This book is designed to teach you the core concepts of the Lua programming language to get you started with building your own apps quickly and easily. After you've learned some of the core concepts, you will learn how to build your first app and your first game using the Corona SDK product. You will also discover how to get your app on the App Store or Google Play.
Chapter 1, Getting Started with Your Mobile Adventure, will get you acquainted with the Corona SDK product and will guide you through the setup of Corona SDK so that you can start creating apps in no time.
Chapter 2, Learning Lua, teaches you the core concepts of the Lua language. We will learn about the basics of variables, tables, decision statements, and functions. Everything in this chapter is designed to jump-start your app development adventure.
Chapter 3, Creating Your First App, will gently guide you along the path of creating your first app. You'll learn about what text editors to use, how to take advantage of the features in Corona SDK, and how to create a real-life example app (no "Hello World!" here).
Chapter 4, Creating a Puzzle App, continues your app development adventure by teaching you how to create your very first game. You'll learn how to use drag-and-drop, widgets, and events, all while creating a puzzle app that's playable by all ages.
Chapter 5, Testing and Publishing, discusses how to start testing your app. Once you've learned how to test your app, this chapter will explain how to publish your app on the App Store or Google Play.
Appendix, Tools, Services, and Marketing, provides information on how to get the most out of the Corona SDK product. Inside this appendix, you will discover third-party tools and services that will help speed up your development as well as marketing tips to help make your app successful.
You will need a couple of items before you can develop apps with Corona SDK:
Mac OS X 10.7 or later, Intel Mac
Windows XP or later, 1 GHz processor
Java 6 SDK
A text editor such as Notepad++ or Sublime Text 2
The latest public build of Corona SDK – Build 2012.971
If you would like to publish your apps, you will need a Google Play for Android or an iTunes developer account for iOS.
This book is for anyone who is interested in creating applications for Android or iOS. You do not need previous development or programming experience.
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text are shown as follows: "To install Corona, open the .dmg file and follow the on-screen instructions."
A block of code is set as follows:
if(age < 29) then
print('You are not quite 30!');
endNew terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "Once installed, you will be presented with the Corona Developer Login screen."
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