Simple VFP App to reimplement in Android... anyone got any advice...

[GriffMG]

I don't develop much new stuff these days, but I have thrown together a simple app to help myself exercise my hand after a recent procedure.

One form, two buttons and a few labels... thinking it would be a really good first app for Android.

I think I need some kind of on-line course in Android Studio or somesuch - has anyone gone in this direction, any advice?

 

[Doug Lindauer]

This is what I did. My local community college has a lot courses in the computer area and I took 3 on developing in Java and Android. One of the projects I ported over to VFP was a blackjack simulation (the card game of blackjack.)

 

[GriffMG]

Impressive

 

[trial03]

Dear Doug Lind

This is what I did. My local community college has a lot courses in the computer area and I took 3 on developing in Java and Android. One of the projects I ported over to VFP was a blackjack simulation (the card game of blackjack.)

Could share how to do it>

Very impressive.

Thanks and regards,

 

[trial03]

I don't develop much new stuff these days, but I have thrown together a simple app to help myself exercise my hand after a recent procedure.

One form, two buttons and a few labels... thinking it would be a really good first app for Android.

I think I need some kind of on-line course in Android Studio or somesuch - has anyone gone in this direction, any advice?

Could VFP exe run in Android? very well done, hope can learn more from you.


Thanks and regards,

 

[Mike Lewis]

Good luck with this idea, Griff. I've occasionally considered doing something similar myself - more as an intellectual exercise than to meet a need. I would guess that the first step might be to get to know Java.

Let us know how you get on.

Mike

 

[GriffMG]

@trial03
The app is in VFP just now, not trying to run that on Android, was thinking it's simplicity would make a good target for rewriting
in something for Android. A little math, a little timer and some text - wrapped around a case statement.

@Mike
Pretty sure I can handle the coding, what ever the language, but that Android studio looks like it needs to be introduced nicely
not my usual dive in and see what happens

 

[GriffMG]

If anyone is interested, the language, well environment, is Kotlin... looks like an ok thing, has strings and bools and all that.
Gone initially for a google course, the text is good but the videos are H O R R I B L E, too much yeah haaa! for me.

The text is ok, but there are things that should work, but don't - then you work them out and hey presto, they are covered in the
next 'episode'... so to boil and egg, put in the pan with water and turn up the heat... ep 2 the pan needs to be a metal thing, held the right
way up and you shouldn't fill it or it will overflow....

 

[Chris Miller]

Kotlin is the platform for native app development (on Android). It's a ood idea to go there, as the app quality of native development is always clearly better than using some cross plattform approach, but looking for that I still see Xamarin, for example.

See https://medium.com/@hardikthakker/best-mobile-app-development-platforms-in-2025-ae2127ef180a
It has a (too small) table "Comparing Platforms at a Glance" that's giving some pros and cons for the development platforms. You have to know (or read in more detail) Swift is the typical native platform for Apple apps development and Kotlin for Android apps. All other are cross plattform, so target both mobile types.

Though you want to develop apps as a developer and not use a tool for a non-developer audience, I'd look into one no-code platform by Google: AppSheet. The no code aspect of AppSheet is not the only way to use it. It has a dependency on Google Cloud and therefore also on pricing of Google Cloud usage. I played with this a bit, more Apps Script to automate things in Google Workspace (i.e. GMail, Drive, Docs, etc.) and found it simple and powerful enough, it's main base programming wise is JavaScript with a framework of classes for the Google Workspace universe. So it's obviouosly less interesting, if your app idea has nothing to do with that, but indeed you can make use of a Google Sheet (Excel equivalent) as a simple database, just like Excel can be used for small datasets. The overall feel of that is like progamming VBA, just not with Basic but JavaScript. JS is just a small brother of Java with a very annoying nature, but you might have come across it before in web related projects, just like HTML/CSS and then it helps making the learning curve less steep.

And if you feel neither that's a thing and also come to the conclusion Kotlin (Java similar) is not your cup of tea, there's also still MS Xamarin, I think that can use any .NET language You know what they say: C# is just Java in with other wording, VB.NET is almsot exactly C# with other wording, but it makes it closer to VFP OOP programming than C# or Java. Soo take aside it's also targeting iOS and it limits your usage of all native functionalities, it's perhaps easier to get into.