodenameOne Discussions" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/codenameone-discussions. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/codenameone-discussions/5861b2f1-aea2-4aab-88ad-df058bc05d55%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
