From the Forum — Issue #80

10 July 2015

From the Forum — Issue #80

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. Start filling up those buckets now

Getting your server system set up to work well with Corona can be challenging from the get-go (no pun intended). Choosing a backend system is one of the most important decisions you can make, and it often determines what you can and can’t do as your app goes down the road from wireframe to published.

A lot of folks are using Amazon S3 Buckets for all-around web development, and they can of course be used for other projects as well. One developer was wondering if there was a preferred method to implement Buckets with Corona, as he had found an older post that talked a bit about it, but seemed to be out of date.

What was suggested was a very simple fix, which essentially made Buckets a seriously viable platform for any developer’s backend. Head down to the original thread to read more!

(NOTE: I do not work for, promote or am compensated by Amazon. Using Amazon S3 Buckets is a paid option and should be evaluated as such)

https://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/57622-how-to-download-files-from-amazon-s3-buckets

2. Resizing native objects is the last frontier

Native objects: the bane of many a Corona developer. So useful, so convenient, yet so restrictive in many cases. This due to these native elements existing above the OpenGL canvas, which means they are the non-Newtonian fluids of the Corona development chemical hierarchy. Amazing similes aside, they are useful but can’t be stretched too far before they snap.

A query was raised in the forum, looking to see if it was possible to dynamically increase the width of a native.newTextBox. It turns out, it’s actually possible, and one of the intrepid developer posted a snippet of their code to prove it. Head over to the original thread if you’re brave enough to give it a try.

https://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/57698-how-to-change-width-of-a-nativenewtextbox-on-button-click

3. Sorting tables without persistence

I have a feeling we are going to see a lot of different permutations of handling game data. Pulling down info from whichever cloud a developer has set up is going become increasingly more popular, which means we’re going to need some interesting ways to sort, slice and dice that data.

Recently, a developer was looking for a simple way to sort a table by two values within one table entry, or key. For those starting with Lua and table management, starting at the Corona Labs blog post is the best place to begin.

In this case, a little more insight was needed. As always, the all-seeing monolithic font of Corona knowledge that is RoamingGamer jumped on the scene, and provided nice snippet that takes care of the sorting function that was requested. Click through to the original thread to check it out.

https://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/57804-sort-table-data

About Alex

Alex Jackson is an indie developer and the founder of Panc Interactive, 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: @pancinteractive. Check out his new game Segreta on iOS, Android, Windows Phone and Amazon devices.