Just a friendly update about the book ‘I Wish I Knew How To…Program the Canvas with Xojo’ is that it will be a lengthy book and the book is taking shape. Currently there are about 100 pages with some examples (about 30 so far).
This book is taking a fair amount of time and much work to write. Some of the reasons for this are to 1) make an easier transition from one type of example to another, 2) progressively work on more advanced topics getting near the end of the book, and 3) creating many pictures, screen grabs, and images to explain the concepts of graphics.
My wild guess is that the book will probably be somewhere between 200-300 pages and there is no target date for being released (just because I have no idea when it will be finished - I want to do it right). There is a large amount of work involved with this book and I am sure that it will be useful to most of the intermediate and advanced Xojo programmers.
This might be a good candidate for a KickStarter campaign. Presell copies and guage interest. And collect ideas for what people want to see in such a book.
I use canvases all of the time and after seeing all of the posts… Eugene this is a great topic for a book and would be glad to pay for this topic. Thanks!
That is a good thought on the Kickstarter campaign. Typically the way this has been done before is that after writing the book (lets say 200-300 pages and about 70 examples), I then usually get a good number of comments asking for examples in specific areas of the topic, which are then added to the book as version 1, or 1.1 etc.
If this was my only income then a Kickstarter campaign would be a good option. Since this is a hobby (and there is very little money in this), then I will write the book and get feedback afterwards. I greatly appreciate your suggestions - thank you!
Thanks for the kind comments. Your knowledge with creating the Xojo Calendar/Time Picker is fantastic and shows one of many uses of the Canvas. Well done!
Yes, you are absolutely correct that the lack of reviews or a sample chapter makes it difficult to know the content of the book. I will work on providing sample chapters this weekend for the books and put them on the website where the Table of Contents and Index exists at Books Table of Contents/index Link
Everyone should learn to use the canvas control…it’s definitely one of the most powerful of the desktop controls available. You might enjoy my new control Eugene…it simplifies hundreds of canvas operations from object handling to graphics, collision, animation, you name it
Yes, SimDesignerCanvas looks very impressive. You must have spent many hours putting this together. Just for my curiosity, does this have a manual on how to use all of the great functions?
Yes, SimDesignerCanvas looks very impressive. You must have spent many hours putting this together. Just for my curiosity, does this have a manual on how to use all of the great functions?
Well done![/quote]
I’ve been compiling all sorts of custom controls today as mentioned, tomorrow I should have over a dozen to distribute with the SimDesignerCanvas control. I knew it was a powerful canvas control when I wrote tab and breadcrumb controls in under 10-15 lines of code Tomorrow I’ll add animation to the tabs with just a few more lines of code. Currently there is no manual, but there is a help file which comes with the control outlining all functions and properties with descriptions. I’ve thought about compiling a small manual to go more in-depth, but for the moment I’ve been working on demos, as the best way most developers learn is to see it in action and are able to read through the code and comments and change stuff around…and since very little code is required to do so much, I think even beginners would be able to read though the code of the custom controls and know precisely whats happening. Even better, since the SimDesignerCanvas can load its interface from XML formats, custom controls can be reused… accepting full theming without changing the code…merely by loading a new XML theme…no having to crop through images or worry about painting objects in the correct position. I’ll post a link here as soon as I upload the newest demos and SimDesignerCanvas v 1.3
I have many books on computing: how many times there is a chapter about Data types, Properties, etc. ?
Of course, been in the computing industry since 1980, I know (more or less) there chapters, so I usually skip these chapters and the remainding is not much to read.
Kickstarter for Xojo books would be nice. Maybe someone could start 10 book campaigns for 10 different topics and than we can preorder there to decide which books get written first?
Eugene, can you post a link directly to your books as I have seen them talked about but whenever I try and find them on your website I cant and would love to buy them.
The book is not complete and currently has 11 Chapters, over 340 pages, with more 60 examples so far. Some of my foolish assumptions are: 1) the reader must have an intermediate understanding of programming and/or programming with Xojo/Real Studio/Realbasic before using this book 2) This book is designed with simpler examples near the front of the book and more complicated topics near the end - much of the examples near the back of the book use the concepts introduced in earlier examples and chapters.
This is not a beginner book and is focused with the intermediate/professional in mind. I would strongly suggest that the reader have a solid understanding of programming before purchasing this book.
My rough guess is that the book will be ready in August.
