DragonFireSDK Help

Dragon Fire SDK© 2011 Zimusoft, Inc. DragonFireSDK 1.4Contact us: support@WelcomeThe iPhone is the most exciting new platform for software that we have seen in years! As developers, we are wise to take advantage of the opportunity to participate by creating Apps for it.With years of programming experience in C/C++ on the Windows platform, our dream was to develop an iPhone App with the familiar tools and language we know well. When we discovered that iPhone development was limited to development on a Mac, we were surprised that there was no Windows offering. After we bought a Mac, we were even more surprised that the language was not C/C++. It was Objective-C which is a totally different syntax than C/C++.We knew there would be other Windows developers that would want to develop iPhone applications using Visual C++, its debugger and its familiar C/C++ language. So we set out on the long journey to make it happen. DragonFireSDK is the result.The team we assembled to create the SDK has extensive experience in creating Simulators and APIs. We decided to go all-out to deliver the most concise API possible that could create 2D games for the iPhone.We believe the most exciting area of development for the iPhone is games, more specifically, 2D games that the user can quickly understand and enjoy while waiting 2 minutes for Starbucks coffee. There is not time to read a book of instructions on how to play. We would suggest that programmers revisit the most successful arcade games for clues that will lead to a great iPhone game. Consider the simple fun of PacMan, Defender and Asteroids.Some of the simplest games have the most downloads. Now, it’s your turn. DragonFireSDK makes it easy to create games. You have every opportunity to create an application that could be very profitable. Our goal is to make the process as easy as possible for you to see your application selling at the iPhone App store.Games created with DragonFireSDK can be fully written and debugged in Windows and are also fully compliant for distribution and sales at the Apple iPhone App Store.Getting StartedIt’s easy to se e your first iPhone application running. This section should help get you started –don’t worry, you’ll have an application running in the Windows iPhone Simulator in about 15 minutes.A DragonFireSDK application requires these three functions:AppMain()AppExit()OnTimer()Just as any C program requires a main() function as a starting place, DragonFireSDK applications need a function called AppMain(). This function is the first thing to run –it’s your chance to load images and initialize variables.OnTimer() is executed 30 times per second. This is where you update image locations and keep the game running. In animation terms, it runs each frame and frames are presented 30 times per second. This is sometimes referred to as the GameLoop.An example will explain. The code below will compile and run showing a ball on the screen. The ImageAdd function adds an image (loads an image into memory). The ViewAdd() adds a view (creates a view to visibly present an image on the screen). As you will see later, you will sometimes load 20 frames of animation as images and use only one view - you just change which image that view is displaying at the time.#include "DragonFireSDK.h"int BallImage;int BallView;void AppMain() // the program begins here{BallImage = ImageAdd("Ball.png"); // load the ball image to memory BallView = ViewAdd(BallImage, 0, 0); // put the image in a view at x,y coordinates}void AppExit(){}void OnTimer // we could move the ball here by updating its x,y{}It’s that easy!Animation for a walk sequence might require 20 frames. To do this, load the 20 images calling ImageAdd() 20 times to load each frame of animation and then create only one view using ViewAdd() - because only one of the images in the animation will be on the screen at any time. Inside OnTimer(), use ViewSetImage() to put the next image into the view and possibly advance the x using ViewSetxy() so that as the walk animates, the character also moves forward.The opposite situation is when you need only one Image but you need it to appear many times. You could load one image, using ImageAdd() and then create 5 views of it by calling ViewAdd() 5 times assigning the same ball image to each view. We only need to load the ball image once, but we need 5 views. Here it is – just change AppMain() as below:int BallImage;int BallView[5];void AppMain() // the program begins here{int i;BallImage = ImageAdd("Ball.png"); // load the ball image to memoryfor (i = 0; i < 5; i++){BallView[i] = ViewAdd(BallImage, i * 20, 0); // put the image in a view at x,y coordinates}}You will want to control each of the views separately so you can make BallView an array if you wish:int BallView[5];Simply assign the ViewAdd result to BallView[i]Now lets go back to a single ball and make it move across the screen.Here is the complete example code.#include "DragonFireSDK.h"int BallImage;int BallView;int Ballx; // we need these to keep up with the ball’s x,y location int Bally;void AppMain() // the program begins here{Ballx = 0; // init x coordinateBally = 0; // init y coordinateBallImage = ImageAdd("Ball.png"); // load the ball image to memory BallView = ViewAdd(BallImage, Ballx, Bally); // place the image ina view on the screen at x,y coordinates}void AppExit(){}void OnTimer() // we could move the ball here by updating its x,y {Ballx += 2; // advance x by 2 pixels each frameBally += 4; // advance y by 4 pixels each frameViewSetxy(BallView, Ballx, Bally);}。