From the Forum — Issue #28

11 July 2014

From the Forum — Issue #28

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!

1. Great tip when implementing iOS Game Center leaderboards

Working to generate and populate your leaderboards can be a daunting task. Often, you have everything set up, all files required and built and settings configured in your developer portals. But scores still won’t show up? The twists and turns of leaderboard generation are difficult for a lot of folks to conquer.

Corona developer theromero ran into the same issue, and created a post to outline some tips that the rest of us can reference in case we’re running into issues. The link is below, so what are you waiting for? Go check it out now!

http://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/48684-ios-game-center-problem-solved/#entry251727

2. Executive module from paulscottrobson

This isn’t necessarily exclusive knowledge to the forum, but distinguished Corona developer paulscottrobson has created a nifty library he has named “Executive”. This handy module helps out when you have a need for heavy-duty OOP game logic, complete with references, listeners, and creation and disposal logic. Seriously, check out the cool logic paulscottrobson has provided for us!

There are two demo cases included in the github repo, and the forum link below details a use case that the developer believes would work well with Executive. I’ll leave it to the developer’s own description to explain the module:

An Executive is basically an object collection, with proper constructors and destructors. There is an asynchronous message system, a timer system and an update system.

Truck over to the links below to see if you can incorporate this in your next project.

http://code.coronalabs.com/code/executive-object-manager/

http://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/48905-general-question-on-corona-game-design-patterns-object-references-storage-etc/

3. Working with SQL databases

I am not a database guru. Because of this, I need to find new and ingenious ways to get the functionality that I need. JSON is great, but there are times that you just need that SQLite flair. SQLite has significant advantages due to it’s additional complexity, and Corona can make use of them without turning into a system administrator.

I’ve found the below forum post to have quite a few handy references to help me get acquainted and master SQL implementation. Specifically, making sure that your SQL database works correctly when you’re testing on your Windows machine. It’s not the most flashy of tips, but it definitely helps to solidify the fundamentals.

Check out the thread and reinforce your SQLite knowledge! Have additional tips? Definitely share with us.

http://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/47361-trouble-inserting-updating-and-deleting-sqllite-database/

About Alex

Alex Jackson is an indie developer and the founder of Panc Software, 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: @pancsoftware. Check out his new game Crosstown Smash on iOS, Android, and Amazon devices!