NavList:

Want to write your own navigation apps? Create stand-alone software for Windows? And create web apps that can run in a browser? And create smartphone apps for Android? And make apps for iPads and iPhones?? And become a billionaire like all those other app developers?!! But you don't want to learn an entirely new programming paradigm. You collapse in despair when look at all the modern web technologies like html5, css, javascript, ajax, and all that...

O wouldn't it be nice if there was a simple path? 

While there are many tools that simplify the development of apps, few are directed at the sorts of hobbyist developers that we find in the NavList community. Recently I've been playing around with a product that fits the bill very nicely. It's called NSB/AppStudio, formerly NSBasic, and you can write apps (a.k.a. "software") for all of the above platforms, and if you want, you can code in Basic. Yes, really, it's very similar to old "VB" or "Visual Basic". If that sounds backward, not to worry, you can also code directly in Javascript. The learning curve is not steep, and a great many of you could produce something like the "hav-Doniol Checker" which Stan recently published here on NavList, and you could do that in a day or two at most. In fact, that might make a nice tutorial project, if someone wants to take the lead.

I should add that I have only "played" with NSB/AppStudio. This is not how I have been developing apps. But I have been watching this product develop for several years, and it has transformed from a simple Basic interpreter for Android into a full-fledged, slick development environment for multiple platforms. Give it a try. The demo is free and has plenty of useful capabilities. You'll have to spend some cash if you want all the features. It's more expensive than a solar-powered calculator... less expensive than a plastic sextant. Right in the middle of the navigation hobbyist's market range.

Hey, remember that part about app developers becoming billionaires? That was a lie. But the rest is real.

Frank Reed
ReedNavigation.com
Conanicut Island USA