Beginner - Need Directions for my First App

[bat0884]

Hello, first of all, I would like to say hi to everyone, I'm new in this forum and this is my first post. Also, I apologize if this is not the right section to post this.

I'm a beginner in Android development, I'm trying to build my first app which I think isn't actually a very hard one to make, but I don't know to go about it. I want to build an app where people will send me an image/or text, and I'll answer them back with an image/or text. This will work on a user basis, a user will send an image/text by using the send button in the app and I will send back an image/text to that specific user. So far I've made a register/login system by following this tutorial series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxKwuUOLGEc&list=PLk7v1Z2rk4hhGfJw-IQCm6kjywmuJX4Rh ("Retrofit Android Tutorial using PHP and MySQL") There are also tutorials on youtube for uploading image to server, but I don't really know how to tie these together. I also want the users to be able to see all the images/texts they've sent and the response images/texts that they've got from me. Any help, directions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[Rukbat]

First you figure out what you want done, step by step. (User sends you a text, with or without a picture., etc.) Then you figure out how you want it done. (Through a server? Direct, using SMS/MMS?) Add all the other things that need to be figured out. (That's up to you.) So far, you've been working in English.

Once you have the entire process laid out, in English, you start coding it, piece by piece, testing each piece as you build it, finding the bugs, fixing them, testing again, etc.

Starting with a register/login system is a good beginning, but you should still be in the "do it in English" stage. Don't start coding until the entire app is developed - or you may find yourself ripping out week's worth of code because, although it works perfectly, that's not what this code you just developed wants that code to do.

(This is standard software development, as opposed to "making an app", which usually leads to a lot of frustration, and an app that not many people find interesting. [If anyone tells you to "just start writing", I guess you could, but I spent 46 years developing software - and I've found that the "just start writing" method leads to a lot of "junk that and start writing something that works the way I've changed directions". You spend most of your time "doing something else". If you do it the right way, you spend most of your time developing an app. After, maybe, 5 years, you'll start seeing the whole system in your head and you can just jump in and start writing, but after 46 years, I still seldom do it that way - anything more complex than System.out.println("Hello, World!") takes planning before writing.])