Android Development in Basic

Douglas McDonald · November 30, 2011, 02:17:17 PM

Well with just a few days working with B4A it seems like a powerful compiler. The IDE is great. I only have a problem with the documentation, it drastically lacks in detail and the forum members do not really want to bother with a newbie or so it seems. They need to look at the powerbasic manual so they'll know what good documentation is. That said I think b4a is very good and well worth the price

Ivan Iraola · November 30, 2011, 07:40:36 PM

Yes, the product is good but documentation and sometimes support is a little...well...lacking.

By my own experience, after a little while you'll figure out most of the stuff, but then again. I wish the documentation/manual was more like PB, I agree with you 100%.

Rolf Brandt · November 30, 2011, 07:47:11 PM

The problem is that documentation of a software is extremely time consuming. I don't know if you feel the same like me - but I consider documentation the horror of every developer.

I think the help in the B4A forum is not that bad, but we are spoiled by Paul in the FireFly forum. This forum is unique. I haven't seen anything like it (except in the SQLitening Forum).

Rolf

Ivan Iraola · December 01, 2011, 11:05:41 AM

Yes, the forum is not that bad, my only complaint sometimes is when I have a question, someone answers "see this post" and I'm supposed to "know" what to read.

One line of code or two can answer many questions, sometimes is all I need, in my case, when I answer a post I include a piece of code or if I redirect to another post I highlight the relevant code.

I agree that documentation for a developer might be horror, long and tedious process, but it's very important because that will help you retain or lose customers.

Douglas McDonald · December 07, 2011, 11:31:08 AM

There is a means to an end using B4A's documentation but it takes a long time to find it. It may be in the users guide or the forum or some other webpage on their site. I'm not saying the info is not there, its just very hard to find or follow at times.

For someone like me who has never even used an Android device and is starting from scratch learning how the OS works it would be nice to have a manual like PowerBasic has. I think it is one of the best manuals I've used.

Many a good compiler has failed due to bad documentation. As a developer I fully understand how hard it is to write documentation and how long it takes. A forum can only get you so far! Yes its better than nothing.

In time I'll get used to how B4A works and I think it can be a great compiler. I'm just saying that learning it could be much faster with good doc's

Doug

Jim Dunn · December 07, 2011, 11:43:07 AM

FYI:

In case anyone wants a 50% discount when purchasing Basic4android Enterprise:

COUPON CODE: byhbtj

The purchase page link is: http://www.basic4ppc.com/android/purchase.html

(Only new customers can use the coupon)

Michael Shillito · December 07, 2011, 12:59:58 PM

Here's another coupon code for a 50% discount: bkbjkv

Offer still on 5 days ago

Like Rolf says you have to purchase using the Plimus payment method to get the discount

Dave Paton · January 03, 2012, 01:05:34 AM

I used to use Basic4PPC. That was the precursor to Basic4Android. Forums were very helpful. My only complaint was that when they brought in a class from .Net and put a wrapper around it so it could be used with B4P, whoever made the wrapper, didn't always give you access to all the members of the class. In the end I went to VS2008 for WinMobile 6 development on a PPC so I could get access to the class members i needed. I know it's a dead end, but the only ruggedized data collectors are running WM6. Android devices are just not suitable for field work, yet....

Rolf Brandt · January 03, 2012, 04:34:57 AM

Yes, it is a shame that MS does not continue WM anymore. But I converted my main application to Android now and it works great. And I enjoy some of the extra features too.

The only thing I am missing in Android is a real Kiosk mode.

Rolf

Dave Paton · January 03, 2012, 06:59:07 PM

I just did a quick check and I see that a company called Rhiza is advertising a Trimble Nomad 900 data collector with the Android OS ratner than WM6.1. A year ago when I finally upgraded my PPC2003 Recons, that option did not exist. It's interesting because development in WM6 is almost dead, so good luck getting any help on user forums. Android on the other hand is very much alive and there's not much difference between developing an app on a phone or a Nomad. I use a Trimble Recon because it is smaller and has a CF card slot where I can add an extra CF serial port (DB9). It has Bluetooth as well, but for my data I prefer wired connections to wireless. Nomad also has a CF card slot as well as an RS232 serial port. The keypad makes it bigger.