GETTING TO KNOW ALLOY
Overview
by
David Plummer
for
CLEARLY INNOVATIVE, INC.
What is this?
This is a 4-week course designed to get you up-to-speed with Alloy and Titanium. Not every aspect of Titanium or Alloy will be covered during these sessions, therefore, it'll help to study more about these technologies and methodologies on your own.
Schedule
| Session | Date | Time |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 9/11 | 10am - 12pm |
| 2 | 9/16 | 1pm - 3pm |
| 3 | 9/18 |
10am - 12pm |
| 4 | 9/23 | 1pm - 3pm |
| 5 | 9/25 |
10am - 12pm |
| 6 | 9/30 | 1pm - 3pm |
| 7 | 10/02 |
10am - 12pm |
| 8 | 10/07 | 1pm - 3pm |
What should you know?
These are the skills that'll help coming into this course:
- basic HTML & CSS
- data types (booleans, characters, integers, floats, etc.)
- control structures (if-statements, for-loops, etc.)
- how functions work (passing & returning values)
- how objects work
- how events work
- how to use an array
- how to use a JSON object
- understand how asynchronous calls work
What you will learn
- how to create an alloy app
- how to create a controller
- how to edit the view for a controller
- how to edit the styles for a view
- how to setup an ACS environment
- how to communicate with ACS
- controller scope
- how to use & extend a backbone model
- how to use & extend a backbone collection
- how to use an ACS sync adapter
- best practices
Class format
- Q & A (homework or anything related to class)
- Lecture
- Exercises
- Homework Assignment
exercises
The exercises will be interspersed throughout our lessons. They'll have both required objectives and optional objectives.
- required objectives - the basic requirements that everyone should complete
- optional objectives - additional tasks set aside for students that finish the required objectives before others
Tools you'll use in this class
-
Appcelerator Titanium - IDE you'll used to build your apps
-
Balsamiq Mockups - software you'll use to build wireframes
-
bitbucket - a website used to manage project repositories (we use it in conjunction with git)
- git - a version control tool that helps when collaborating on projects or managing your own remotely
ready
set
go
environment setup
Environment setup
2. Install the Appcelerator Titanium IDE (appcelerator.com)
environment setup
Make sure you include:
API 8 & API 14
Environment setup
4. Install iPhone SDK (for mac users, check the titanium dashboard after launching titanium. Click the 
icon to display the dashboard.)
icon to display the dashboard.)
environment setup
5. Install git (http://git-scm.com/downloads)
environment setup
6. Install alloy 1.2.x
To install alloy 1.2.x, navigate to a target directory and execute the following commands in the command prompt/terminal:
git clone https://github.com/appcelerator/alloy.git
cd alloy
sudo npm install -g
environment test
Alloy
Run the following command in the command prompt/terminal:
alloy -version
You should see 1.2.x outputted.
Environment Test
Appcelerator Titanium
If you run titanium in the command prompt/terminal, you should see something like this:
Environment test
git
If you run git in the command prompt/terminal, you should see something like this:
environment test
Appcelerator Titanium
Create and run an alloy app.
- Choose File -> New -> Mobile Project.
- Select the Default Alloy Project & Click Next.
- Type a project name & app id (the app id format represents a reverse url like com.Project_Name.app)
- Choose the deployment targets (Android and/or iPhone).
- Check the Cloud-enable this application checkbox and click finish.
- Run your app.
Resources
Class Slides
Clearly Innovative Blog
Appcelerator Documentation
Appcelerator Videos
Appcelerator Blog
;
overview
By David Plummer
