Regular application viability?

This may be a silly question, but I'd like to go into my development process with a bit more confidence than I currently have.

I'm looking to create a gamified productivity application via C2. The application will need to save data locally, and perhaps online, without any difficulty, and will need to allow typed input that can be saved. Much of the data will need to be able to be maintained indefinitely. Also, the screens will be mostly static, outside of tabs, pull downs, and things of that nature.

I understand that C2 is not designed for this type of a project, but I'm just curious if anyone thinks that I should look to use a different tool for creating this. An explanation would be appreciated, if you can offer one.

I would really like to use C2 for this project, but I don't want to find out heavily into it that I've chosen the wrong tool for the job.

Any advice/input?

Thank you!

One question: how much do you like JavaScript programming? <img src="smileys/smiley4.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

The reason I ask is because, outside of the static UI and some of the basic UI controls (tabs, check boxes, etc.), you will most likely need to utilize or modify third-party plugins, or create your own customized plugins and/or behaviors, for the less game-like aspects.

You may need a customized text entry control, scrolling text output windows, scrolling list boxes, drop down and multi-select boxes, etc.

Third-party plugins do exist for a lot of these, but they may not fully meet your needs. You also might have conflicts between the third-party plugins and the native Keyboard and Mouse plugins, so you'd be looking at creating customized versions of those as well.

I've been working towards something similar to what you're describing, and it has been a lot of work (fun work, if you like coding!). If you aren't much of a coder, don;t get discouraged, because once it sinks in, it is a lot of fun. If you are a proficient coder, then there should be nothing stopping you.

I hope that helps.

Wastrel, thank you for your response!

While I am actively learning programming (python, C#, and maybe about to begin R), I am not yet in a position to be writing my own plugins, and while I dabble in js and plan to go in depth with it as soon as possible, it just isn't a priority I feel I can hold at the moment.

What I gather from your response is that, should I desire the use of a codeless interface for developing my proposed app, something else would be better to use. I have a few ideas as to what that may be, but I would be ecstatic to discover that the project could be reasonably doable in C2.

Making medium to big , even small apps in JS is a pain. I'd never go that path if possible. One of reasons why C2 is so powerful is that it abstracts away JS so that you don't have to pull your hair out fighting with JS, like trying to properly modularize your code without turning it a mess of (function(){}()) and sh*t like that. One thing is making a C2 plugin with JS. Great. Another entirelly is making an entire app in it, much less an entire game engine :) Kudos to Ashley on that.

teahousemoon,

If you still want to use JS and HTML5 for a web-based desktop app, check this out: http://desktop.sonspring.com/

The author created that using jQuery and CSS. Here is a link to his devblog: http://sonspring.com/journal/jquery-desktop

You can also check out jQuery UI, which runs on top of jQuery: http://jqueryui.com/

One thing is making a C2 plugin with JS. Great. Another entirelly is making an entire app in it, much less an entire game engine :) Kudos to Ashley on that.

+1 kudos!

You have to realize that making an app is generally much easier than making a game, so in that regard C2 has all you would need.

On the other hand C2 lacks a a few things you would want for making an app, such as a number of gui forms, etc.

Not that that isn't doable. There are quite a number of libs out there that could possibly be converted for C2 use.

The only thing that would be questionable is security for such an app.