The cocos2dx-common is renamed to cocos2dx-better and combined with my other extensions.

Now it is time to integrate all my extensions into a single one, for easy management. As its name suggests, this extension will make cocos2d-x better in many aspect, such as better UI controls, better utilities, better compatibility, and more.

Cocos2d-x is a good engine, but:

• it lacked some UI controls, or just not good enough
• it lacked some features and third-party tool support
• it has bugs and fixing comes too slowly, probably because they are focus on 3.0 branch.

Furthermore, I don't want to modify its code because it may introduce extra work to sync code. Here is my solution: a well-designed extension, without touching cocos2d-x code.

I don't want to list all features because it is too many. The best way to understand what it can do is running its test project. The test project supports ONLY iOS and Android. I don't use Windows a lot so there are some basic features missing for Windows. If you are a Windows guy, do it yourself and GOOD LUCK.

However, even the test project doesn't show all its capabilities. I will add more tests if necessary.

cocos2dx-better project refers cocos2d-x project. You must clone cocos2d-x repository to a folder named "cocos2d-x", and then clone cocos2dx-better in the same parent folder.

For iOS:

• drag cocos2dx-better project into your project
• you need set up proper include path, here is mine:

$(SDKROOT)/usr/include/libxml2/
$(SRCROOT)/../../cocos2d-x/cocos2dx/include
$(SRCROOT)/../../cocos2d-x/cocos2dx
$(SRCROOT)/../../cocos2d-x/cocos2dx/platform/ios
$(SRCROOT)/../../cocos2d-x/cocos2dx/kazmath/include
$(SRCROOT)/../../cocos2d-x/extensions (set it recursive)
$(SRCROOT)/../../cocos2dx-better/cocos2dx-better/include 
$(SRCROOT)/../../cocos2d-x/CocosDenshion/include

• drag libcocos2dx-better.a (in Products folder of cocos2dx-better.xcodeproj) to your target framework list
• add other necessary frameworks to your project, view test project for the detail list
• if you encounter objc runtime error, change "Compile Source As" to "Objective-C++". If you have pure c library, create a new target for it

For Android:

• import cocos2dx-better module in your Android.mk
• you must set a proper NDK_MODULE_PATH environment, below is my setting:

export C2DX_ROOT=$HOME/Projects/cocos2d-x
export NDK_MODULE_PATH=$C2DX_ROOT:${C2DX_ROOT}/cocos2dx/platform/third_party/android/prebuilt:$HOME/Projects/cocos2dx-better

• cocos2dx-better has some java code, you must link it in your project. If you use ant to build, you can set source.dir property in local.properties, below is my setting.

source.dir=src;${user.home}/../../${c2dx.root}/cocos2dx/platform/android/java/src;${user.home}/../../${c2dx.root}/../cocos2dx-better/cocos2dx-better/java

If not clear, refer to demo code.

Recently I added a CCImagePicker wrapper, it supports iOS and Android. In iOS, just use it. In Android, don't forget to config something:

• register activities in AndroidManifest.xml, below is an example, you can change some attribute if you like.

<activity
    android:name="org.cocos2dx.lib.cropimage.CropImage"
    android:configChanges="keyboardHidden|orientation"
    android:screenOrientation="portrait"
    android:theme="@android:style/Theme.NoTitleBar.Fullscreen" >
</activity>
<activity
    android:name="org.cocos2dx.lib.ImagePickerActivity"
    android:configChanges="keyboardHidden|orientation"
    android:screenOrientation="portrait"
    android:theme="@android:style/Theme.NoTitleBar.Fullscreen" >
</activity>

• add necessary permission

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.CAMERA" />

• add feature declaration

<uses-feature
    android:name="android.hardware.camera"
    android:required="false" />
<uses-feature
    android:name="android.hardware.camera.front"
    android:required="false" />

• in Android.mk, you must link cocos2dx-better library with whole archive option, something like below:

LOCAL_WHOLE_STATIC_LIBRARIES += cocos2dx-better

And that is it! No more settings needed. Easy to use, powerful, view its demo for fun!

Some optional codes is in cocos2dx-better/optional folder. Those code by default is not compiled into cocos2dx-better library because they may depend on other components.

• B2DebugDraw: it is box2d debug drawing layer, it requires box2d