Dink Software

Geography Trainer: US States 1.0 Download

Geography Trainer: US States 1.0 is the sequel to Geography Trainer and features the US state capitals. As usual Geography Trainer: US States 1.0 is freeware although please do not redistribute it without permission.

I don't know any US capitals. But isn't the capital of New York, New York?

Anyway down to business. Firstly, why not put this as a sub forum to 'Geography Trainer'? Because this more a special edition, than it's own product.

Also, i'm very intrigued in how you made the UI. It'd be great if you could spread some light on it, because making the UI is what stops me from attempting to make anything useful. Did you use an application that allows you to drag 'n' drop widgets onto a form, or did you hand code. If so, what libary did you use?

Third, what license is Geography Trainer and Geography Trainer US states released under. I would check the READMEs but i have deleted the folders containing the apps off my desktop . So have you wrote your own, because i don't think there are many licenses out there for freeware that are freely avaliable to use, there's just open source ones.

Holiverh wrote:I don't know any US capitals. But isn't the capital of New York, New York?

I think the capital of New York State (it is referred to that to separate itself from just 'New York' I assume) is Albany.

Holiverh wrote:Anyway down to business. Firstly, why not put this as a sub forum to 'Geography Trainer'? Because this more a special edition, than it's own product.

Good idea. I had been thinking along similar lines and this has now been done.

Holiverh wrote:Also, I'm very intrigued in how you made the UI. It'd be great if you could spread some light on it, because making the UI is what stops me from attempting to make anything useful. Did you use an application that allows you to drag 'n' drop widgets onto a form, or did you hand code. If so, what library did you use?

Geography Trainer was wrote with BASIC and specifically Just basic which is the BASIC the dialect I am using currently. The dialects vary slightly just like a language in a country does. I've also used QBasic and Microsoft Small Basic (a good tool for beginners, it has been out since about December 2008 now).

The Ui is not difficult to make with Just Basic (or BASIC in general). It is a fairly simple language, yet powerful enough to entertain me and allow me to complete what I want (that is within my skill range anyway ). There is a drag/drop tool available (although it is kind of dodgy), or you can manually write the code for the UI (again which is fairly simple to do). Just Basic is not a hard language at all, in fact it is a very simple language with it being no more difficult than Python and probably easier than PHP.

Holiverh wrote:Third, what license is Geography Trainer and Geography Trainer US states released under. I would check the READMEs but i have deleted the folders containing the apps off my desktop . So have you wrote your own, because i don't think there are many licenses out there for freeware that are freely available to use, there's just open source ones.

I am not exactly sure how to answer this Holiverh, so sorry if my answer is off on the wrong track. 'Freeware' may not be the correct word to describe them. Basically you can use them for free so long as you don't redistribute them by hosting them on another website without permission etc. It is not open source as I have not made the code available.

Thanks for the good questions and invoking some interesting discussion.

I am not exactly sure how to answer this Holiverh, so sorry if my answer is off on the wrong track. 'Freeware' may not be the correct word to describe them. Basically you can use them for free so long as you don't redistribute them by hosting them on another website without permission etc. It is not open source as I have not made the code available.

Thanks for the good questions and invoking some interesting discussion.

'Freeware' is like OpenSource just with limitations. Many of the freedoms are removed but the actual free(as in free beer) bit reminas. Let's take GNU's Gerneral Public License(GPL). It is a license which is free to use and is used for the release of Open Source projects. It grants practically unlimted freedom to do what ever you like with the application and the source code. It even allows you to redistrobute with commercial intent. That is something that has made me shy away from that license in perticular. Although commercial redistrobution is allowed, it isn't without catches. There resides a 'Share-Alike' clause in the license. Which forces the redistrobuter to use the exact same un altered license. Thus allow it to be redistrobuted again!

What i meant by my question was, 'What license is the software distrobuted with?'. Although you may not think it is nessercary, because who's going to steal Geography Trainer? But it's good to have one in place, even if it is only a simple one. So may i suggest you either find a license out there that fits your critria--But NOT Creative Commons. Or you could write your own, using an already existing one as your template.

You say,

Basically you can use them for free so long as you don't redistribute them by hosting them on another website without permission etc.

That is a deffanition of 'Freeware'. Lastly i'd like to finish with a enquiery. Do you plan on releasing the source code(s) at a latter date? Open Source get's so much more exsposer, and it wuold allow you to submit it to the likes of SourceForge. Seriously this is the last point . Why not try submitting Geography Trainer to the likes if FreeWareHome.com, they have an entire section dedicated to Geography education.

I know i'm a geek , but i can't help it!

UI's are very easy to hand-make in Just Basic, I made that iNote and iCalc programs before that are now on Quamu. The position of the buttons/pictures are represented by numbers (for example 131, 20, 45.) It's easy once you do it a couple times. It's the X, Y, and Z axis's. (P.S. I am not copyrighting iNote or iCalc, or trademarking them, as I made those before I knew that Apple used the "i" in front of everything. If you want me to release the source code of those, I can, but only to you for now.

Holiverh wrote:
You say,

Basically you can use them for free so long as you don't redistribute them by hosting them on another website without permission etc.

That is a deffanition of 'Freeware'. Lastly i'd like to finish with a enquiery. Do you plan on releasing the source code(s) at a latter date? Open Source get's so much more exsposer, and it wuold allow you to submit it to the likes of SourceForge. Seriously this is the last point . Why not try submitting Geography Trainer to the likes if FreeWareHome.com, they have an entire section dedicated to Geography education.

I know i'm a geek , but i can't help it!

Thanks for the info on the license and the link, I'll submit it there when I get time.

Unknown98 wrote:UI's are very easy to hand-make in Just Basic, I made that iNote and iCalc programs before that are now on Quamu. The position of the buttons/pictures are represented by numbers (for example 131, 20, 45.) It's easy once you do it a couple times. It's the X, Y, and Z axis's. (P.S. I am not copyrighting iNote or iCalc, or trademarking them, as I made those before I knew that Apple used the "i" in front of everything. If you want me to release the source code of those, I can, but only to you for now.

Okay thanks for filling me in a bit. In Python using the standard GUI toolkit(Tk) positioning can be easily acomplished using grid geometry, which is basicly for newbies who don't understand 'pack', like me. The grid method draws an invisble grid over the frame and you place the widgets in each cell. Simular to what you said, Tk uses the X and Y axis to position widgets.

But that isn't my problem with making UI's, i can easily make a quick module that can cut corners for me. It's interacting with the UI that i find confusing. Simply getting the text in an 'Entry' widget requieres much more work than actually creating the widget. So how does UI interaction work with justBASIC, does it use method like 'get'? Maybe i'm just not expreienced enough to do UIs but that makes me feel completely useless. Because who really wants to use CLIs? Apart from those Linux wierdos!

Yes, it is the equivalent of a get command.

I.e. you would use something like

Code: Select all

PRINT #main.name, "!contents? name$"

to get from a text entry field (defined earlier on) with the handle #main.name, using !contents? to extract the inputted data and store it in the variable name$.

Dink wrote:Yes, it is the equivalent of a get command.

I.e. you would use something like

Code: Select all

PRINT #main.name, "!contents? name$"

to get from a text entry field (defined earlier on) with the handle #main.name, using !contents? to extract the inputted data and store it in the variable name$.

Oh, that sort of makes sense to me, so correct me if i'm wrong.
#main.name is a function? And after the comma is the paramaters? Ie. Method? Varible to store in.

The problem that faces me is that i can't find a good tutorial which will tell me how to do it. Because once i've learnt it i should be able to impliment it. But this is straying off topic. Back to GeoTrain!