Solar2D

Solar2D (formerly Corona SDK) is a free and open-source, cross-platform software development kit originally developed by Corona Labs Inc. and now maintained by Vlad Shcherban. Released in late 2009, it allows software programmers to build 2D mobile applications for iOS, Android, and Kindle, desktop applications for Windows, Linux and macOS, and connected TV applications for Apple TV, Fire TV and Android TV. Solar2D uses integrated Lua layered on top of C++/OpenGL to build graphic applications. The software has two operational modes: the Solar2D Simulator and Solar2D Native. With the Solar2D Simulator, apps are built directly from the Solar2D Simulator. Solar2D Native allows the integration of Lua code and assets within an Xcode or Android Studio project to build apps and include native features. Walter Luh and Carlos Icaza started Ansca Mobile, later renamed Corona Labs, after departing from Adobe in 2007. At Adobe, Luh was the lead architect working on the Flash Lite team and Icaza was the engineering manager responsible for mobile Flash authoring. In June 2009, Ansca released the first Corona SDK beta free for early adopters. In December 2009, Ansca launched Corona SDK 1.0 for iPhone. The following February, the Corona SDK 1.1 was released with additional features. In September 2010, Ansca released version 2.0 of Corona SDK and added Corona Game Edition. Version 2.0 added cross-platform support for iPad and Android, while Game Edition added a physics engine and other advanced features aimed specifically at game development. In January 2011, Corona SDK was released for Windows XP and newer, giving developers the opportunity to build Android applications on PC. In April 2012, co-founder and CEO Icaza left Ansca, and CTO Luh took the CEO role. Shortly after, in June 2012, Ansca changed its name to Corona Labs. In August 2012, Corona Labs announced Enterprise Edition, which added native bindings for Objective-C. In March 2015, during GDC 2015 announcement was made that Corona SDK is completely free and will support Windows and Mac OS X deployment targets.