Can we add google firebase api to Gideros by using C++ SDK

vitalitymobile

Firebase by google brings us many features likes: Realtime Database, Remote Config ..
(Detail here: https://firebase.google.com/features/)

Now firebase supports C++ API and I think we can add this to Gideros easier?
https://firebase.google.com/docs/cpp/setup

Thanks!

SinisterSoft

Might be useful, maybe it could be added as a plugin?

hgy29

Started writing a firebase plugin (first targets: analytics, crash, notifications and remote configs, for iOS and Android). Anyone interested and ready to support me ?

simwhi

@hgy29 I'd love to know how to write a plugin. Is there any chance that you provide step by step documentation? I understand the overall concepts, but I do not understand how to implement and the tools required. For example, do you need Eclipse to create the .so files, or some other compiler/tools?

antix

Ya-huh, totally would like an easy up to date tutorial on how to make a plug-in. It seems to be one of the most hotly requested things these days.

hgy29

@simwhi, @antix,
Writing plugins is not easy, even for me, it would takes me ages to write a tutorial for this, especially since I basically hate writing docs!

I do have a doc on how to set up a build environment for gideros and plugins, which is the first step, unfortunately it is in French (written by one of my employees), and it doesn't explain how to actually write plugins.

The major difficulty is that writing a plugin often requires understanding the internals of Gideros at some point, and the best way to acquire this knowledge is to dig into gideros source code, which in turn means that you no longer need a doc after all...

simwhi

@hgy29 Thanks for the information.

So, I need to understand the internals of Gideros to make third party plugins? I thought that it was fairly easy armed with a little knowledge. My understanding was:

1. write a bridge between Lua <--> C/C++ <--> Android / iOS (create .so files for each CPU architecture).
2. Write a Lua script to reference the plugin.
3. Add the plugin to you Android studio project.
4. Test it thoroughly.

We would really appreciate it If you could share this document as we can translate it into English. We will of course share this back to the community.

Many thanks.
Simon

hgy29

Simon, here it is, I hope it will help you getting started. I ought to translate it myself but didn't found the time yet.

The difficult part when writing a plugin is managing events for async calls, but I suppose you can learn from other plugins too.

I wish you succeed, we really need more people maintaining gideros, both core and plugins.

antix

So it's hard to create a plugin that you say pass a table of data, and then receive a table of data as the output?

hgy29

No, that kind of synchronous call is quite easy, what is not is queuing and processing events, I mean asynchronous work. Other things that require some knowledge of gideros internals is passing gideros objects (Sprite, Texture, or whatever) to a plugin.

simwhi

@hgy29

That's great! Many thanks.

I'm interested in asynchronous plugins such as text to speech and ad providers etc.

I'll post the English version here when it's done.

vitalitymobile

@hgy29 If you complete one target (for example analytics) and can make a basic list how to do it ( C++ code, native code, ...). Then we can follow and help you!

antix

@hgy29 ahh okay. I would like to see a tutorial on the "easy" plug in.

hgy29

@antix, the document I posted earlier may be a good start.

Back to Firebase, I managed to get analytics working on iOS, and I have the code for Android too (untested). I'll post my sources here this afternoon, and go on with notifications (which is why I do it at first).

So far the most time consuming part is getting started: integrating Firebase SDK in android and iOS exports with a script so that it doesn't require manual work, and writing a skeleton for the plugin.

hgy29

Here is the current version of the plugin: Support for crash reporting and analytics, both for iOS (tested) and Android (not tested).

hgy29

I've finally finished my firebase plugin for iOS and Android. It supports crash reporting, analytics, remote configs and notifications. However I spent so much time on it that I decided to make it paid. 5EUR for a single app licence, and 15EUR for unlimited number of apps from the same developer. PM me if interested.

SinisterSoft

More than interested!

vitalitymobile

Very reasonable price!
@hgy29 Add Realtime database please

totebo

@hgy29, so it begins! We need a marketplace for paid plugins, both to make existing plugs more visible and to let people know of this alternative Gideros revenue stream.

SinisterSoft

The next version of gideros has a button to locate a special 'user plugins' folder for bought plugins.

totebo

Nice one. But first they need to know where to buy them!

keszegh

yes, it needs to be added here (as a featured listing, i think a code by any main contributor to the core gideros code should have a place at the featured list automatically):
http://giderosmobile.com/tools
and again some spam needs to be removed from there (see Latest tools at the bottom)

SinisterSoft

Me too!

antix

I would suggest that Widget Candy and possibly Particle Candy links be removed since the creators offer pretty much refuse to reply to support requests regarding bugs (which exist in at least Widget Candy) and feature requests.