Can I make this with Construct 2?

Hi all,

I have an Android app that I made using MIT AppInventor. AppInventor is a block type programming GUI similar to Scratch.

I've released it and have the problem that most of my market seems to have iPhones! So, I'm wondering if I can redo it with Construct 2.

I've been poking around, and it seems that most everything I need is here or with some 3rd party plugins, but as I'm not totally sure I'd very much appreciate your thoughts so I don't invest weeks/months into this and then hit a dead end.

My app is a client account manager for dance and yoga studios. A dance/yoga teacher can record a client visit into their phone, check if the client's card is valid and if they have a balance. The teacher's accounts are held locally in their phone and can also be synced to Google Spreadsheets.

Far as I can tell, here are the elements that I need to recreate it:

1. Alphabetical Sorting

2. Touch events to record button touches and Swipes

3. A local Persistent Database for the Phone that I can later synchronise to a server if no internet access (memory limits in Android/iOS?).

4. Ability to clear the phone/local DB memory or their values.

5. Ability to use Google Spreadsheets as a Server which would require GET/POST and the ability to QUICKLY parse the returned CSV data.

6. Listpicker

7. Notifiers

8. Scan QR Code

9. Clock so I can record the date and also add weeks to a date to set expiration dates.

10. Vibrator function for the phone.

Here's the app site: studiokasse.com

Here's the app on Google Play:

play.google.com/store/apps/details

Can I make this with Contruct 2? Is there anything on my list that Contruct 2 cannot do? What do you think are the most challenging items to implement in Construct 2?

What I myself am most concerned about are:

A. Clock add week function

B. Ability to use Google Spreadsheets as a server

C. Ability to QUICKLY parse data from Google Spreadsheets to synhronise with local DB.

D. Local DB functionality

Any tips, thoughts, links, would be Greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Bryan

Everything you listed is doable with the caveat that you may be limited by your own abilities, and/or any services needed from third parties, IE export to ios requires specific hardware, etc.

Hi newt,

thanks for the reply!

How about if I tried to publish it only as a WebApp, would the browser engine be up to handling persistent DB and doing Fast sorting & parsing [and all of the above]?

Seems like Contruct 2 is mostly a game engine, so I'm having trouble finding documentation on how good it is at handling this sort of stuff.

Kind Regards,

Bryan

Yes, as long as you don't need continuous instantaneous transmission, and reception.

Keep in mind that does require third party service, and a bit of regular coding.

thanks again newt!

Could you tell me what part would

require third party service, and a bit of regular coding.

and which 3rd party service?

My only concern is that your making an APP where the visual information only needs to be drawn when an update occurs or interaction. Where as C2 is a game engine which CONSTANTLY drawign and using up more processing power.

Now you can do an App with C2, but I'm more concerned that the constant high level processing will eat up battery power faster than intended.

I'm been trying to think of an alternative around this, but no clean way to do this.

and finally, B and C will require some extra work. You will probably need to either program a plugin to handle that or parse the AJAX data in C2. but I don't see in the end that you can't use C2.

— hmm, that's an interesting point, I hadn't thought of that. Because right, C2 is constantly going through my event list....

Well, but thinking about it, I don't think this will be a problem for my particular use case because the users will not have it running in the background, but will only be running the app when they need it, like a game would work. So the greater battery demands should be negligible. Although I can see that for other apps this would be a big problem.

Regarding B & C, noted.

Thank you for the feedback! I'm getting more faith that this is doable in C2, which is Really Cool :)

By third party I mean any servers you use to do global lists, notifications etc.

newt- Thank you for the clarification.

jayderyu, — Thank you both for your time and input. I've gotten enough faith now that I'm gonna give it a shot :)

Excited about the possibilities, and as I read up more in the plug-ins forum it seems like there's quite a thriving developer community here!

jayderyu - if nothing on the screen changes, C2 actually stops rendering because there's no reason to, it just leaves there previous frame there. You can also deactivate the entire event sheet with a variable, or have events that only run upon interaction such as triggers. Both should help.

Arima

Well there is my new piece of knowledge today :) In fact it's such pleasant news that you have just saved me some serious headache in the future :)

All hail Arima :)

Lol, glad to help. :)

Have you considered PhoneGap for your app? HTML5, CSS, and JS...

phonegap.com

Arima, — Thank you for the tip, I've done some digging around and found this great tutorial on optimization that goes more in depth into how to save processing:

scirra.com/tutorials/598/optimization-and-tle-top-level-events/page-2

I also read in another post that using Scale Inner is much better than Scale Outer for fps. Do you all know where I could find more optimization tips?

For example, this is another tip I didn't know about:

if nothing on the screen changes, C2 actually stops rendering because there's no reason to, it just leaves there previous frame there.

— I've just recently come across your Bubble Game Server, would be great if this could also be used to synchronize data for Apps :) across multiple devices.

— I'm shying away from Phonegap because I want to keep the 30% I'd have to give to the stores. In addition, it seems to me that I really can do this as a straight webapp with different layouts according to screen size, which would allow me to have the same code base for everything. Given C2's offline ability on iOS/Android I think everything is here to make it work as a WebApp.

scirra.com/tutorials/70/offline-games-in-construct-2

... although I do wish I could find more documentation about App performance on C2.

— I'm shying away from Phonegap because I want to keep the 30% I'd have to give to the stores. In addition, it seems to me that I really can do this as a straight webapp with different layouts according to screen size, which would allow me to have the same code base for everything. Given C2's offline ability on iOS/Android I think everything is here to make it work as a WebApp.

https://www.scirra.com/tutorials/70/offline-games-in-construct-2

... although I do wish I could find more documentation about App performance on C2.

So your iOS/Android users wouldn't install the app, just launch it from the browser?