Comprehensive doc tree?

Getting Started Newbie Questions
#1

Hi,

I might be double posting.  I don’t see my question on the list.

Where is a comprehensive doc tree of all the objects, properties and methods?

I keep running into simple questions like: Where is the default background, stroke and fill color stored?

I am an experienced developer, but new to CSDK.  Am I missing something?

Thanks,

–Scot

#2

http://docs.coronalabs.com/

#3

Hi Rob,

Ha!  I obviously wasn’t very clear in my post.  I live at that url especially since I’m learning the system.  I’m looking for a html or PDF that shows how the whole hierarchy works.  Either there are quite a few gaps in the doc tree or perhaps I don’t know how your docs work.  

For instance.  I found this very useful function:

display.setDefault()

I used it to:

display.setDefault(“background”, .97,.96,.97)

For the life of me, I still can’t find the value I set using the documentation system, so I resort to cutting and pasting, which will work until I want to reuse the code.  The above page does not link me to the object property I set and I can’t seem to drill down through the documents and find it.

I have attempted the following searches within the document system and give up after scrolling through a few pages of search results:

“object.default”

“display defaults”

“display hierarchy”

“display background”

“display default background”

I can easily find the methods for setting values, but I’m having a devil of a time finding how to get them back once I set them, without storing them again (I’m strongly averse to unnecessarily storing things twice.)

I’ve attempted to find the needle in the haystack with print statements.  I am at the place where I’m considering writing a object tree viewer so I can check the states of all the objects at run time (would be a nice feature for the simulator).

Hopefully I did a better job explaining my struggle.

I should say that I’m delighted with the results I’m getting on the user interface I"m making.  Not complaining about the technology. Quite pleased.  Just have a prototype that needs to be working with kids in classrooms in a couple of weeks.  So these things can be frustrating at times.

Thanks,

–Scot

#4

To follow up I have a couple of suggestions:

  • printObjectProps(object) – does a screen dump of all properties and values of an object at that moment (can be redirected to a file).
  • saveObjectProps(object, filename) --saves all the object properties and states to a filename.
  • verbose(object, filename, true/false) --dump object properties to the file whenever a state changes during simulation.

The above functions would work only in the simulator.

I use TextMate (have other code bases for the same project or I would use the Corona Editor) and each time the object file changes I can see the results in the text file. Just those functions alone would be very helpful in both learning Corona SDK and debugging.

Workflow wise I do a lot of Simulator Relaunches. I could write more code before simulating with the above tools.

Also. Perhaps it would be helpful to list the objects and their properties that are set whenever a function or method is explained. That way the developer always knows how to get the values that were set by the method.

Likewise it would be nice if wherever a property of an object is described the functions and methods that can be used to change it are listed.

Thanks, --Scot

#5

http://docs.coronalabs.com/

#6

Hi Rob,

Ha!  I obviously wasn’t very clear in my post.  I live at that url especially since I’m learning the system.  I’m looking for a html or PDF that shows how the whole hierarchy works.  Either there are quite a few gaps in the doc tree or perhaps I don’t know how your docs work.  

For instance.  I found this very useful function:

display.setDefault()

I used it to:

display.setDefault(“background”, .97,.96,.97)

For the life of me, I still can’t find the value I set using the documentation system, so I resort to cutting and pasting, which will work until I want to reuse the code.  The above page does not link me to the object property I set and I can’t seem to drill down through the documents and find it.

I have attempted the following searches within the document system and give up after scrolling through a few pages of search results:

“object.default”

“display defaults”

“display hierarchy”

“display background”

“display default background”

I can easily find the methods for setting values, but I’m having a devil of a time finding how to get them back once I set them, without storing them again (I’m strongly averse to unnecessarily storing things twice.)

I’ve attempted to find the needle in the haystack with print statements.  I am at the place where I’m considering writing a object tree viewer so I can check the states of all the objects at run time (would be a nice feature for the simulator).

Hopefully I did a better job explaining my struggle.

I should say that I’m delighted with the results I’m getting on the user interface I"m making.  Not complaining about the technology. Quite pleased.  Just have a prototype that needs to be working with kids in classrooms in a couple of weeks.  So these things can be frustrating at times.

Thanks,

–Scot

#7

To follow up I have a couple of suggestions:

  • printObjectProps(object) – does a screen dump of all properties and values of an object at that moment (can be redirected to a file).
  • saveObjectProps(object, filename) --saves all the object properties and states to a filename.
  • verbose(object, filename, true/false) --dump object properties to the file whenever a state changes during simulation.

The above functions would work only in the simulator.

I use TextMate (have other code bases for the same project or I would use the Corona Editor) and each time the object file changes I can see the results in the text file. Just those functions alone would be very helpful in both learning Corona SDK and debugging.

Workflow wise I do a lot of Simulator Relaunches. I could write more code before simulating with the above tools.

Also. Perhaps it would be helpful to list the objects and their properties that are set whenever a function or method is explained. That way the developer always knows how to get the values that were set by the method.

Likewise it would be nice if wherever a property of an object is described the functions and methods that can be used to change it are listed.

Thanks, --Scot