As posted on Google+ [1], Smart Mobile Studio [2] is now free for educational purposes.
The Pascal Programming for Schools [3] website had already been updated sometime ago with samples and tutorials about getting started with Smart, and is a significant online resource for teaching Pascal in general, not just Smart.
Below is the announcement with details on how to get your school or club license
Great news!
Smart Mobile Studio will be free for educational purposes 🙂
If your school or your local code club would like to use Smart Mobile Studio in the education, then send an e-mail at [email protected] [4] with a short description of intended use. You will receive a special license key you can use at home and at school.
Smart compiles HTML5 applications, which can run entirely in the browser, with no server-side requirements. You just need a way to deliver the files.
So it’s very friendly to deploy, in a class environment or otherwise:
- Everyone can run the programs not just on the PCs, but also on their smart phone or tablets: just flash a QR Code [5].
- Want to share and show your application around?
Publish the HTML5 app files on DropBox [6], Google Driv [7]e, SkyDrive [8] or whatever quick sharing service you want, you don’t even need a website. Anyone you share the files will can now view your game or application, that means not just smart phones, but home computers, laptops, Chromebooks, Smart TVs, etc. - Want to take the world by storm? You can publish in the various app stores!
It’s usually as simple as zipping the files alongside a simple manifest file and a couple icons.- deploy the zip directly to Chrome Web Store [9], FireFox MarketPlace [10] or Amazon Marketplace [11]
- send it to PhoneGap Build [12] to get an app for iOS AppStore, Android Play Store, WP8, BlackBerry, etc.
- package with node-webkit [13] and you’ve got a desktop app for Windows, Mac or Linux.
And it’s not just visual applications and games, support for targeting micro-controllers [14], with Espruino [15], or doing server-side tasks with node.js [16] are also brewing in the labs.