I'm interested in learning how to code a watch face. I have no coding experience and the Programmer's guide is like a foreign language. Any suggestions or resources that would be helpful to learn how to code?
Being honest, GarminIQ/MonkeyC isn't a great place to start programming. The reason being, lots of other languages and environments are awash of supporting books and material, which can help you step slowly through the process as a beginner.
This environment is still in its infancy, and what you see is what you get. I am very confident that over time books will be published to help beginners; but now even authors are now probably learning and writing the books.
Saying that, the new project wizard is very good at creating a 'working' project which can be compiled and tested.
If I was going to recommend anything, I would:
- Get a programming book on one or more of C/C++/Java/C#
- Look at the samples
- Stsrt by creating a new project template and progressing right through to testing on a device. Then start adding more function
Start with the sample watchfaces and read through them, test on simulator to see connections between code and actuality. Lookup the functions in the API docs on garmin's site to see how it is supposed to work. If you need a base programming tutorial, try C/C++ (not really c# though) tutorials because that is probably the closest thing. Then start tinkering around with things while trying not to break it.
It's not going to be easy though, the IDE gives rudimentary help but it is nowhere near as mature as most mainstream code IDE offerings, and the documentation is fairly barebones and occasionally just completely wrong.
