Innovative iPad-Optimized Code Editor Codea Gains Tons Of New Features In 1.5 Update
February 16, 2013
Has it really been close to nine months since Codea got its last major update? I'm afraid it has. But no matter, the innovative code editor for iPad has just received a new major update with the arrival of Codea 1.5.
In addition to some fixes and localization enhancements, Codea 1.5 brings the following major new features:
If you can't see the video embedded above, please click here. Compatible with iPad running iOS 5.0 or later, Codea 1.5 is available now in the App Store as a free update or as a new $4.99 download. That's half off the app's regular price, making now as good a time as any to download Codea. Launched in October 2011 as Codify, Codea has led to the development of apps that are, as my colleague Brent nicely summarized, “prototyped, programmed, and polished completely using an iPad.” One of the most popular among such apps is Cargo-Bot. A puzzle game released in April last year, Cargo-Bot was the first app to be created using Codea and made available in the App Store. [gallery link="file" order="DESC"]
- Shaders: Full access to GLSL shaders from the mesh class.
- Shader Lab: A full-featured GLSL shader editor with live preview and live variables.
- Camera: Stream from the cameras on your device straight into a sprite, capture them into an image, or even input them into a shader.
- Brand new Parameter system. Make buttons, color pickers, text boxes and more for the Codea sidebar.
- Vector sprite rendering. You can now load PDF files as sprites, which can be rendered at any size and still look sharp.
- Two great new vector sprite packs by Kenney.nl.
- Tween: The new tween library provides you with easy to use animations, paths, sequences and more.
- Blend Modes: Use the new blendMode() function for additive and multiplicative blending, or even set completely custom blend modes using the advanced parameters.
- Brand new Documentation Browser, copy sample code and use the sidebar for reference as-you-type.
- Completely re-architected Code Editor with built-in API guides.
- New Tools menu from the main screen lets you manage your assets.
- REPL built into the viewer. Type and execute simple expressions while your code is running.
