Build apps for all platforms for non-technical entrepreneurs

Making an app can be quite rewarding, yet it is very costly. Many estimates indicate that the cost of building even a simple app can be in the order of tens of thousands of dollars. This wouldn't include all necessary iterations of development and adapting to users' feedback and emerging requirements.

This course is to help you, even without a technical experience, to build an app on your own. The approach used here is to build a web page using the three main web ingredients (HTML, javascript and CSS) then converting it into a mobile app using Phonegap Build. This approach works for all platforms (Android, iOS and Windows Phone), so no need to learn specific programming language for a particular platform (swift or Java). The knowledge you will gain from this course also allows you to build dynamic websites, and it allows you to put your app on the web to demonstrate it for the users to test it and provide feedback.

This course is made of 10 lectures, covering all aspects of building an app using phonegap. By the end of first lecture, you will have developed your first app that can actually run on your mobile device!

The first part of the course will start with understanding what a web page is and what its main ingredients are from a non-technical perspective. Then we gradually dive into web development, by understanding HTML, how it is made of some elements in certain structure, and basic coding with javascript showing how it can work with these elements in an interactive way, as well as some hint about CSS that defines the appearance of the web page. With every lecture, we will understand more about javascript: variables, functions and statements through some practical functionality that will be built into the mobile app by the end of the lecture.

The second part of this course is about building game apps and gamification approaches, so for this we will focus heavily on HTML5, with all the interactive features it provides: audio, video, drawing canvas and animations. The main library we will be using to work with HTML5 is createJS, which is a suite of javascript libraries to manage drawings, animations, sounds and other things. Particular focus will be given to how to design and position elements in the screen to work with all devices. Animation and sound will also be covered along with their different considerations.

The final part of the course is for building a professional business application. This involves how to enter data through the app, to update, query and manipulate the data/content that is on the server or in the database. In order to this, we will work with forms and external files and APIs.

Course materials include code samples, and special instructions to set up the needed requirements. Mini-projects will be suggested during the lectures towards a final major project.

The course should ideally be completed over a weekend. The first app produced should be done by the end of the first lecture, and every additional lecture we will be adding more features for a full-fledged app. Once you complete the course, you will be able to start implementing your app idea and take it further without all the costs or relying on someone else.