I published an app with buzztouch well over a year ago and am now just getting back to it again. Wow, has it changed! Thus my question: I have a client that needs a SIMPLE app. Home page is just a header, a footer, and a scrolling list of links to audio programs. The first listing at top of list would be a live feed; the ones below it would be archived programs. So, I need to retrieve a list of those programs' info and urls from the client (json from client server?) then format the info into a scrolling list, with links/buttons to the programs in each member of the list. What's the best plugin to use to accomplish this? I'm betting this is really simple, but need someone to give me a push in the right direction. Thanks!

It sounds like just a regular menu to me. :) The menu could be populated with json data from a server that would have the audio hosted there. If I were trying to do that, I'd toss together a quick app with menu, and manually mock up a little data to see how the json format would look like, and then replicate that with a php script from a server. if you needed cascading menus, then it wouldn't change much; you'd just be altering the php scripts to generate the required data for the first page, and the button links would be to another php script that would feed data to the second page. Check the BT 1.5 Manual (although we're well into v2, a lot of the info is the same) about using URLs for JSON Child data, and that should get you pretty close. Hope this makes sense, it's a bit abbreviated! Feel free to ask pretty much anything! Cheers! -- Smug

Good stuff! Where would I go to see how json is traversed to build the menu? Thanks

Usually the best place to go first is the documentation. If you look at the top of the Buzztouch Website pages, in the menus up top, next to 'forums' is "How To's". That's the first place to look. Check under the BT 1.5 documentation. look at 'menu list' (List Menu). Take careful note to see how child items are arranged in JSON format; you'll need to replicate that with your script(s). <a href="https://www.buzztouch.com/docs/v1.5/childItems.php" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">https://www.buzztouch.com/docs/v1.5/childItems.php</a> Play around with it a little bit. If you find that your actual content list will be huge, you may want to consider one of Stobe's tools to manipulate your JSON Data. Stobe wrote a bunch of (windows, not mac) tools to collate large amounts of JSON info specifically for use in Buzztouch. Otherwise, a good text editor and judicious use of search/replace terms can get you there as well. Either way, let us know how you're progressing, and if you get stuck, somebody is usually around to help out. Cheers! -- Smug

Hey Smug, Now that this project is approved and I've thought about it a bit... Would it perhaps be better to create the one-page app as a web page (easily done via Dreamweaver and ColdFusion) then just call that one URL as the app home? This would make it extremely easy to update by the client; just modify the html or CF on the server. This is in contrast to generating JSON data at the server and formatting it as a page within the app proper. A secondary question: can I code an mp3 link so that when clicked it opens the device's (iOS or Android) native app to play mp3's? Seems this is much simpler than embedding a player in the app's page. (Seems like there is a setting in Xcode or Eclipse for this maybe?) Thanks!

Well, you 'could' do that, and make it cross platform compatible with other devices as well. However, you run a good risk of Apple being prissy and saying that you don't have enough Apple warm and fuzzies. But yes, that is a solution, and easy to implement. And yes, you can code links directly to launch a device's internal application, but keep in mind with Android, different configurations bring different results, and you'll want to test relatively extensively to ensure that solution stretches across the Android flavor spectrum. Right now I'm wrestling with an html link; <a href="tel:8882345678">Call Me</a>, working on Android. It works flawlessly on iPhone. So, 'most' things are dependable. But not everything. Good Luck, and let us know what direction you decide on! Cheers! -- Smug

THANKS! Can you point me to any documentation about opening a device's internal application by coding a link a certain way? Or would that info be in the buzztouch manual?