I stumbled upon Codea when talking on a forum about another app ‘GeoVertex’, I’ve been looking at codea for a day or two and watched some youtube on it but I have a heap of questions before I pay £6.99 if you’ll be kind enough to help.
1: I am not a coder, I ‘dabbled’ a little bit with basic in the old days, like ZX Spectrum basic, BBC micro basic, Amos and things like that but I tried to learn C+ once and I’m too thick. Putting your love and bias for the app to one side for a moment, would codea be too complex/hard for me?
2: Can I make ‘stand alone’ apps/games with this, or does everything I make have to be loaded via codea? (ie compile the code into a standalone?) I have a ipad2 and a PC, no mac though.
3: is there a trial/light/test version available to sample?
4: isn’t it hard writing code on a virtual keyboard? its not the most comfortable thing to type with for a long period.
5: is it possible to import your own art/sound into codea apps?
6: is codea viable to code a management game with? (think football manager but in my case, I’d love to create an F1 manager game!)
Thank you for your answers and maybe I will buy this soon.
I come from Basic, too, and Codea reads a lot like Basic, but is much better (in my opinion). It’s compact and elegant, and that’s before you get to all the cool graphics stuff. (I also couldn’t handle C++).
You need access to a Mac, and an Apple developers licence, to make stand alone apps.
No
I used a virtual keyboard for the first two months, and that was ok. A Bluetooth keyboard is better, of course.
Art, yes. Sound is minimal at the moment, but we are hearing that this may change.
Hi and welcome! When I first found Codea I did similar but if you decide to buy its the best 6.99 you’ll ever spend, I cannot recommend it enough Codea is an extremely powerful games and animation orientated IDE and it will occupy your free time completely if you let it
In response to your questions:
1: Codea is excellent for dabbling lua is a very easy to pickup, lightweight and elegant language to write with which shares similarities with many others including basic and if you get stuck then we have a wonderful community just waiting to help here, so answers are usually just a post away!
2: You can export your apps into x-code an release them to the AppStore in fact there are a number out there allready! But it does require a mac to do
3: There is no trial, but a trail wouldn’t do it justice
4: Its not hard writing on an onscreen keyboard i have been for months now, but you can get an Bluetooth keyboard or use AirCode which lets you write from your web browser on your pc or mac and see your changes live update on your iPad!
5: you can import your own bitmap or vector artwork from Dropbox or your documents. Sound, not just yet, its quite minimal from the iPad but we hear Two Lives Left are working on that you can add sounds in x-code i think.
6: Codea is very capable of 2d and 3d games so its very viable to make a football management style game with
I’ll just comment on your question #4, the virtual keyboard. I mostly code while watching TV and the iPad keyboard is no problem at all. In fact, I can probably key in code with one finger faster than most people can using a Bluetooth keyboard and all their fingers. It’s something you’ll get used to after awhile. Spend the few £££ and buy Codea, it’s probably the best £££ you’ll ever spend for what you can get out of it.
I just read that codea cannot take user inputs when a program is running?
ie: lets say we have our management game and I want the user (yeah. Me) to enter say… Amount of fuel. With ye olde basic I could just ask the user for an input and save it to a variable or string. Is this not possible in codea? (or is the guide I’m reading, wrong?)
Sorry to keep asking stuff before I’ve paid for this but.
I see theres a LOT of maths stuff in lots of the example code posted on this site, sort of radian, pi and that sort of thing, well I hate to admit it but I totally failed maths and even at my ripe old age I don’t understand that stuff, would it be a problem?
and
is there a manual that lists every command and explains its function?
I’d rather not stumble around in the dark, I used to love those old HUGE ring bound Manuals you got that explained every command.
As with all programming there is an element of maths required and games are notorious for their maths, but start simple and you’ll pick more and more up as you go along you don’t need to be a maths guru at all!
There’s a large amount of functions listed in the reference and there is also the lua manual.
Thanks for the answers. Simple trigonometry? Haha, I can’t even do long division and have no idea how to calculate percentages, even the most simple trigonometry is 5 light years above my head. (Thats what happens when you skip maths classes for almost 2 years straight and chase girls. Haha)
Thanks anyway, you’ve all been helpful and patient with me, I think codea would be beyond my education level but I am going to recommend it to my friends for sure! Bye.
@SteveNoob Do worry about your math skills. Codea actually brushed mine up Pick it up. Codea is an amazing app. Since I purchased it, I have used it every single day.
Hello @steeveNoob.
If you dont feel good enough to program in codea be cause of maths, you are probably wrong, because:
1/ you dont need maths for most simple fun programs (mmm well + and - are required, though, if you call that maths).
2/ there are many people in the forum that will post code doing it for you if you a/ try yourself b/ post your code c/ ask politely (you seem to passquite well this last one ).
3/ there are many games and examples posted by people here: just copy/paste/run the projects is easy and fun. You can then tweek them a little bit => you will learn step by step.
Codea is an extremely powerful games and animation orientated IDE and it will occupy your free time completely if you let it 
you can add sounds in x-code i think.