Using Corona for business apps

General (non-technical) Off-Topic
#1

Following a recent blog post where Scott Singer describes his use of Corona for business apps and talked briefly about why, in his opinion and according to his needs, Corona suited him better than Titanium and Phonegap…

…in the comments section an interesting conversation started between developers and I thought that it would be great to store those insights in the forum.

So developers, please share your opinion and tell us why Corona is well suited for business apps - or which alternatives are better and why.

Thank you! [import]uid: 95346 topic_id: 19795 reply_id: 319795[/import]

#2

If someone wants to focus on business apps and they haven’t settled on a framework/language yet, I wouldn’t tell them Corona SDK is the best tool for the job. I’d suggest they do some research.

But for those of us who already know Corona? I don’t see a compelling reason to go elsewhere. Go to the iTunes store and look for NapKeeper. While it’s a “novelty app” it’s really a business app in look and feel.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/napkeeper/id460693675?mt=8

And it was done in about 10 hours from start to finish during the last Hackathon. (There’s a secret weapon I used to create it and I’ll write up a blurb about that and post a link in a bit.)

If that can be done in a day, what could you do in a week or two?

Seriously, people who say Corona SDK isn’t a good tool for business apps either need some kind of specialized widget or they just don’t like the idea of programmatically laying out the widgets rather than drag and drop (it’s a pain, I’ll admit).

Is Corona the “best thing” for biz apps? Maybe not the best, but in many cases something you already know beats something you need to learn.

Jay

PS - I think the reason more business app aren’t written in Corona is simply that games are more fun to write. :slight_smile:

[Edit: Here’s the article I wrote: Corona SDK for Business Apps – A Secret Weapon: http://wp.me/p1U1o1-7k]

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#3

An area of Corona Development I have not seen any of is in forms collection.

I am sure there is a huge business market for this type of app. These sort of apps would be used by data collectors surveying people. The data collected could be sent back to a central database (in real time via the cloud or uploaded later).

Is this the sort of business app that Corona can create?

What other types of business apps would Corona struggle with?

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#4

>>An area of Corona Development I have not seen any of is in forms collection.
… These sort of apps would be used by data collectors surveying people. …
Is this the sort of business app that Corona can create?
<<
From what I’ve seen so far, its a walk in the park.
Ideally, you’ld want native text boxes, but even without them, all you need is a table for the data, the ability to chuck up the native keyboard, and a way to post data back.
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#5

Native text fields has gotten better now that we can see them in the simulator, but its far from being able to easily manage multiple fields. There is multiple field support, but you have to scroll fields into position and not being able to see the keyboard in the simulator makes that harder to work.

Most business apps “can” be done, but you may find its a bit of work to do with Corona SDK.
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#6

Not having the keyboard in the simulator is pain, but the Xcode Simulator does it have.
I just sent a business app for approval last night. It’s an update of one I made in Gamesalad a few months ago. I was able to use the native keyboard and text fields in the Corona version to make it a lot slicker. Not to mention adding Ads and Analytics.

As for Multi text field management, I have lots of them and I used a simple system off offset and scale. It lets me move the fields around quicky and adjust spacing and font size, even by platform if I wish.

The App is an ANC Calculator for Cancer Patients, when the corona version is approved I will post a link.

[code]

local spaceing = 32
local baseheight =60

fField = native.newTextField( 10,baseheight+ (spaceing*0), 120, tHeight, polysfieldHandler )
bField = native.newTextField( 10, baseheight+ (spaceing*1) , 120, tHeight, bandsfieldHandler )
wbcField = native.newTextField( 10, baseheight+ (spaceing*2), 120, tHeight, wbcfieldHandler )
ancText = native.newTextBox( 10, baseheight+ (spaceing*3), 120, tHeight )

[/code] [import]uid: 110373 topic_id: 19795 reply_id: 76832[/import]

#7

I am in the middle of writing a SalesMobile application that will allow sales people, on the road, to view a catalog, click on part of an image, see the portion of the image they have clicked on enlarged, see sizing availability, enter an order and check out. The application uses SQLite, downloads information to the iPad so that it works off line as well and send back text file that are then imported into my MSSQL application. So far I have had problems but have been able to surpass most of them. The only problems that I am struggling with now are:

1- The cropping of a portion of the image that I want to enlarge and bring forward is slow. I am using the full image and putting the portion I want in the bottom right corner of the screen than using display.save to save the image, then I use this newly saved image and place the image in the top left corner of the screen and save it again. This works very fast in the simulator but rather slow on the iPad itself. I wish their was another way!!!

2- The data loading, when I’m testing to see if the file I need to download is available, it is also very slow on the iPad. I am currently using this code:

local http = require(“socket.http”)
if http.request( “http://…/Slp.txt” ) == nil then
bConnected = false
else
bConnected = true
end

I find corona to be the closest thing to what I am accustomed to program in.

Thanks corona. [import]uid: 97768 topic_id: 19795 reply_id: 78317[/import]