Android App Development

[davidI]

How hard is it to develop Android Apps?

I've done a little bit of searching but haven't come across any good basic tutorials.

I want to develop a basic flashcard app for studying. I don't suspect this being too difficult, but I'm not a coder so perhaps it's too difficult for me.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

[captain134]

YouTube. Yes really. You are going to need the Android sdk, eclipse and the Android plugin. Mac or Ubuntu preferred I would believe.

[davidI]

Thanks. I was hoping to research this while at work and You Tube is blocked, but I'll see what I can do!

[ReflexFX]

If you use eclipse, it babies everything down for you. For example, the interface can be constructed using a "drag and drop" method, where you never really have to do any programming (if you dont mind an ugly interface). The rest is just getting everything to do what you want in java.

[davidI]

What about the MIT App Inventor? What I want to do is very basic - basically creating several categories with various 'flash cards' within each category. I guess the only tricky thing might be randomizing the presentation of flash cards as each card would have a pair (question screen then answer screen) so they'd have to be randomized in pairs.

If it's Eclipse I should learn then so be it, but if the MIT App Inventor will do what I want then that's even better!

[Kardon]

It wouldn't be very difficult to code imo.

[davidI]

Originally posted by Kardon
It wouldn't be very difficult to code imo.

Yea, it shouldn't be. I just don't know Java or C++. I learned QBasic way back in the day, so I do understand general coding principles, but can't do anything useful myself.

I'll just have to do some more reading and figure out the best approach. App Inventor seems pretty simple, but perhaps it's too simple.

I'll check out Eclipse tonight once I'm off my work machine.

[captain134]

Honestly I have zero training in coding what so ever. No java, c+, html Nothing at all.

I followed the tutorials on youtube on setting up the build environment and then did the basic tutorials such as "Hello World".

From there I was able to make some simple single page apps and I basically stopped there because I don't have an idea for an app. lol.

App inventor is a great idea and all but it is a backwards approach at least for what I was doing. It is somewhat limited and basic also you don't really learn anything from using it.

You are better off in the long run to start with and learn eclipse/coding. Who knows maybe you will like making apps and want to keep making more advanced apps.