Hi
I’m 56 and have no programming experience. The closest would be using old CBT programs like Iconware and TookBook to create simple training programs for the Oil industry.
So far, I’m enjoying the walk-throughs, but each step raises more questions, luckily, there seems to be a lot of support.
I had no idea building apps would be so complicated.
Welcome to the forums… 56 isn’t old. I hit 56 next month. We’ve had people start in their 70’s with Corona!
Remember we are here to help answer you questions, so don’t hesitate to ask away. Start simple and build up from there.
Rob
Hi there and welcome!
I would say, don’t worry about it! Start small and combine every small building block to make a bigger building block, and combine these to make an even bigger one!
I’m self-taught as a programmer, and looking back everything makes so much sense and is fairly easy to understand, but before you learn everything seems very difficult and confusing.
For me a couple of essential “clicks” made all the difference:
Understanding how everything in Corona is basically event-driven (“When this happens, do this”).
Understanding that there is a very special type of event: the frame event, happening every 30 or 60 seconds.
Understanding tables.
Understanding modules
Understanding (pseudo) object oriented programming.
I learn this in that specific order. And of course I’m grossly oversimpifying! Granted, I’m a designer, so most of the graphics stuff was fairly easy to grasp.
Just bear in mind: if you use the forums in the right way, you’ll find that you’ll get a lot of help here!
Just to elaborate… if you are experiencing an issue please include your relevant code (using the <> button) and a brief description of the problem and include any error message you get. We are all busy developers and this really helps us localise your problem.
Thanks for replies…
I appreciate the pointers for learning key concepts, this is something that I have already run into. I can follow along to a certain extent but then find myself being completely side tracked.
As an example, I was under the impression that it would be fairly easy to build and ‘test’ an app on an android but… get Java sdk, only to find out it has to be 32 and not 64, then the all the steps to get it on the phone. 2 hours later, totally confused it was time to a serious break.
My initial goal is to build a simple language app.
display an english word
play another language file when clicked
display a graphic representing the word.
All simple it seems and I’m wondering if Corona is overkill for this.
I also expected to find pre-built scripts that could be modified and I’m sure there some, but I think that right now, I don’t really understand what it is I’m looking for.
A perfect example of this…
the opening screen of most apps, you have 4 or 5 icons that take you into various area’s of the app… I thought I would find a script that would display a generic screen that I could then modify as opposed to coding it up from scratch.
I’m patient so eventually I’ll get there but if there are pointers to short cuts, I’d appreciate knowing what I’m looking for.
Ah yes… Installing and releasing a test or final version: that is a whole other cup of tea. I’m afraid this has little to do with coding. Coding is logical and fun. Getting all of the frameworks, provisioning profiles, accounts and SDKs installed is pure and utter b*ll*cks. There is no logic to it, documentation is seldom up to date because things changes all the time and sometimes you just feel as if you’re trying a dozen almost random approaches in the hope that one works - without breaking all the rest.
The app you describe is perfect for Corona, and Corona is perfect for this app.
As far as ready-made scripts to modify go, they do exist, but it’s a chicken-or-egg thing: if you don’t understand the code almost well enough to write it yourself, you won’t get far with your personal customisation.
Adding 5 icons that do various stuff should be someting along the lines of:
add button 1 with a specific graphic image
do the same for button 2 to 5
add a touch eventListener to button 1 that does “if pressed then clear all 5 buttons and do this”
do the same for button 2 to 5
Thanks Thomas
Pretty much sums up what I’ve found so far <grin>
There are a few resources you should look at.
The Getting Started guide. While the guide takes you through building a simple shooter game, one chapter is dedicated to scene management, which is how you would have a menu scene with buttons that takes you to other parts of the app. It also takes you through creating a menu scene. See: https://docs.coronalabs.com/guide/programming/index.html
The Business App sample: https://github.com/coronalabs-samples/business-app-sample
This sample creates a business like app with both a menu scene as well as a “tabBar”, the buttons at the bottom of an app on a phone. It also has some photo handling access and a lot of stuff you probably don’t care about yet.
Is Corona overkill? It’s powerful and can do a lot but on the other hand, I think Corona makes many tasks pretty simple. You can do everything you’ve described with two or three API calls: display.newText(), display.newImageRect() and adding a touch event listener. For your menu to switch to another screen, you will need to learn the composer.* API, which both resources above covers.
Rob
Corona is a framework as opposed to an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) so with that comes some limitations; things like drag and drop designing for example. Saying that, most IDE’s these days are overly complicated and can be intimidating - like Unity.
Thank you for the information everyone. Going to go do some reading and testing over next couple days, just hope that what I see in the simulator actually works on a phone…if I get it there. lol
Alright, good luck. Like we said, the forum is pretty helpful if you ask your questions right!
Welcome to the forums… 56 isn’t old. I hit 56 next month. We’ve had people start in their 70’s with Corona!
Remember we are here to help answer you questions, so don’t hesitate to ask away. Start simple and build up from there.
Rob
Hi there and welcome!
I would say, don’t worry about it! Start small and combine every small building block to make a bigger building block, and combine these to make an even bigger one!
I’m self-taught as a programmer, and looking back everything makes so much sense and is fairly easy to understand, but before you learn everything seems very difficult and confusing.
For me a couple of essential “clicks” made all the difference:
Understanding how everything in Corona is basically event-driven (“When this happens, do this”).
Understanding that there is a very special type of event: the frame event, happening every 30 or 60 seconds.
Understanding tables.
Understanding modules
Understanding (pseudo) object oriented programming.
I learn this in that specific order. And of course I’m grossly oversimpifying! Granted, I’m a designer, so most of the graphics stuff was fairly easy to grasp.
Just bear in mind: if you use the forums in the right way, you’ll find that you’ll get a lot of help here!
Just to elaborate… if you are experiencing an issue please include your relevant code (using the <> button) and a brief description of the problem and include any error message you get. We are all busy developers and this really helps us localise your problem.
Thanks for replies…
I appreciate the pointers for learning key concepts, this is something that I have already run into. I can follow along to a certain extent but then find myself being completely side tracked.
As an example, I was under the impression that it would be fairly easy to build and ‘test’ an app on an android but… get Java sdk, only to find out it has to be 32 and not 64, then the all the steps to get it on the phone. 2 hours later, totally confused it was time to a serious break.
My initial goal is to build a simple language app.
display an english word
play another language file when clicked
display a graphic representing the word.
All simple it seems and I’m wondering if Corona is overkill for this.
I also expected to find pre-built scripts that could be modified and I’m sure there some, but I think that right now, I don’t really understand what it is I’m looking for.
A perfect example of this…
the opening screen of most apps, you have 4 or 5 icons that take you into various area’s of the app… I thought I would find a script that would display a generic screen that I could then modify as opposed to coding it up from scratch.
I’m patient so eventually I’ll get there but if there are pointers to short cuts, I’d appreciate knowing what I’m looking for.
Ah yes… Installing and releasing a test or final version: that is a whole other cup of tea. I’m afraid this has little to do with coding. Coding is logical and fun. Getting all of the frameworks, provisioning profiles, accounts and SDKs installed is pure and utter b*ll*cks. There is no logic to it, documentation is seldom up to date because things changes all the time and sometimes you just feel as if you’re trying a dozen almost random approaches in the hope that one works - without breaking all the rest.
The app you describe is perfect for Corona, and Corona is perfect for this app.
As far as ready-made scripts to modify go, they do exist, but it’s a chicken-or-egg thing: if you don’t understand the code almost well enough to write it yourself, you won’t get far with your personal customisation.
Adding 5 icons that do various stuff should be someting along the lines of:
add button 1 with a specific graphic image
do the same for button 2 to 5
add a touch eventListener to button 1 that does “if pressed then clear all 5 buttons and do this”
do the same for button 2 to 5
Thanks Thomas
Pretty much sums up what I’ve found so far <grin>
There are a few resources you should look at.
The Getting Started guide. While the guide takes you through building a simple shooter game, one chapter is dedicated to scene management, which is how you would have a menu scene with buttons that takes you to other parts of the app. It also takes you through creating a menu scene. See: https://docs.coronalabs.com/guide/programming/index.html
The Business App sample: https://github.com/coronalabs-samples/business-app-sample
This sample creates a business like app with both a menu scene as well as a “tabBar”, the buttons at the bottom of an app on a phone. It also has some photo handling access and a lot of stuff you probably don’t care about yet.
Is Corona overkill? It’s powerful and can do a lot but on the other hand, I think Corona makes many tasks pretty simple. You can do everything you’ve described with two or three API calls: display.newText(), display.newImageRect() and adding a touch event listener. For your menu to switch to another screen, you will need to learn the composer.* API, which both resources above covers.
Rob
Corona is a framework as opposed to an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) so with that comes some limitations; things like drag and drop designing for example. Saying that, most IDE’s these days are overly complicated and can be intimidating - like Unity.
Thank you for the information everyone. Going to go do some reading and testing over next couple days, just hope that what I see in the simulator actually works on a phone…if I get it there. lol