From the Forum — Issue #119

18 April 2016

From the Forum — Issue #119

Welcome to the latest installment of From the Forum. In this series, guest blogger Alex Jackson highlights outstanding threads from the Corona Forum. The goal is to bring attention to the most captivating, interesting, and thought-provoking discussions taking place in our very own backyard.

Please visit the forum to join these conversations or start your own!

Yelp finds its way to Corona

I’ve always been a big fan of Yelp. Its incredible user base, crowd-sourcing, menus, and reviews from around the world make restaurants and points of interest explode off of the webpage; but this isn’t an ad spot for Yelp — we’re here to talk about how we can leverage Yelp in our apps!

Responding to an inquiry by another Corona developer, previously-highlighted virtuoso scottrules44 has upped his game, blending oAuth and Yelp’s own REST API to get the mad alchemy just right. The current iteration has incorporated the search functionality and is ready for us to jump in and kick the tires. Check it out!

https://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/62558-new-yelp-plugin/

Windows apps and fun with scaling

Those of us leveraging the Windows Phone platform to increase our reach and mindshare in the brains of the mobile elite know how important it is the maintain parity between vanilla SDK coding and development when paired with the migration to Visual Studio.

The real trouble comes when trying to accommodate the scaling needs between the myriad Windows Phone devices. This, in addition to the scaling necessary for iOS and Android, can leave some gaps in the armor. Some developers looking at Windows Phone found a bit of a sticky wicket: there is a problem with the way apps scale between devices with and without hardware buttons, using WXGA, 720P, and 1080P resolutions.

Fortunately, superstar Corona engineer Joshua Quick jumped into the fray, testing several solutions with different devices, trying to find the magic bullet for the scaling woes. Check out the original thread!

https://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/62285-windows-phone-10-black-borders/

A nice inspirational sample project

My favorite part of being a Corona developer is the incredibly small amount of time it takes to prototype an idea. The time it takes to punch out a Frogger clone or a note-taking app is decreased exponentially with Corona.

I think that new Corona users are enticed by the ease of development and the streamlined delivery to mobile devices. The ease with which this can be accomplished is often deceiving, however — the more simple a program seems, the more complicated it can be behind the scenes. One new developer had some questions about removing objects after they have been “passed” by the player object, and the response they received was an fantastic example of community ingenuity. An abridged version of the classic Donkey Kong was dropped into the thread, neat and tidy. It’s a great example of our fellow developers giving a helping hand to those just starting out. Head down to the original thread to get a glimpse at the assist!

https://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/62569-removing-an-object-after-jumping-over-it/

About Alex

Alex Jackson is an indie developer and the founder of Panc Interactive, specializing in retro-style gaming. He has created several mobile applications, enjoys long walks on the beach, pixel art, and reading the Corona forums. Contact him by email or follow him on Twitter: @pancinteractive. Check out his new game Segreta on iOS, Android, Windows Phone and Amazon devices.