I've had this program for a couple of years. I keep mentioning how difficult it is to understand these tutorials. I have written a blackjack type game which looks pretty good. However, I still can not do a simple space invaders or pac-man game. I still can not figure out how to save stuff to a database and recall the info. I have prgrammed before and am not stupid. The problem is that engineers are writting for engineers. So my question is, "Has anyone contacted a professional writer of MS Visual basic and asked him to write a book on B4A"? If the answer is NO, then you just don't get it. The B in BASIC stands for beginners. You guys are good are writing code, but horrible at teaching how to program. Until you get someone else to write a book, B4A will be what it is. It has nothing to do with WHAT it can do. The most important part is HOW to do it.
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Has anyone writen a book yet about b4a
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vb, that's not an insult but a fact. Just because a person can program doesn't mean he can teach or write. It's like an actor who becomes a director. they usually fail. There are exceptions (dances with wolves).
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I may be a bad student, but let's talk abou that....
I have been reading the beginner's guide about canvas'. It's 15 pages long. It has needeles and a compass. It's one big long code of getting angles and rotation correct. How is that going to help me???????
OK, this is what SHOULD be the canvas tutorial.
1) this is how to put up a backgorund
end of lesson
2) this is how you put up a pac-man character on screen.
end of lesson
3) this is how you move pac-man around the screen.
end of lesson
4) this is how you put up a ghost
end of lesson
5) this is how pac-man dies when touches ghost
end of lesson
Do you see the difference? In all of the tutorials I have read here over the last 2 years you all would do everything in 1 tutorial. You have to go step by step. I keep explaining this but you all don't get it. In teaching books this is exactly how they teach. step by step. That way each concept is taught by itself. You don't nede to throw in angles of a compass when you just want to show how to put a graphic over a background. So maybe I suck as a student, but if you all keep taking offense, you goal will fail. BASIC is for beginners so you have to teach for beginners. 1 step at a time.
(BTW, id love for someone to show me step by step how to put a background, then pacman, then move him).
I have been reading the beginner's guide about canvas'. It's 15 pages long. It has needeles and a compass. It's one big long code of getting angles and rotation correct. How is that going to help me???????
OK, this is what SHOULD be the canvas tutorial.
1) this is how to put up a backgorund
end of lesson
2) this is how you put up a pac-man character on screen.
end of lesson
3) this is how you move pac-man around the screen.
end of lesson
4) this is how you put up a ghost
end of lesson
5) this is how pac-man dies when touches ghost
end of lesson
Do you see the difference? In all of the tutorials I have read here over the last 2 years you all would do everything in 1 tutorial. You have to go step by step. I keep explaining this but you all don't get it. In teaching books this is exactly how they teach. step by step. That way each concept is taught by itself. You don't nede to throw in angles of a compass when you just want to show how to put a graphic over a background. So maybe I suck as a student, but if you all keep taking offense, you goal will fail. BASIC is for beginners so you have to teach for beginners. 1 step at a time.
(BTW, id love for someone to show me step by step how to put a background, then pacman, then move him).
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This is not a summary for a Canvas tutorial but for a Game tutorial. That's very different. Your chapters 3 and 5 have nothing to do with a Canvas.
The first chapter would have just three lines:
Dim C as Canvas
C.Initialize(Activity)
C.DrawColor or C.DrawBitmap (but it's easier to do Activity.SetBackgroundImage)
The second chapter : a few lines too to illustrate DrawBitmap. The same lines in chapter 4. No one will write such a book. It would be like rewriting the manual for each Canvas method.
I agree about the fact some tutorials or important things to know are scattered. But Klaus is the kind of guy trying to gather them all. Your comment is not nice for his work. You should help him instead of complaining.
What did you expect when you write your post ? When I read that, I thought two things:
- this guy should choose another hobby. That's not a shame. I tried one day to understand quantum physics and I soon felt lost. I gave up. It does not mean I'm stupid either.
- maybe the development with Android is not for beginners, even with B4A. When I discovered all of this a few months ago, my first impression was that Android with its Java language, its concepts, its architecture, its XML files, was definitely not for beginners. Then, I found B4A. Erel really did a good work to make Android accessible to the many and he sells his product at an incredible low price. Without B4A, I don't know if you succeed in writing Hello on your phone.
I agree that a lot of things can be improved in the guides or in the tutorials, but asking for it nicely is better than shouting out loud. Don't forget that the "bad teachers" are the same people that takes some time to try to help you in this forum.
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OMG, infomix, you still dont get it. I am not complaining. I compliment EREL and the others for their PROGRAMMING. Top notch. What I am saying is that they can't write instructions for beginners. Heck, I can take apart a computer but can not flush out my radiator in the car. There are things people are good at and things they are not. B4A claims 25,000 users. This is big enough to go to amazon and look up authors of basic books for visual basic and ask one of them to do a book for b4a. EREL can code and they can write. Erel with sell a heck more copies as it will have a book on amazon. Currenntly, I see 2 other BASICs for android (and both run on android). If you still don't get it, then you will never get it. You can have suggestions that are positive. I reccommended this 2 years ago and the books should be on the shelves by now. What do we have instead? the same text PDF files and 'look in the forems'. This is not a knock on erel's programming as I'm sure he is a master at that. Great. Keep up what he's good at. Now get a person who's a master at wrting to write a book.
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The problem is that you talk about it as if everybody was in your case, as if the problem was more B4A and the many people who have written tutorials (all bad according to you) than you. It seems a lot of users are not in your case. BUT OK, I agree that this kind of book would be a great thing. And a book (or a tutorial) about very advanced techniques because it's frustrating to begin a project that you cannot end because everything is slow and you don't know how to optimize it to make it really usable.
Just a final word: you say you're still unable to read/write something in a database with B4A. B4A just passes SQL instructions to the SQlite engine and gets the result. That part of the job is highly detailed in many places, including the PDF (User's Guide). Erel wrote a module, DBUtils, to ease even more the process. Moreover SQLite is not closely tied to Android. It exists on many platforms and has its own documentation. I don't even speak of SQL, which have hundreds of books written about it. So, where's the problem ? You cannot get out of my mind that's the user. Especially after two years of trying.
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2 years ago we had B4A 1.5
We didnt have designer scrpts , abstract designer, obfuscation, classes etc etc.
B4A is evolving at a rapid pace and any information becomes dated very quickly.
The best solution would be to use the wiki to accumulate all the information as a book and we can add or remove when things change.
I suggest you come up with a 'wishlist' of topics so that people can contribute and maybe you can add stuff as you learn so the people coming after you can benefit.
EDIT: Correction:
1 year ago we had B4A 1.5. I dont even know what we had 2 years ago. The change has been massive.
We didnt have designer scrpts , abstract designer, obfuscation, classes etc etc.
B4A is evolving at a rapid pace and any information becomes dated very quickly.
The best solution would be to use the wiki to accumulate all the information as a book and we can add or remove when things change.
I suggest you come up with a 'wishlist' of topics so that people can contribute and maybe you can add stuff as you learn so the people coming after you can benefit.
EDIT: Correction:
1 year ago we had B4A 1.5. I dont even know what we had 2 years ago. The change has been massive.
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I would pre-pay for an e-copy even though I think the tutorials and help on the forums is excellent. A concise well thought out book would be useful.
-Matt
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Dude, no offence but if after a couple of years using this software you still can't save to a database and read back from it then you're obviously not asking questions or reading tutorials.
I started using this software last Thursday and am not getting it to do some stuff that frankly I doubted it could do when when purchasing it.
OK the examples are not always that clear (as they are often written by someone with English as a second language) and sometimes they look a little out of date but with a bit of perseverance and experimentation get you there.
A book would be out of date v quickly and wouldn't help you out anywhere near as much as asking questions in the forums can.
Cheers,
Jon
I started using this software last Thursday and am not getting it to do some stuff that frankly I doubted it could do when when purchasing it.
OK the examples are not always that clear (as they are often written by someone with English as a second language) and sometimes they look a little out of date but with a bit of perseverance and experimentation get you there.
A book would be out of date v quickly and wouldn't help you out anywhere near as much as asking questions in the forums can.
Cheers,
Jon
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you always have fast and slow learners, or should I say adaptors for the fast ones?
since it's adapting to another language again with another syntax for some operations compared to what we were used to (logic and/or to name something)
when you have a programming logic from any other language you could do you space invaders or pac man game, the logic is always the same be it C, VB, Flash, B4A.
And we can't complain about this forum or the chat, there are a lot of advanced people always willing to help you out, even the author of the tool which is rare, believe me.
so a general rule is: when you're stuck and can't find it on the forum just ask here or on the chat.
since it's adapting to another language again with another syntax for some operations compared to what we were used to (logic and/or to name something)
when you have a programming logic from any other language you could do you space invaders or pac man game, the logic is always the same be it C, VB, Flash, B4A.
And we can't complain about this forum or the chat, there are a lot of advanced people always willing to help you out, even the author of the tool which is rare, believe me.
so a general rule is: when you're stuck and can't find it on the forum just ask here or on the chat.
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2 Years ago I was using/developing in Win Mobile and thought it was great. Then had issues loading simple jpg files and reading GPS. Solved both of those and thought I completed brain surgery. Now in Android (With B4A) those same things are like something a 2 year old could do. Between the guides, the forum here, and the Android SDK help I have 10x what I started with when I taught myself Windows Desktop/API Programming.
There could be some things better, but like others have said it has changed so fast whatever you write will be dated in a month or less. I'd also agree with the others that what you are wanting isn't 100% beginner stuff but game development. There are people that either have years of teaching themselves or years of college to do that. Too many people want instant knowledge or someone else to write/debug code for them. In games there is math, science, and physics involved. B4A gives you the tools you need to draw and store coordinates, but you will need to design your own game engines.
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Of course there have been many upgrades to the software in the last 2 years. I think I started when it was still in beta form. However, look at Visual basic (or any of the hundreds of books you find at barnes and noble). A professional writer does a book that is easy to understand, covers all of the topics and sells copies. When you have books like those, schools will back that program cause there are books for it. Eaxh year they release an updated book. This would be the case with b4a. It just amazes me that there are people here that dont get it. What would you have to loose by sending a email to someone who wrote a book on vb? He'll probably just take his book and modify it for b4a. Then he probably will add in the areas that are unique or complicated. A programmer is NOT a writer. let erel write. If he has sold 25,000 copies at $100 a pop, then that's $2.5 million he has made (so we'll just 1/2 it and that $1.25 million). OK, let him write. He is good at that. Do what Intel does. Have engineers, design and write techincal manuals. Then have writers convert that to something that is easy to understand that their marketing types can sell. You loose nothing and gain everything,
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Personally, I am glad the era of Fat/Heavy Programming books are over with.
and now we have Video Tutorials online or eBooks, but I like video tutorials myself when I am learning something that is hard to grasp for me (like mixing music : audio engineering). Here are some I found online, but haven't watched, since I come from a vb6 background, b4a was very similar to me:
Making a Quiz in Basic4Android Tutorial - Part 1 - YouTube
Android Programming using Basic4Android - Tutorial 1 - YouTube
Android programming with Basic4Android - Playing with views - YouTube
I think Informix could write an ebook, he already has 3 chapters done. :sign0188:
and now we have Video Tutorials online or eBooks, but I like video tutorials myself when I am learning something that is hard to grasp for me (like mixing music : audio engineering). Here are some I found online, but haven't watched, since I come from a vb6 background, b4a was very similar to me:
Making a Quiz in Basic4Android Tutorial - Part 1 - YouTube
Android Programming using Basic4Android - Tutorial 1 - YouTube
Android programming with Basic4Android - Playing with views - YouTube
I think Informix could write an ebook, he already has 3 chapters done. :sign0188:
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The answer is simple really. The OP should get in touch with one of the programming manual writers and see how much it would cost to have the book authored and what is involved in getting it published and distributed.
Then if he is so inclined he can put his money where his keyboard is and get the ball rolling.
Personally I suspect that there is not a big enough user base to get the return needed to make it economically viable, but I have been known to be wrong.
Then if he is so inclined he can put his money where his keyboard is and get the ball rolling.
Personally I suspect that there is not a big enough user base to get the return needed to make it economically viable, but I have been known to be wrong.
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Wth
Just wanted to mention, that when i started playing with Basic4Android, i had not experience what so ever about writing data or accessing data from a database, it has been around a year and a half since i started using B4A and now i have written a few applications which implement writing and accessing from a database, i must say it was the easiest thing to learn, thanks to all the help from everyone here in the forums and thanks to SEARCH function, it is very rare the times i type in something and hit search and do not find an answer or someone who is willing to help out.
In conclusion, what the hell is that guy talking about?
:sign0089:
Just wanted to mention, that when i started playing with Basic4Android, i had not experience what so ever about writing data or accessing data from a database, it has been around a year and a half since i started using B4A and now i have written a few applications which implement writing and accessing from a database, i must say it was the easiest thing to learn, thanks to all the help from everyone here in the forums and thanks to SEARCH function, it is very rare the times i type in something and hit search and do not find an answer or someone who is willing to help out.
In conclusion, what the hell is that guy talking about?
:sign0089:
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