The App is Done (Step 10/Final Presentation)

This App is done!
Well not really but as done as it's going to be for this semester.  I wasn't able to do as much as I had hoped with it but all in all I'm pretty pleased.  Some things I wanted to do that I never got to were putting boxes around the flag/language that was selected so the kids knew what language they were on and I wanted better navigation.  Thant's one comment I received a few times when others looked at it, it was a design flaw on my part.  Visually nothing has changed with the app but I will share a few screen shots.  Thanks for all your help this semester!
Since this step is late I can only give myself a 5/10 and I'd also take away some points for not getting to those things I would have hoped to.  But again I'm pretty happy with how things turned out.

 I'm really quite proud of my functions, though let's be honest...I couldn't have done them without toms of help.

This Last Week

So I forgot to upload my stuff last week but I'm super proud of where I'm at.  I can't say I've been following the learning contract to the "T" but I feel like I'm getting more and more down on paper and that it's actually working.  I've had a really hard time understanding functions but I feel like I'm getting better then I was.  Here's some of my code from this week and I'm proud of my functions:

I'm working on getting my fist page working 100% before I move on to the other pages because if I can get that figured out then I can pretty much copy and paste the code to the other pages and then just change what I'm displaying.  Currently this is what the page looks like.  Just FYI the hand on the right fades in when you tap the first hand but you can't see that in the screen capture.

For this week I'm going to say I get an 80% seeing that I'm late, I put a ton of work in to this this week and I'm happy where I've got to.  This week I'm planning of figuring out the whole audio thing, so cross your fingers.

Peer Crittique-Jessica

Usability:
Super easy to use, I like that it's all one continuous page wich makes it very easy to follow and use.  The menue is simple and clean and I know what I need to do.

Purpose:
The purpose is clear, allowing kids to practice their reading and learning new words as they go.

Function:
To be honest I'm not sure the difference between purpose and function.

Flow:
The flow is perfect, the one-page scroll is super simple and it makes sense.  The words to be defined aren't yet bolded but they will be wich will actually allow the kids to know what words to tap on.  Once those words are boldeed it will be much easier to use (though it looks great right now).

Aesthetic:
I love the look of this.  The traditional drawings are delightful and the color scheme really works.  The orange title on the manu doesn't quite work for me but she's working on it and I'm sure it'll look great!

All in all I'm super impressed with this and I think it'll look fantastic!

Another Week

Coding is still baffaling to me.  As a designer I still have a hard time not just placing and manipulating items at will.  That being said I think I've made some good progress.  This week I've focues of construciting more of the app.  A big part of the app are the different story boards/scenes.  I've built a couple of other scenes besides my menu page but the problem I'm now running into is transitioning from one scene to the next, in fact, I can't even preview the scenes I've built this week so I have no idea if they're any good.  I've attached the code to my menu page and one of my scenes.  The hope is to use the arrow buttons as the means to progress from page to page.  Another big thing that's taking up a lot of time is finishing up my visual assets, creating all the images takes a lot of time  but I think they look pretty good.  Here's what I've got for the week, I'd say an 80% give or take, I didn't spend as much time as I should have but I'm happy with the progress I'm making.

Menu Page

 Scene 1 code part 1

Menu Code part 1

 Scene 1 part 2

The Last Two Weeks

I've been super busy the past couple of weeks but I feel like I've made some good progress on the app.  In this first image you'll see what I've done with functions (killer), which I've had a time making work but I think I'm slowly starting to get them.   I've also been able to animate different elements as well as add audio. I'm still working on being able to stop the audio with a tap but I'll get it.  I just realized that the audio code isn't in the image, but there's only a couple of lines to it.  Here's the code for the past couple of weeks.

(the hand moves from one place to another while the words pulse--there is also music playing)

Also the past two weeks have seen the start to the actual app files.  The big accomplishment was takng everything I've learned and using it to start laying out the app.  Below is the code and a screenshot of what I've got so far.

I feel like I've made some really nice progess and I'd generally gee myself a 85-90% but seeing that some of this code is late I'll say a 75%.

Images

This week was an incredibly important one for my project, images. Because I'm doing a children's ebook, illustrations and images play an important role in what I'm doing.  I realized as I worked that I haven't even scratched the surface of images and will need to do a lot more to get to where I need to be.  For effort and grading this week I'd give myself a solid 85% tops, I wasn't able to get to the coding and learning until late in the week but when I was able to hit it I hit it hard.  I think one of the frustrating things about coding is I can feel like I've worked super hard and see only a few lines of code, but those few lines represent a lot and accomplish what needed to happen.


With this code I had to trouble soot how to first even get the newImageRect to show, which for some reason took entirely too long.  I'm finding more and more that when something isn't working it's because of something small, in this case not putting "" in.  I then tried to learn about masking and that took a good chunk of time, but I finally got it.  Below is the code and result.

Another thing with images was adding effects to them like contrast, saturation, tiles, ect.  I found a picture, put it in and started adding effects to it.  I decided to end with another mask to make sure I was still understanding how to do it.  See the cause and effect below.

App Blue Print

Purpose:

The idea for the app is to make a super simple children's book app designed for preschool-age kids.  The purpose is to give the kids a very basic foundation of the nine languages (including English) offered in the app.  The kids will be exposed to how to say some simple words like "help," "hands," "hello," and so forth. With each page the kids have access to every language.

Approach:

To create the app I'll be using Corona SDK and Adobe Illustrator to create the graphics.  The app will be interactive in the sense that to progress within the story the user has to do a tap motion.  It is also interactive with the possibility of choosing different languages at anytime during the duration of the story.

Flow/Function:

The below slides show what I hope the app will look like and how the user will interact with it.

 Home Slide

"help me" slide-with explanation of how the app will work

Look of actual slide

I can do this layout in place of the one above.  Tell me what you think.