Quiz Like App, With recognition software

Solar2D iOS
#1

I am interested in creating a quiz like app allowing the user to select the correct answer out of four options. 

I am wondering how I would go about programming this using Corona or whether it will be easier utilizing xcodes plist options. Additionally, I would like the answers to be Randomized between A,B,C,D and possibly further on the feature to recognize text patterns or certain words I know this can be done as lots of business card apps utilize this IOS feature. 

I am relatively to programming and iOS developing so please don’t hate.

On the other hand if you have any solid tutorial series or helpful tips I will definitely take them into consideration.

Thanks 

Tom

#2

This question is pretty vague but I’ll attempt to answer the best that I can.

Either SDK can easily randomise 4 answers to a question very easily. I really don’t know what you mean by “possibly further on the feature to recognise text patterns or certain words”, can you elaborate on this?

I am starting full time development on Monday on a football quiz app that has the basic workings in a similar way but also with some more complicated scoring and features. 

Personally I’ve been weighing up using Corona and xCode and I know Corona has the huge advantage of allowing me to release the app cross platform. However, I am going to stick with the native iOS option for now as I feel it gives me a little bit more flexibility for dealing with large amounts of data and designing interfaces. I am not going to use the plist option, I think you probably want sqLite (which can be used with Corona) or apple’s core data. I have a ton of question and answer data so one of these is the best method.

There is a lot of info and tutorials out there if you just google, I haven’t completed any of them so can not comment. 

I must add that I have only published apps that were built with xCode and have only recently started looking into Corona, so I am biased with my better skills being xCode & objective-C based.

Let me know if you want to ask anything about my development process though and I’ll try and look back at this thread if you can phrase your question a bit less ambiguously.

Cheers, Ben.

#3

I appreciate the response,sounds like sqLite is the way to go so I will head in that direction as far as the text recognition patterns I am wondering if I can utilise Corona to identify words that aren’t featured in a list for example having a list of six words (Limited,Six,Solutions,Supplies,Support,Charger) and taking a picture of a paragraph I am wondering if corona is able to identify words that are not in this list. I know apps have already done this being able to extract words from a picture as you can get business card apps which from a picture extract information from a photo of a business card.

Cheers, Tom

#4

You can definitely do the quiz type of app.  I know because I did it:

http://www.thegdogentertainment.com/games/whatdyaknow/

:slight_smile:

I pull my data from XML files and the app takes care of randomizing the answers to the buttons.

I can’t speak to the taking pictures of text and doing character recognition.  I am unaware of any OCR apps built in Corona (not that there might not be any) or even sample code for doing that.
 

#5

Thanks for your help I think I will check out a Lua Book do you have any recommendations? Additionally, I expect there is a learning curve to develop from knowing Lua to being able to actually implement it into using Corona as I know Corona has a variety of APIs. How long did it take you out of curiosity?

#6

Hi, icrazepodz!

From my experience it is actually the other way around. You can implement a lot in Corona not knowing too much lua. You also have access to the excellent examples and this friendly forum. Eventually you will come to a situation where you want to implement more advanced things and then the more complex parts of lua is the way to go. This is when you have to know more what is going on under the hood.

#7

Since I had no knowledge of Lua before I started, I read this book:

Beginning Lua Programming, by Kurt Jung and Aaron Brown

And also used this book for reference:

Programming in Lua (2nd Edition), by Roberto Ierusalimschy

I may not have implemented it in the best way possible – I didn’t use Storyboards or Scenes or anything like that – but the core stuff didn’t take long for me to figure out.  It was more of the complicated things like timers, scoring, implementing a 2-player mode (that was a struggle - found a number of Corona bugs; apparently no other developer used text as much as I did at the time), that took longer.  I also was not working on it every day and was, at first, just doing it on weekends.

I chose Corona because of Lua.  As a JavaScript developer, it seemed like it would be easier for me to learn Lua than it would Objective C.  Some of my stumbling blocks were not knowing the differences and coding things like JS and having to learn the different structures for doing things.  And the concept of tables still frustrates me sometimes.  :slight_smile:

#8

This question is pretty vague but I’ll attempt to answer the best that I can.

Either SDK can easily randomise 4 answers to a question very easily. I really don’t know what you mean by “possibly further on the feature to recognise text patterns or certain words”, can you elaborate on this?

I am starting full time development on Monday on a football quiz app that has the basic workings in a similar way but also with some more complicated scoring and features. 

Personally I’ve been weighing up using Corona and xCode and I know Corona has the huge advantage of allowing me to release the app cross platform. However, I am going to stick with the native iOS option for now as I feel it gives me a little bit more flexibility for dealing with large amounts of data and designing interfaces. I am not going to use the plist option, I think you probably want sqLite (which can be used with Corona) or apple’s core data. I have a ton of question and answer data so one of these is the best method.

There is a lot of info and tutorials out there if you just google, I haven’t completed any of them so can not comment. 

I must add that I have only published apps that were built with xCode and have only recently started looking into Corona, so I am biased with my better skills being xCode & objective-C based.

Let me know if you want to ask anything about my development process though and I’ll try and look back at this thread if you can phrase your question a bit less ambiguously.

Cheers, Ben.

#9

I appreciate the response,sounds like sqLite is the way to go so I will head in that direction as far as the text recognition patterns I am wondering if I can utilise Corona to identify words that aren’t featured in a list for example having a list of six words (Limited,Six,Solutions,Supplies,Support,Charger) and taking a picture of a paragraph I am wondering if corona is able to identify words that are not in this list. I know apps have already done this being able to extract words from a picture as you can get business card apps which from a picture extract information from a photo of a business card.

Cheers, Tom

#10

You can definitely do the quiz type of app.  I know because I did it:

http://www.thegdogentertainment.com/games/whatdyaknow/

:slight_smile:

I pull my data from XML files and the app takes care of randomizing the answers to the buttons.

I can’t speak to the taking pictures of text and doing character recognition.  I am unaware of any OCR apps built in Corona (not that there might not be any) or even sample code for doing that.
 

#11

Thanks for your help I think I will check out a Lua Book do you have any recommendations? Additionally, I expect there is a learning curve to develop from knowing Lua to being able to actually implement it into using Corona as I know Corona has a variety of APIs. How long did it take you out of curiosity?

#12

Hi, icrazepodz!

From my experience it is actually the other way around. You can implement a lot in Corona not knowing too much lua. You also have access to the excellent examples and this friendly forum. Eventually you will come to a situation where you want to implement more advanced things and then the more complex parts of lua is the way to go. This is when you have to know more what is going on under the hood.

#13

Since I had no knowledge of Lua before I started, I read this book:

Beginning Lua Programming, by Kurt Jung and Aaron Brown

And also used this book for reference:

Programming in Lua (2nd Edition), by Roberto Ierusalimschy

I may not have implemented it in the best way possible – I didn’t use Storyboards or Scenes or anything like that – but the core stuff didn’t take long for me to figure out.  It was more of the complicated things like timers, scoring, implementing a 2-player mode (that was a struggle - found a number of Corona bugs; apparently no other developer used text as much as I did at the time), that took longer.  I also was not working on it every day and was, at first, just doing it on weekends.

I chose Corona because of Lua.  As a JavaScript developer, it seemed like it would be easier for me to learn Lua than it would Objective C.  Some of my stumbling blocks were not knowing the differences and coding things like JS and having to learn the different structures for doing things.  And the concept of tables still frustrates me sometimes.  :slight_smile: