1st App help needed

[brownel02]

Morning folks,

I just found this software and figured I would give it a shot. I am not a programmer but willing to learn the basics and make my first app.

With that said I could use some help getting started.

My App:

I would like to make an app to help me fill out a roster for my daughters' soccer teams. I coach 3 teams and it is tough trying to figure out who is playing what position and when to rotate. Short version of my thoughts are as follow:

- Input the entire team, ranking each kid for offense, defense and goal keeper ability (assign a letter grade or number grade to rank them). This would be done once but could be updated as kids improve.

- Game day menu - check box next to kids who are here and use those kids to populate the roster (not all kids show up for every game, that is part of the trouble). These kids would be pulled from the pool and assigned a position (Striker, Midfielder, Defense or Goal Keeper).

-- Start by picking a Goal Keeper (GK), then a Formation (we play 2-3-3, 3-2-3 or 3-3-2) this depends on how we want to bias the offense or defense depending on who the GK is (strong GK or weaker GK)

-- Each GK will play for the entire quarter. The other players will change shifts at the midway through the quarter.

- I am thinking about a button for each quarter, so I can adjust GK and develop a roster based on that.

Ultimately I would like to be able to print a hard copy with the composite 4 quarters but have the app incase I wanted to make changes on the fly at the game.

I know I have many rules to implement but figured this would be a fun project (although probably pretty tough for a first one).

Any help would be appreciated.

(Mods: If this is in the wrong section please forgive me and move it to the appropriate section, thanks)

 

[prstein]

As one who frequently gets into projects beyond my ability level I will offer some general advice.

1. It's important to start small. I try to break projects up into little pieces. Perfect one piece, add the next piece and perfect it, go back to the beginning and see what changes you should make to the first piece based on the lessons you learned on the second. And keep going. Quickly looking at your description, the first step might be to get a name input screen. Then get it to save the names. Then get it to restore the names on command. Then make it so you can edit the names. Now add the ability to attach a position to each name, and edit it. Etc.

2. Read the manual, read the manual, read the manual. Print it out and sleep with it under your pillow. Any time you can't quite make something work, read that part of the manual again.

3. Read the forum, read the forum, read the forum. Even reading about comments and issues that don't appear to have direct relevance to what you are doing still help get you into that B4A "gestalt." And you'll likely notice ways to approach your problems you might not have thought of on your own.

4. When you get stuck, post it on the forum, preferably with code that duplicates what you are seeing. (99% of the time for me, the action of trimming my "problem" into a very simple app that I can post causes the problem to be come obvious...)

5. I don't post much but I read a lot here. There are some beautiful people who answer here in their own free time. They seem to be friendly and tolerant to all but I believe they might be happier to help someone who has obviously done their homework and tried their best.

Ok that's it from me for now! Back into my hole...

Best Regards,
Paul

 

[Merlot2309]

Hello,

In addition to Paul's good points:

There are a lot of examples on the forum with scrollviews, lists, databases, etc.
When you run them in the debug mode (upper right corner of the project screen), add breakpoints (left of the code) it's easy to see what happens.

And, last but not least the beginners guide: http://www.b4x.com/forum/basic4android-getting-started-tutorials/9578-beginners-guide.html

Success,
Helen.