AiLiveComplete - App inventor offline + more features

[Sal Cangeloso]

Anyone tried out AiLiveComplete yet? 

- http://goo.gl/3ZkCzH

- http://sourceforge.net/projects/ailivecomplete/

Test server: http://ai-hossein.appspot.com/ (can't build apk)

I guess there is a free version (through sourceforge) and then a paid ($70 + $5/month)

Looks pretty solid if you are looking for advanced featured within AI, like advertising integration, access to some hardware, etc. I'm considering giving it a go - seems easier than customizing the AI SDK to my needs and running it locally. 

Is it any good? Worth checking out? 

[Enis]

Hossein is a very respected member of this community and a heavy contributor to the AI project. 

It is absolutely worth checking out.

[SteveJG]

AI2 is intended as a learning tool for non-programmers.   Are you now pretty good at using the Blocks?  If so, you are ready to advance.

As Enis mentioned AiComplete is interesting and does some neat things and the guy that wrote it writes some great code.

Are you ever going to build sophisticated professional apps with AI2 (or AlLiveComplete)?    Probably not.  Some nice apps but the layout, development tools in other compilers 

are MUCH better (though you can put together an app with AI2 pretty fast that works almost reasonable....but then you build an app with a lot of kluges and involved work-arounds where professional 

compilers are much more mature.   Yes, they have their issues too.

It seems like you are ready to graduate:

Consider Eclipse ... free, difficult to use but has a fantastic tool box and the ability to build anything.  Yes, you have to learn some Java.

Consider Android Studio...free and much easier to use than Eclipse and getting better every day.  Yes, you have to learn some Java.

Basic4Android .. not free, but for the cost of taking out a date to a play and dinner at somewhere nice, you can have a license for two years which includes updates and you can get a Professional tool box and the ability to build things AliveComplete can not....    actually, B4A costs less than a supported version of AliveComplete..  There is a super 30 day trial; the programming is a clone of Visual Basic programming.  Much easier than Eclipse and Android Studio because you program in essential a Visual Basic like language.  It is Probably not very difficult after learning programming principles on AI2. Kids learned to program Windows programs using Visual Basic.  You probably can too with a bit of determination.

Really got the bug, Embarcadero has a real neat compile that can simultaneously build for Andoid, iPhone and soon for Windows Mobile.   It will cost you as much as two  years of cable and Internet...and has a free 30 day trial.  It uses a version of object oriented Pascal to do to do this.  You have to be serious to use this tool.

AIliveComplete -- consider its costs versus the alternatives?    However, it might be right for you.  You can have fun with it.

Good luck.

Regards,

Steve

[Sal Cangeloso]

Thanks Steve, awesome comment and feedback. I'll poke around with Android Studio and some of the other options you suggested. My goals with the apps are, at least for now, extremely modest and my time is limited, so AI has been great for me. I have hit some annoying walls though, so Complete seemed like an interesting solution. 

I'm going to take another look at Studio (haven't looked at it for some time) and Basic4Android, and see how those look. You're right that it might be time to just jump to something heavier duty. If those don't work it's nice to know I have a good fallback.

Thanks