Application for the first Tutorial

[Paul Squires]

I have been thinking about this all weekend..... I wanted to come up with a good idea for an application that could be used in the development of a good tutorial on how to use FF3.

After much debate, I have settled on a "Password Manager" type of application. Something along the lines of KeePass.

The idea is to have an application that touches on many aspects of building an application that uses many different types of common controls.

For example, the password manger program would touch on these topics:

- Top menu
- ToolBar
- StatusBar
- Startup Logon screen
- Splitter windows (FireSplitter)
- URL Links (FireLink)
- Treeview
- Listview
- Popup forms for data entry (add/modify)
- Database management (I will use SQLitening just to show off how cool that library is)
- TabControl (for the Settings pages)

If you guys can think of a better program then please let me know. I want something small and manageable and something that most people can relate to.

[Gary Stout]

Sounds fine to me.....anything that demonstrates as many controls as possible. I am always interested in learning from others design techniques.

Pick up some interesting tips and neat things from Marty Francom's AdBook example. I thought he was using a grid of sorts on the bottom and after looking at his form, it was actually textboxes that appeared like a grid. Forgot to mention this to him and thank him for the example application......Thanks, Marty if you are seeing this.

Thanks,
Gary

[Haakon Birkeland]

I've also been in the works of preparing a little and useful application to offer as well documented tutorial. I was thinking of keeping it relatively small/short as I didn't intend to supply the code, knowing how lazy some/most people might be â€" based on how lazy I am myself ... 8o) My intention is to have people put a little more effort into it than just downloading, having a looksie on the code, compiling and being done.

My goal is to explain it well in step-by-step fashion, also through a printable tutorial (Encrypted PDF, to force novices in building the application and gaining a necessary feel for FF 8o) and only supply graphics as downloads for those recognizing themselves as visually creative challenged.

I was thinking of getting a few steps further before revealing the plot, but I guess Paul has a point in that someone maybe has valuable input that I should consider already now ...

"Trigger Zones" is probably a well known type of application that monitors the cursor position and triggers actions in certain set-up zones on the screen. Here is a flowchart of the basic functionality and structure from my planning process;

[Rolf Brandt]

I am at present preparing a FF3 / SQLitening project. It will be a general database manager with the basic features like:

Create Databases
Create Tables, Indexes, Triggers
Add, Edit, Delete Records
QueryBuilder
etc.

The program will be multilingual, so that any user can adapt it to his language.

[Haakon Birkeland]

Sounds pretty useful Rolf, and I'm convinced it will help promote the usage of SQLitening.

[Paul Squires]

Wow! It is so nice to see interest in creating tutorial products for the community. Maybe I can just sit back, relax and watch......

It will be interesting to see how each of us approaches the tutorials and design process. I bet that everyone will learn a lot from each other. Throw in Jean-Pierre's ListView examples and now we are well on our way to total and complete world domination.

Very exciting!

[Ivan Iraola]

Actually, I have one already made, the program does "nothing", it's just a collection of controls and their uses, you can click buttons to disable/enable menus, toolbars, use listviews, progress bars, tab controls, etc, the basic stuff that is always useful to have handy.

I'll add comments to explain what and how is done. I will have to free some time to do that.

I have to say this, this community is very cool, people are willing to help and share their knowledge, I like it very much.

[Pat Dooley]

Paul, I would like to see your sample app since it touches on topics I would like to learn more about. I was thinking of posting a request for a FireSplitter control sample.
However, all the samples mentioned in this thread would be useful.
Pat

[Barry Marks]

What about some small and simple applications that each demonstrate how to use some part of FF?  Something like the selection of samples included with PB.  Something like Fernando Sor's Etudes.

Barry

[Rolf Brandt]

I think, Ivan's project sounds pretty much like such an application that demenstrates the use of FF3 in simple terms without too much overhead.

[Richard Marchessault]

I like Ivan's application as a tutorial.

[Marc van Cauwenberghe]

Hmm...
I will have to think about one that I can make.

@Haakon
What program are you using to make that flowchart?

Marc

[Thomas Cone Jr]

Paul, I think your choice for the application tutorial is excellent!

Thanks.  -- tom

[Haakon Birkeland]

yEd Graph Editor. ( http://www.yworks.com/en/products_yed_about.html )

I don't find it perfect, but for free it will suffice! I especially like it's alignment features, although I struggle to accept some visual limitations as for instance the ability to choose to have only outlines on certain sides ...

[Martin Francom]

I have been thinking about this all weekend..... I wanted to come up with a good idea for an application that could be used in the development of a good tutorial on how to use FF3.

After much debate, I have settled on a "Password Manager" type of application. Something along the lines of KeePass.

The idea is to have an application that touches on many aspects of building an application that uses many different types of common controls.

For example, the password manger program would touch on these topics:

- Top menu
- ToolBar
- StatusBar
- Startup Logon screen
- Splitter windows (FireSplitter)
- URL Links (FireLink)
- Treeview
- Listview
- Popup forms for data entry (add/modify)
- Database management (I will use SQLitening just to show off how cool that library is)
- TabControl (for the Settings pages)

If you guys can think of a better program then please let me know. I want something small and manageable and something that most people can relate to.

Paul,
    Build it as a video tutorial.  As well as having the project code available to look at.   I always prefer learning from a project that is actually useful by it's self.  this gets my vote.

   Also,  I would love to see some one do an  Inno Setup Compiler code in FF3 and PB9.