Beginner forum...?

BJG

I'm wondering if it would be useful to set up a section for beginners...? I don't like to post really simple questions in the General Questions area, but I'm struggling a bit with some of the basics. (Currently trying to understand the bird animation example. I vaguely understand the "init" concept, but does "onEnterFrame" also have a special meaning...?)

BJG

(OK, forget that, I think I've just about grasped it...the answer being "no, could be called anything.")

gorkem

Other than that, do not hesitate to post your beginner questions. If I feel like you are spamming the forum, I'll create a new section :P

BJG

Thanks gorkem! It's encouraging to know that the forum is here, but I'll try not to lean on it too much...

twisttap

Cant we switch to a forum like structure where codes / ideas / beginner stuff / advacned stuff / game adverts. etc are seperated to sections ?

I am tracking like 50 topics and sometimes it just get out of control to find something in the pile and when you bookmark 50 topics it makes no difference after sometime.

gorkem

I chose Vanilla because it's not a "real" forum but a Q&A style community site where each answered question moves up. I'd doubt we'd go for a real forum here.

twisttap

Sometimes it is just like looking for a needle in the haystack but since you dont think to switch then ok ..

Mells

@gorkem
I believe that there could be a way to keep the forum the way it is but improve how it works for the following cases :

1. I know what I'm searching, and I want to find the best answers (ordered by category and relevancy, or user votes)
2. I am starting with Gideros and I am looking for best practices without a specific need, so I expect to find a place where all best answers are categorized

Maybe that would work even better as a Q&A style community site if there was a way to found those answers, currently it can be found only by the community members that can remember about past discussions.

phongtt

@Mells: agreed
Till now the only big drawback of Gideros IMHO is documentation.
From getting started stuff to complete sample code for things like GameCenter, Facebook,...
I believe this matter affects much newcomers approaching Gideros, and also wastes other developers' time delving into the source code of gamekit.mm for example to make things work.
(I have a friend who started with Corona and then I introduced him Gideros explaining the good things about it, but after taking a look he was hesitated due to documentation)

I hope when Gideros team grows soon the documentation is put priority. I see Corona has really very good documentation.

mysps

I agree @phongtt.. I was one of those newbies that looked at Corona and thought wow it seems easy. Later I played around with Gideros and started with the wiki/learning center but it was a bit hard and shifted to the Ultimate Guide which was great however there were/are things still missing which made me pause a bit.

Although, the forum is great and you guys help so much with all questions. But as a beginner it can be overwhelming and some times at least for me I hesitate to ask because I feel its probably redundant and not worth asking because everyone else is more advanced.

With that said, I do believe in trial and error and learning from that. The examples and samples that are provided do help, however its still a little hard for myself. I've tried to read the book Programming in Lua the 2nd version but I'm not sure how to apply it to the Gideros API or any other api for that matter.

I can't wait until I get a working app out to share! I would love to see more documentation for I guess normal folk

my 2cents!

OZApps

@mysps, have you tried reading my book Learn Lua for iOS Game Development ( http://www.apress.com/9781430246626 ) ?

moopf

On the forum, I don't like the way it currently works. Unless you bookmark a thread you don't get notifications on replies, even if you started the thread. If you don't bookmark, you'll only get replies when somebody actually mentions you. I do have both Email and Popup clicked for 'Notify me when people comment on my discussions.' but that obviously isn't working (at least for me) and I see no preference to do the same when somebody comments on a discussion you have commented on.

The structure is also very loose, to the point where I don't actually use it, and the 'Ask a Question' facility is annoying - you constantly get reminders to accept answers on every reply to such a thread, even if you've already accepted an answer.

On the documentation, it really needs a lot of work. I can't believe Gamekit still isn't documented, for instance. It's all incredibly cursory and shallow at the moment and I do wonder if it isn't a big hindrance to people trying Gideros and not being able to get started with it in a reasonable time and giving up. I'm not sure if Gideros are expecting the users to compensate for the documentation through giving help on the forums or preparing their own, but neither of those can really take the place of good core documentation from the developers.

Anyway, just my 2p

moopf

Also, whilst I'm thinking about it, the search on the forum is awful

Scouser

@moopf: I have to agree about the search which is why I use google to search using

• site:http://www.giderosmobile.com/forum search terms here

Mells

I have created this Custom Search in Alfred (Mac) a few months ago :

[Search Url]
http://www.google.com/search?q=site:http://giderosmobile.com/forum %20{query}
Remove the space between forum and %

[Title]
Search Gideros forums

[Keyword]
gids

ar2rsawseen

@Mells you are genius, I can do the same in Opera

mysps

@OZApps -- no but if it helps with learning lua alongside the api here im on it!

OZApps

@mysps, you can have a look inside (preview on the amazon page here, http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1430246626/ref=nosim/apre-20 )

BJG

To be honest, I do feel this forum is a bit of a muddle, and it's impossible to find anything without the aid of Google. I reckon the standard Moai/Corona/Unity format is much cleaner.

http://getmoai.com/forums/
http://forum.unity3d.com/
https://developer.coronalabs.com/forum/

twisttap

Even if it is possible to seperate some major topic like published games / developer notes / beginner questions / plugins etc from each other in their own categories it will be very nice. I totally agree with @BjG

OZApps

Actually when one creates a question or a discussion there is a category to assign it to a category, if there was a category grouping which would display the threads grouped then a lot of the issues in locating information would become easier. just my thoughts on this.

hgvyas123

ok all of you guys can kill me but i vote this forum should remain as it is i am loving it

OZApps

A side note: The users at C*SDK are not happy with the search on the forums either ( http://developer.coronalabs.com/forum/2013/01/18/searching-forum )

gorkem

A reason not the change the current forum technology :-\"

hgvyas123

well now i am thinking that it will be great if forum will change because by doing so
our own @techdojo will loose his all posts and both of us starts from 0 much easier for me to take shiny star


)

MikeHart

.@gorkem: There is a category list on the right side. Could that also show the number of new posts?.

gorkem

Good point, I will check vanilla forums for such a plugin and will let you know.

Tom2012

I use google to find stuff from the forum too.

I don't use the site: thing - I just type

gideros 'search term'

eg.

gideros localtoglobal

WauloK

My question is how to embed images/videos in a forum post? I searched here and also the Vanilla website.

Mells

@WauloK
For images, use html

img src

For videos, use the url in the address bar :

Ex : <a href="http://###www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVCdLi6FGVg" rel="nofollow">http://###www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVCdLi6FGVg</a>

You can link to an external source or attach a file to your post (See at the bottom left of the comment box).

WauloK

Cheers!