I have searched CD and have not found anything really useful. So my question is “How to make a GUI Scouting Interface for Ipod Touches”. I don’t want this app to connect to a server. The app just needs to have a nice interface for the scouting kids and then you plug it into the computer and it gives you a nice excel sheet. I would appreciate if anyone can give me some info or direct me somewhere, this is really important and thanks CD.
There are two ways to do this: the first would be to write a web application which you can access through Mobile Safari on the iPod Touch or iPhone. While you say you don’t need to store the data on a server, you can use any computer (Windows, Mac, Linux) that can host an Apache server with MySQL and PHP, and write a web application to add/modify/view data from the MySQL database. If you also use PHPMyAdmin, you can directly export the MySQL database as a CSV file which you can import into Excel.
From a software route, this would be entirely free.
The other option is to write the app in an iPod Touch/iPhone native language. You can either download the free Official SDK from Apple (although if you want to distribute the app to I think more than 5 devices, you will have to pay the $99 to get the app into the App Store) or you can jailbreak your iPod Touch (adios warranty) to install unofficial 3rd Party apps. I won’t really explain that process here, but a few quick searches from Google and you should find everything you need.
i have a jailbroken ipod, but is there something i create an app with easily???
Define easy.
AFAIK, you’ll need a Mac running OSX 10.5 (Leopard) with the Xcode Developer Tools installed. (I’m not sure if you can develop native apps for the iPhone/iPod Touch on Windows). If you have these, the following link should help you get started:
This book from Amazon will also be helpful:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596518552
Otherwise, if you don’t have a Mac you’ll need to write it as a web application. If that’s the case, and you have no prior experience in building web applications, go down to your favorite book store and pick up some books in PHP with MySQL web development, and another in AJAX/Javascript, and if you need to learn XHTML and CSS, look for these as well.
Developing any kind of software or application takes time. Sure, you may not be able to “easily” create an application in under an hour, but chances are by going either of these routes you’ll learn a lot of neat stuff.
For creating native apps outside the app store, you can either use the a compiler and write your app in C (objective-c I think)
or you can use Jiggy which is written in java and does not require setting up a compiler
the (unofficial) compiler is available for mac/linux/windows; a good tutorial on starting is here
I think that jiggy is much easier to learn and install so I would recommend using it instead. More info on it can be found here
I actually made a scouting app this season using Jiggy feel free to use, learn from, or expand it. download
iUI is a fantastic Javascript/CSS framework I have been playing with. It’s official project page is here: Google Code Archive - Long-term storage for Google Code Project Hosting.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/31482
The picture (link above), was produced by code written in ASP.net 3.0. The UI was REALLY easy to implement. You have to sign up for a web developer account at Apple, and somewhere in there, you’ll be able to download the Web UI examples that you can easily manipulate on any operating system. I did not have to pay one cent to produce this scouting app. It’s really easy! Feel free to PM me if you have questions…