Hi,
I’m trying to build a quiz app that will run on my website and on most mobile devices but I don’t know where to begin. Can someone please point me in the right direction? What exactly do I need to learn or buy? This is my first attempt so I’ll appreciate any help I can get.
Thanks,Ola [import]uid: 166257 topic_id: 28972 reply_id: 328972[/import]
If I were to do something like this, I would first build a restful API That returns json data as a small platform for getting questions, checking answers and getting/submitting scores. After that I can quickly build a website that uses the same logic of the API for the web counterpart. you can then use the query the restful API for you mobile counterpart. [import]uid: 144908 topic_id: 28972 reply_id: 116622[/import]
You need to learn Corona sdk if you want to be on mobile devices [import]uid: 75779 topic_id: 28972 reply_id: 116704[/import]
Of course that one also 
[import]uid: 144908 topic_id: 28972 reply_id: 116706[/import]
Hi @ola23
Welcome to the wonderful world of mobile development. I have a similar app in development right now, though mine is more of a trivia game, but they are similar ideas.
You will need:
You will have to have skills to program in Corona/Lua, PHP as well as be able to setup and built your database in MySQL (or whatever language and DB you choose to work with).
You could potentially eliminate 2 and 3 using a service like Parse or AWS (Amazon Web Services) but you’re still going to need to know PHP or your hosting language of choice to build the web version of your quiz. But to me AWS is overly complicated and Parse could end up costing you more money than self hosting.
As the poster above said, your will need to have some PHP scripts on your server that your app can call to do things like log your player in, fetch a question, receive an answer, check the validity of the answer, store the quiz results and report the results back to the app, as well as provide a final summary. You might want to look up RESTful web services for more background, but if you’re new to this, its like to a) give you a major headache or b) scare you off. Most descriptions of REST services are laced with complex computer speak.
I don’t know how much you know about how web browsers and web servers communicate, but basically you can pass parameters to the webserver on the URL:
http://somesite.com/somescript.php?username=fred&password=wilma
This is known as an HTTP GET request. In Corona you would use the network.request() API to make this call. On the server side you have to have somescript.php written that can pick off the variables, talk to your database and spew information back to you, that when received, network.request() api call will then trigger an event that you can do something with the results.
Most REST services are programmed to provide data back in several formats like XML or JSON. Since you’re going to be rolling your own, I would recommend only dealing with JSON since both PHP and Corona have simple to use functions that will take a PHP array and turn it into JSON and then turn the received JSON into a Lua table for Corona to easily use. JSON become magic at that point and you don’t really have to worry about it.
See my blog post:
http://omnigeek.robmiracle.com/2012/04/15/using-corona-sdk-with-rest-api-services/
for more details on setting this up.
Not to sound condescending, but since I don’t know your skill set, this is a very ambitious project for a starter app, in particular if you don’t know much about the server side. It has a lot of components that have to work together.
[import]uid: 19626 topic_id: 28972 reply_id: 116712[/import]
Thank you all for replying me. It seems I have a lot to learn but just in case I go in another direction ,like getting someone to do it for me, how much is it going to cost?
Thanks a lot. Ola [import]uid: 166257 topic_id: 28972 reply_id: 116722[/import]