Here is another Intel® XDK update. We have quite a few new things to share in this release. First, though, a few of us from the Intel XDK team will be at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week, Feb 24, if you are there, stop by the Intel software booth in the App Planet hall, or at the WIPJam demo area. We’d love to talk with you.
As you hopefully are aware by now, we will only be supporting one Intel® XDK going forward - it can be found at our site: xdk.intel.com. Older versions of the XDK will no longer be available. No “NEW”, just one Intel® XDK. Yea – no more crazy naming!
With this release, we’re starting to convert our runtime containers to use Cordova* 3.x. The Cordova folks have really done a nice job extending the architecture to more easily allow plugins of different types and we look forward to taking advantage of that. We are releasing our first cut (a developer preview) of Cordova 3.x for Android, with the IntelXDK device APIs implemented as Cordova plugins. You should find it pretty seamless in the Build System to include these via the new “Cordova” build icon. We don’t allow other Cordova plugins to be built into your app in the XDK right now, but it is something we are looking to do in the future. The new Cordova support also adds a new subdirectory to your XDK projects.
We made many bug fixes and some improvements to the Remote Debugging and Profiling tools, as well as the Crosswalk builds for Android. We’ll continue improving these tools as we help make HTML5 easier to use and debug.
We now support a few Brackets* editor extensions as well. In particular, the git repo Brackets extension now works with the XDK to give you repository access from within the editor. We also implemented our own extension called Xlint, which helps you identify non-standard HTML5 language usage that may cause problems in certain browsers. Again, we’re trying to help you write good, responsive, portable apps.
The Emulator was updated to fix some oft-cited issues, including support for Cordova audio and beep notifications, and added a “back” button and support for HTML files without the <head> or <html> tag – both of these to better enable simulation of web apps.
Finally, we made some modifications to App Designer for custom CSS classes, and App Starter supporting the latest App Framework changes.
Here is a link to our full release notes for this update to get more info on the changes.
Keep the feedback coming and stay tuned for further updates!
Joe Wolf
Links to my past release blogs:
Intel® XDK NEW Release Announcement – December 2013