Welcome!
This is the community forum for my apps Pythonista and Editorial.
For individual support questions, you can also send an email. If you have a very short question or just want to say hello — I'm @olemoritz on Twitter.
Split view multitasking for iPad
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@wradcliffe I kind of disagree. I don't think the template should be a replacement for the app (it's free). It serves the purpose of publicly allowing people to build apps with Python, which people could do by reading the public online docs. What people pay for with Pythonista is the ability to write code on iOS, using a feature-rich IDE with a few advanced features.
I don't think the template should become something that can be used to make a version of Pythonista with added features. The template omits the IDE features for a reason, that's not what it's for. It's for packaging apps built with the Pythonista app for publishing on the App Store.
I also disagree with deploying an alternate version of Pythonista off of the App Store, for one important reason. Sideloading apps requires that they're signed by a person with a paid Apple developer license. Apple can still revoke this if @omz doesn't play by their rules, in which case the sideloaded version as well as the App Store version would be pulled from the App Store.
This is why the brief craze around sideloading of f.lux quickly disappeared. It became really popular, and used private APIs. It violated a major App Store rule by using private APIs, and this is one of the rules on the App Store with the clearest reasons behind it. Private APIs are undocumented, and so use can be unpredictable and have lasting negative impacts on the device. By making a display of power, if you will, and revoking the f.lux developers' licenses, Apple discouraged other developers from following in their footsteps and sidestepping the App Store restrictions through sideloading. If they hadn't made this move, there would likely be a larger community of illicit sideloaded apps which Apple would have a hard time staying on top of.
If @omz created a sideloaded version of Pythonista with added illegal features, he'd be on Apple's bad side, and might get his dev license revoked. So I don't really think this is a good idea.
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@Webmaster4o - I certainly understand your fears about getting Pythonista yanked from the AppStore because an end user figured out how to work around the rules with it. I guess I have been assuming that this would be handled by the normal review process and such Apps would not make it through but that may not be true.
I have to point out that this thread is suppose to be about support for a feature that @omz does not want to allow as a a "standard" feature for Pythonista. He has explained his thinking about this and it makes perfect sense. Having a way for the customer to do it anyway would have a lot a value because the alternative is to just walk away from Pythonista entirely and explore other options.
As we get back on topic - I would like to point out that this thread is the first time I think I have seen @omz discuss his target customer as being a game developer. I knew he was very supportive of using it for game development but thought that it was primarily a workflow automation tool and designed the code base to be leveragable for other apps - thus we have Editorial. Does this mean @omz has a game in mind that he has been working on for years but it is not ready to reveal yet?
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@wradcliffe Well, maybe not a game ;). I don't think he thinks it's the primary use case, just an important one, which I agree with. The target audience expands a lot once you include gaming. For a lot of young people, game development is far more attractive than workflow automation (trust me, I'm in High School)
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There is a new term in application software development called gamification. It is the conversion of a normally boring workflow into a game. Programmers that can do this can earn some big bucks since it is not all that easy. You have to know a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff. Read this article for a good perspective. This may be your future career path :-)
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@wradcliffe ,I said so many years ago, game programmers were being wasted on games. Some of the interesting interfaces these guys could bring to business solutions is mind blowing.
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This has made its way into the latest beta 🎉
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Yup, nice to see that. Even though I can't use it, because my iPad is Apple Certified Too Old for the Actually Useful Features of iOS 9. Not planning to buy a new one soon (mine is old, but still quite usable), but looking forward to use it when I do.
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Yes! Perfect timing too as I've got an iPad Pro coming in. @omz I hope this isn't temporary! I would be more than willing to pay double/ triple price for a version with this. As a side note, you know how some apps have a settings panel inside system settings rather than in app- would that allow you to toggle the 'requires full screen' plist option?
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@Tizzy No, it's all or nothing. Split-screen support can't be enabled or disabled in any way after the app is installed.
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@omz does this mean you've decided to make the necessary compromise in favor of split screen ability permanently, or is this just an experiment? Or will there be 2 versions?(ultimately, having two Pythonistas on my device has been incredibly useful and I would be sad if the beta program went away and there was only one)
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@dgelessus so is mine. My iPad supports Night Shift (though my iPhone doesn't), but neither supports split screen.
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Oh and if anyone from Apple is reading this - Pythonista is the biggest reason I decided to go for a new iPad Pro rather than a new MacBook.
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@Tizzy I don't think so. I think @omz's plan is to add rotation lock back in when / if Apple changes something.
How have you been using 2 Pythonistas? I haven't been using two copies to my advantage. Is it anything that couldn't be done with threading? As far as the second copy going away, there's been discussion of trying to get both interpreters going at once, which I think could be useful in almost all the same ways having 2 apps would.
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@Webmaster4o it's useful not only for the two interpreters (especially since they're now both included in 3) but just as two ad-hoc UI containers. I have some workflows where I'm using a UI that does one thing in one app, and a separate complementary one in another. While you could always roll your own app container from the SDK, it's nice to have the flexibility to access any of the scripts you might need thanks to the shared app data of the two. You can pop in and out as needed, and change it quickly for whatever else you might want to do. Also for testing two separate UIs sort of simultaneously.
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panel present mode is great for that use case. I often switch back and forth between stash and gitview...