Wrapping – Export Hype HTML to an App 🎁

The “Wrapping” app has been upgraded to version 1.1.3.

Based on customer feedback, it seems that a lot of people haven’t upgraded to 10.13 yet. However, Xcode 9 is available on 10.12. Therefore, the minimum operating system requirement was lowered to 10.12 and the Mac exporting was updated accordingly. That means more people should be able to enjoy the “Wrapping” app.

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The “Wrapping” app has been upgraded to version 1.1.4

This version addresses an issue with spaces in the image file name or directory paths.

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How’s everyone doing with the app? I haven’t heard anything since I fixed the bugs, so does that mean it’s OK? Is it working for you? Is everyone happy with the “Wapping” app?

I contacted Apple about the “downloaded from the Internet” alert message when opening the .xcodeproj Xcode project. Apparently, it’s not my fault. It’s a bug with the operating system. A bug report has been filed, so I’m awaiting feedback.

I’m planning to personally use the “Wrapping” to launch a new iOS app this week. (It’s already been helpful with testing.” I wasn’t planning to make a macOS version. But since it’s so easy, and since my games sell better on macOS, maybe I should do that too.

Are people interested in support for additional platform exporting? I’ve been looking into Android. That might be something I do in the future. Right now, it’s on-hold though, until I can get my Linux box setup. The current plan is to wait until “bionic beaver” LTS Ubuntu is released, which is end of April, and then setup the Android stuff there. (I don’t want to mix my Mac stuff with Android stuff just yet.) I have some other projects to finish first too. But, if a lot of people want this feature right away, I suppose I can move it up the schedule.

Also, did anyone review the app? :thinking:

I’m happy at the moment. It’s a nice app. The “download…” is annoying, but ok that it will be fixed. The only thing that I notice is that the name of the app now is without spaces under the icon on the iPad. The rest is as it should be. Maybe you can look into that? Android would be nice. But I’m already happy with the osx possibility. Review is coming up :sunglasses:

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That's a good thing to work on today. Heh, that last project took way longer than I thought it would.

Is this on iPhone too? I suppose it doesn't matter. I'll check it out, try to see what's going on.


OK, so I tested it out. I don't think this is a problem with the "Wrapping" app.

Example one...

34 AM

By default, the "Wrapping" app will use "App Name" for the app name. (That's if no app name is specified.) So, I was surprised that there would be a problem with spaces so far in development. Yet, I tried again. I used "The Spaces" as the name of the app. It worked.

Then, I went crazy. I used "The Many Spaces Application" as the Application Name...

42 AM

I think that's the problem you're seeing. I'm thinking this is an iOS feature. HA HA! :smiley:

Basically, you want a nice and short name for your app, which is tough since there are so many apps. It looks like iOS will truncate the app name if it's too long.

Well that must be the problem. Indeed I have 23 positions for the name including 3 spaces. Thought that 30 positions are allowed since ios 11.
I’ll leave it like this. It’s hard to find a shorter name. Thanks for sherlocking. :grinning:

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I bought my copy today. So I hope to use it very soon to see how this goes. Many thanks for developing this! Makes life easier, so that can only be a good thing!

Cheers, Olav

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I’ve been feeling pretty crappy lately. I’m like, “Why am I so tired?” Heh, then I went back and read this thread. “OH! That’s what happened.” HA HA HA!

Recently, I started reading what was necessary to add Android support to this app. As I was working on the problem, I started feeling a sharp pain in my chest. Soon after, it shot straight through to my back. Wow, that’s some serious heartburn. Heh! I’m not ready to work on this app again.

How has the “Wrapping” app been doing for you? Did anyone find success on the Mac App Store / iTunes App Store with it?

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I am not sure if this might help with android or your back pain but I was looking at Electron recently and it powers apps like Slack. It offers an app wrapper and runs on JS with the benefit of all the node JS goodies. Maybe this is an option for cross Plattform app wrappers for Hype? But just saw they don’t do android… it’s the Desktops they target: https://github.com/gabrielcsapo/electron-mobile/issues/1

Once I get a project that needs this I’ll give it a spin, thanks!

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For me it works great. An app is being tested at the moment. No problems. Would be nice to have it export to Android as well.

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I saw Electron before creating the "Wrapping" app. It didn't quite meet my project goals. That's why I created the "Wrapping" app. Yes, Electron does power some popular apps... such as Slack, Atom and Visual Studio Code. (I really like Visual Studio Code. Hype should have a JavaScript editor like that.) However, Wrapping is way easier and specifically created to work with a Hype project.

Here's a comparison...

That video's title is, "Build an Electron App in Under 60 Minutes" ...if you already have a Hype project that supports iOS or macOS, you could build an app with Wrapping in UNDER 60 SECONDS!

That's not counting the time Xcode needs to built the app though. Maybe I should make a tutorial video for the "Wrapping" app. :thinking:

While I'm not sure if I'll be adding Android support to the "Wrapping" app, it is something I'm seriously considering. Here's the short term roadmap for Photics...

  • Intensifies – WebVTT file creator (Captions /Subtitles)
  • Boroughs – a picture game
  • Setup Digital Downloads – I have Wrapping as a Hype Export script. I just have to figure out how to sell it, as it's not suitable for the Mac App Store. I could just launch the script on FastSpring, but that wouldn't be a way to manage possible updates to the script. I'm thinking of something through Photics.com to manage all the digital downloads – but the GDPR complicated the issue.
  • Hype 4 Book – The update is different enough to justify the creation of a new book

...and then I suppose that brings me to Android support for Wrapping. Heh, that should keep me busy.


Meanwhile, version 1.1.5 of the "Wrapping" app was released. It's a minor update, to remove the minor warnings in Xcode version 9.3.1 (9E501) – and of course Apple releases Xcode 9.4 the very next day. Surprisingly, no errors / warnings were shown in testing. At least, not so far.


Update: 5/31/2018

Eh, I didn't feel like working on the other projects right now...

...as it is "the world’s most popular operating system" :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:


Update: 5/31/2018 (Supplemental)

Wow, I must really hate Android. HA HA. That burning stomach pain is back tonight. Perhaps I should just go rest. I made great progress though. As much as I don't like Google, setting up development for Android was less annoying than iOS. Still annoying, just less annoying. HA.

I have an old Samsung Galaxy Player... like old... like Gingerbread 2.3 old. I wasted some time trying to find the right USB cable, only to realize it's too old to use for this project. It seems that at least Kit Kat is ideal, as that's when WebView improved.

Android 4.4 (API level 19) introduces a new version of WebView that is based on Chromium. This change upgrades WebView performance and standards support for HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript to match the latest web browsers. Any apps using WebView will inherit these upgrades when running on Android 4.4 and higher.

Hype doesn't have a setting for that though...

24 PM

I was able to get an Internet based WebView going. That's not really new though. I was able to do that last decade. Heh, the more things change... A First Step… Installing the Google Android SDK – Photics.com ...the more they stay the same.

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Here’s an update on the status of Android… it’s not very good. I was able to get WebKit to work, but the results are poor. There are Font display issues and JavaScript doesn’t always run.

For those familiar with Android development, you might say, “Did you try…”

getSettings().setDefaultTextEncodingName("utf-8");
getSettings().setJavaScriptEnabled(true);

…it helped, but it’s still a pretty shoddy experience.

There’s also the issue of reducing the project to the bare minimum. The project folder gets encumbered with this “Gradle” crap. When I try to remove it, just reduce the number of files to the minimum required, the project doesn’t open.

How do you guys feel about this? Would you want the “Wrapping” app to export to Android, even though it doesn’t work as well? My thinking is… no… but maybe you feel differently.

Well, I’d love to have Wrapping export to Android.
But if if it doesn’t work as expected it seems useless. Maybe better stick to the iOS and OSX users.
Btw the update didn’t solve the ‘downloaded from internet issue’

That's an Apple bug. It was reported, but I don't know if they're going to fix it.

Well, it is not annoying enough.:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Apple has ported WebKit to watchOS, which opens up a lot of possibilities. You can view web content from your watch.

Hmmm :thinking:

Perhaps this is a way to improve the "Wrapping" app. Does this mean something like a Hype project could run on an Apple Watch?

While I don’t know how long I’ll keep updating Wrapping, the general idea is that I worry about the Xcode updates, so that you don’t have to. So, I got worried when I saw this…

Xcode 10.0 was released today! :scream_cat:

So, I downloaded it and checked it out. Surprisingly, there were no errors or warnings with an Xcode project from the most recent version of Wrapping. That’s nice!

In general, Apple went nuts today… iOS 12, iWork apps, Safari 12 and Xcode 10. I’m still getting settled with the updates. The latest version of macOS (10.14) supposedly drops next week. So, I’ve been busy catching up. This is good, because my latest app (Intensifies, which is also built with Wrapping) has been… difficult.

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I was recently asked what happened to Wrapping. So, here’s the story. I wasn’t having much fun with Apple’s walled garden. So, I pulled my apps from the store. Sales were terrible and the tedious rules were killing the joy of app development. I posted about it here… https://photics.com/a-new-plan/ …I thought about giving up, but Wrapping is a good app. I have some other great ideas for other app projects too. I should keep going.

So, I’ve been thinking about creating something more cross-platform friendly… like this…

…it seems I gave up on Android too quickly. Last Spring, I wasn’t too far from getting Android export working. Perhaps I should keep going… is Windows exporting possible? Is Linux exporting possible? Could wrapping work on other operating systems besides macOS? I don’t know, but it seems a new plan is forming.

Meanwhile, I haven’t gone anywhere. I’m still thinking about Hype and what to do about the Hype 4 book… but I’m going to be busy, so I probably won’t be chatting as much around here until I get the new plan going.

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Wow, there’s a good chance I’m bringing this app back. I loaded up the “Wrapping” project today in Xcode. I was shocked and pleasantly surprised to see this…

…my app automatically had dark mode support. I didn’t have to do a thing. It just worked. That’s the Apple I know! I’m still testing things out to see if it makes sense to get back into iOS / Mac app development. This was very encouraging though.

Note: This is the “Wrapping” app itself, not the app projects it exports. Hype projects don’t detect dark mode… yet.

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Bring it back into the store if it doesn’t cost you too much time and energy. I love it and am sure others will too. I know how tedious it is working with (around) Apple’s restrictive and contradictory rules, so I fully empathize, @Photics!

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