So...
the first part of the year has come and gone in rather a blur. For my learning however, it has been exceptionally productive. After starting on a path to programmer/designer/developer a few months ago, I have now got a fairly good fundamental grasp of the following languages:
- HTML
- XML
- CSS
- JQuery
- Java
- Android Development
- The LibGdx graphics library for Android and Java
- Visual Basic
- Custom UI for Microsoft Office
- Databases and SQL
Of course I wouldn't say that I could do very much with any of these languages yet, but I have at least developed a few examples of each which suit my needs
For the HTML, I have started a redesign of my work's internal webpages, better managed and with linked, richer, current content for staff and students to utilise
For the XML, I have learned android app development, utilising various views, widgets and interfaces linked into some basic java methods for interaction and animation
For the CSS, I have learned how to adapt styles and content formatting to suit the needs of the various webpages I was cooking up (not used eventually due to employer's guidelines which I completely understand)
For the jQuery, I became interested in how the dynamic content already featured by my employer's web content management system actually worked - which led me to jQuery selectors and functionality for accordions, accessibility formatting and introducing libraries to handle different scripts
For the Java, I decided to bite the bullet and go back to square one - learning methods, classes, activities, events, handlers, libraries and packages - and then taking this forward using the absolutely incredible AIDE to develop Java and Android apps
Following on from this, I made some basic text and widget android apps in XML/Java to handle emails, reminders and menus
The next logical step seemed to be to learn how to draw some graphics and textures, so LibGdx seemed like the perfect choice. There is a great tutorial included in AIDE which goes over some basic concepts, and then I took this on to create a pretty screensaver and some basic games
I also have revisited my old friend Visual Basic, developing some flexible macros to handle office tasks such as batch emailing and committee document generation
The Custom UI came when I realised that my macros could be far more powerful if I could integrate them directly into the ribbon and right-click menus in MS Word and Excel
The SQL came along with a few Access databases which I am developing to handle further office tasks, which I then linked into my macros and custom UIs. I now have a setup where you open up a Word doc, select a few options in the ribbon menu, then the macro searches through a database, presents a list of the tables, then fields to search, then record/query searches
So all in all, I HAS BEEN BUSY. I will go to sleep now. Oh and I'll update this post with links to examples soon
Speak to you all soon!
