Android apps with Basic4Android

For the last year or so, I’ve been doing more coding than writing, and a lot of that coding has been in various dialects of BASIC, using first Real Studio (now Xojo) to build cross platform apps for Mac and Windows, and latterly Basic4Android. I wanted to code for Android, but never having bothered with Java (and my degree in computing science, back in the late 80s didn’t cover C), I didn’t really fancy getting into that.

Basic4Android, it turns out, is a great way to get into Android app development; thanks to a huge number of libraries, it’s very easy to build up your app using lots of great looking graphical elements, or things like web services and databases, and it’s both relatively low cost and has no royalties on any of the apps that you create with it.

On sale May 29th
On sale May 29th

Earlier this year, I was commissioned to write a MagBook about it, and that will be on sale on the 29th of May, titled “Build your own Android App.” It starts with an introduction to what you need to know about programming for Android, and a look at Basic4Android, then takes you through various stages from the very simplest to building a complete game and distributing it on the Play Store.

I hope that even those who don’t want to create a game will find it useful – we cover some of the important libraries available, graphics technicals, thinking about user interaction, how to store and retrieve data, and more, most of which are applicable to just about every sort of app.

I’ve created a dedicated website for the magbook, which includes a list of the contents and many of the code samples, plus complete downloadable code for the app we create. And you can find the game, called Type Attack, in the Play Store.

I hope people find it useful.

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