Beginning Mobile App Development with Corona
Beginning Mobile App Development with Corona
By: Brian G. Burton, Ed.D. Foreword by: Carlos Icaza, Co-founder of Ansca Mobile, Inc.
Publisher: Burtons Media Group
Pages: 342
Formats: eTextbook: $34.99 (ePub, mobi, pdf)
ISBN: 978-1-937336-02-8
Contact sales@BurtonsMediaGroup.com for more information or volume purchases.
Schools and bookstores should contact sales@BurtonsMediaGroup.com for volume pricing or review copy requests.
Download Code Samples & Resource Files
Description:
Corona SDK allows the mobile app and game developer to create for multiple platforms at the same time. With the ability to develop for Apple iOS and Google Android, you can turn your idea into the next best selling app! Create apps in less time for multiple markets and mobile devices without tedious rewriting. Includes multiple app examples and how to make top-down and tower defense games!
Beginning Mobile App Development with Corona is designed to be used as a textbook in college or advanced High School course.
Updates:
Version 1.011 – Minor formatting improvements in ePub & mobi versions and typo fix. Replaced .strokeWidth for lines with .stroke in chapter 5.
Version 1.01- Updated name change from Ansca Mobile to Corona Labs. Removed references in chapter 14 to Papaya and Virtual Credits that have been depreciated in current version of Corona SDK. Minor corrections (no program changes) to fix typos.
Chapters:
1) Hello World: Setup and Get Going!
Getting Started
Software: Corona
Software: Android
Software: iOS
Development Hardware: Corona
Development Hardware: Test Devices
Publishing Considerations|
Lua
Programing in Corona: Editors
Configuring Corona
Programming in Corona: Hello World V1.0
Project 1.1: Hello World V2.0
2) Buttons and Text
Know your Boundaries
Project 2: Button Fun
Functions
Project 2.1: Button Fun V2
3) Animation, Alpha & Orientation
Animation
Project 3: Basic Animation
Now You See It, Now You Don’t
Project 3.1: Alpha Fun
Orientation change
Project 3.2: A New Orientation
4) Fill in the Blanks
Textfield
Project 4: Simple Calculator
Device Builds
5) All Thing Graphic
Vector Graphics
Project 5: Vector Shapes
Bitmap Graphics
Resolution
Scaling
Masking
Sprite Sheets
Project 5.1: Uniform Sprites
Project 5.2: Non-uniform Sprites
6) User Interface
Resources
Build.Settings
Config.lua
UI.Lua
Adding Sound
Project 6: Beat-box
7) MultiView Applications
Hiding the status bar
Groups
Project 7: Group Movement
Modules and Packages
Project 7.1: External Library
External Libraries
Project 7.2: Creating a Splash Screen
8 ) Phun with Physics
Turn on Physics
Scaling
Bodies
Project 8: Using Force
Gravity
Project 8.1: Playing with Gravity
Collision Detection
Joints
Project 8.2: Wrecking Ball
9) Creating a Game with Corona
Game Design
Dragging Objects
Collision Detection
Reducing Overhead
Game Loop
10) Star Explorer Continued
Splash screen
Performance Improvement
Building for Multiple Devices
Playing on Multiple Levels
11) Media Makes the World Go Round
Working with Sound
Sound File Types (Revisited)
Where Did I Put That File?
Multimedia API
Project 11: Simple Audio Recorder
Video Playback
Camera
Project 11.1: X-Ray Camera
12) File Storage & SQLite
File IO Considerations
Reading Data
Implicit vs Explicit File Manipulation
Writing Data
JSON
SQLite
Project 12: Reading a SQLite Database
Project 12.1 Writing to a SQLite Database
13) Waiting on Tables
Table vs. Table: Clearing up the Confusion
Tools for Tables
Project 13: Creating a Simple Table View
Project 13.1: Table View from SQLite
14) It’s Who you Know: Networking
Web Services
HTTP
Project 14: Picture Download – Via Network Library
Socket
Project 14a: Picture Download – Via Socket Library
Tracking Network Status
Uploading to a Webserver
Connecting to Propritary Networks
Facebook
OpenFeint
inMobi
Pubnub
Project 14.1: Multi-User App
15) Working with Widgets & Popups
Widgets
Widget Themes
Widget.newButton
Widget.newTabBar
Widget.newSlider
Widget.newTableView
Widget.newScrollView
Widget.newPickerWheel
Removing Widgets
Project 15: Longitude and Latitude
Web Popups
16) Building a Tower Defense Game
Rotten Apples – Inspiration and Resources
Adding Sprite Animations
I Need a Map!
Two Roads Diverged
Space, The Final Frontier
Rat Race
On Your Mark…
Reducing Collisions
Take the Shot – Taking Care of Collisions
Are We There Yet? – adding the clubhouse
Adding Towers: Dragging Towers to the Screen
What’s the Score?
Let’s Get this Game Going!
Closures
Initialization
Loop-De-Loop!
Level and Wave Control
Noises Off!
Suspense is Killing Me! – adding suspend/resume/save options
It’s a Splash – add splash screen
17) Additional Resources
BBEdit
Corona Comic
Corona Project Manager
Corona Remote
CoronaUI
Crawlspace
Director
Icon robot
Kwik
LevelHelper
Lime
Physics editor
SpriteHelper
Spriteloq
Texture Packer
Tiled
Useful Websites
Appendix A: The Lua Language
Appendix B: Advanced Lua
25 Comments
Bought! Thanks god I took the week off. . .
Brian:
I purchased Mobile App Development with Corona: Getting Started on August 8, 2011. I originally downloaded the book in pdf format. Are updates available and how can I obtain the update?
Regards,
David
Brian:
Jonathan Beebe of ANSCA published a Blog on “A Better Approach to External Modules”. This has been complete shock. Niels – “BTW, did you know that the Lua creators found out quickly that the module function was a bad idea, and have since deprecated it?” In light of this (or in the darkness with memory leaks), are you planning on covering the correct approach to external lua programs in this release of the book?
Regards, David
David,
I hope to release an update to the early release in early October. I was on schedule to have the entire book completed several weeks ago until I had a severe allergic reaction to a wasp sting in early August. I am some what recovered now and am back to writing again. I have sent two chapters to my copy-editor. I will try to do a better job of keeping everyone up-to-date!
I apologize for the delay!
Yes! I am in the process of going through Jonathan’s blog post and making appropriate changes to the book. Thanks for the reminder. I will move it up on the priority list!
[...] carefully combing through the curriculum I found that my Beginning Mobile App Development with Corona textbook, which was written for the college age, is very close to meeting the majority of [...]
Hi Dr. Burton, I’m interested in purchasing this book but wanted to check first the difference between this book to the corona sdk reference docs? I have a tough time following the corona reference docs since I’m very new to programming so I thought I could get your insight before buying this. It says that this is intended as a textbook for advanced high school and college, though I’m way past that, I’m willing to give this a try… thanks.
My goal in writing the book was to make the Corona SDK API’s more understandable and clear for those learning to develop mobile apps. Originally this project was started for my college class, but soon saw there was a demand for the book in the Corona community. I have tried to use my 20+ years of teaching experience to provide a graduated learning experience. If you are not happy with the book, let me know and I will try to help you through any sticking parts!
I was just reading the corona docs and really it’s informative in a way but just don’t know exactly where to start and really focus my attention to where it should be. One more thing, what’s the learning pattern or approach in your book? Like should I read it from page 1 to the last page or each chapter is independent in a way that I can jump from chapter to chapter? Are there more visual images included? The reason I asked cause I loose my focus when I read for more than a 15mins or so… yeah my hiccup… a hindrance to learning programming… but like I said earlier I am willing to try this and I’m doing it for myself and most of all for my daughter
Thanks much.
I am a teacher first and foremost. I used the same methods I would use to teach a class in mobile app development in writing this book. I think you will find that through the first 4 or 5 chapters, the programs gradually become more sophisticated and complex. If you are a beginner, I think you would want to read from page 1 through the end of chapter 5. At that point you should be more of an intermediate developer and could begin to jump around in the book to the section that you found interesting.
I tried to write each section with the knowledge that most people have about a 15 to 20 minute window to learn something. Hopefully your will find it appropriate for your learning style!
Thanks Dr. Burton… I just purchased your book… will let you know of my progress.
Great book Dr. Burton. Do you have any examples to the assignments you give on the end of each chapter? It would really be a big help to have some examples so I can have something to compare my work with.
I am in the process of pulling together good examples of finished assignments. I will keep you posted!
Please put me down as well for the Teacher portion of the examples, I have gone through the first two chapters and it is dredging up memories from long ago, which is pleasant, but it would be great to see an example to compare against. Nice book thus far, if you need anyone to take a peek at the docs in a beta form just let me know, I would be happy to do so.
[...] help us kick things off Dr. Brian Burton, author of Beginning Mobile App Development with Corona will be joining us to help answer questions about the Corona SDK. Dr. Burton teaches a course on [...]
[...] Today, Blue Bilby has an interview with Dr Brian Burton of Burton’s Media Group, author of the books Mobile App Development with Corona and Beginning Mobile App Development with Corona. [...]
I have chosen this textbook for one of my classes. How can I get a desk copy?
@Blake,
I will send you an email with the information. Thank you for choosing my book!
Thanks!
Hi Dr.Burton
my name is Giuseppe from Italy i have a question when i buy your Book, i receive, this in Digital Form i mean PDF EPUB i can download this directly?
Best regards
Giuseppe Di Lisa
Yes, you will receive a download link via email that will allow you to immediately download the eBook.
Hi Dr.Burton thanks for your answers:)
I bought your Book
I try now to study this Book in English not my mother language, i read that you like to translate this Book in Italian, whr you think this is finished ?
Regards
Giuseppe
Will this book be helpful for someone who used to program with Fortran, C, and UNIX script/shell languages? My daughter and I have designed some app games and want to program them ourselves…. Thanks!
I believe it would, yes. However, if you want to use it for teaching your daughter programming, I would recommend the “Learning Mobile Application & Game Development with Corona” textbook. It is designed for teaching someone to program who is new to programming concepts. With “Beginning Mobile App Development with Corona” the focus is more on learning to use Corona and less on programming concepts.
[...] Beginning Mobile App Development with Corona [...]