Cross platform management

[Aaron Baxter]

Hello all, I'm rather new to app development, used to web pages. I know with GS it is relatively easy to create one app that ports to both Android and iOS. What I'm having great difficulty with is how to manage access to content on both platforms easily.

I would prefer a central store where I, or someone FAR less technical, to be able manage the users. Also the application will contact this central point for "group" messages etc. I want some users to be able to post public messages and other things from the application while most others will only be able to read and send requests but must be approved by an admin. Closest thing I can think of that is similar is Facebook private groups with content approval. It will end up with FAR more than just FB's groups as there will be private sections, optional SMS messages when the "MOTD" for lack of a better term is updated, etc. I would prefer not to use FB or other social media sites if I can avoid it as the individuals this is targeting have aversions to such sites.

It's less of a game and more of a business style application, but I've selected GSS for the ease of porting since I REALLY don't want to learn how to code for iOS, and I got it dirt cheap .

 

[chamaeleon]

Hello all, I'm rather new to app development, used to web pages. I know with GS it is relatively easy to create one app that ports to both Android and iOS. What I'm having great difficulty with is how to manage access to content on both platforms easily.

I would prefer a central store where I, or someone FAR less technical, to be able manage the users. Also the application will contact this central point for "group" messages etc. I want some users to be able to post public messages and other things from the application while most others will only be able to read and send requests but must be approved by an admin. Closest thing I can think of that is similar is Facebook private groups with content approval. It will end up with FAR more than just FB's groups as there will be private sections, optional SMS messages when the "MOTD" for lack of a better term is updated, etc. I would prefer not to use FB or other social media sites if I can avoid it as the individuals this is targeting have aversions to such sites.

It's less of a game and more of a business style application, but I've selected GSS for the ease of porting since I REALLY don't want to learn how to code for iOS, and I got it dirt cheap .

Create a server in a language of your choice that implements a REST API. Call this API using the http functions and voila, a way for Android, ios, windows and Mac versions to exchange any information that you have accommodated in the API. What the API should look like and how to implement it is left as an exercise (and has nothing much to do with gamemaker).

It is of course possible that http calls won't quite fit all types of anticipated communication, but it would be the easiest way to get started. Once you have reached a point where you need something more you can look at using the raw network functions.

 

[Aaron Baxter]

Ah, I never thought of building my own REST API. This might be a good time to get my feet wet with Amazon AWS but alas it's the cloud. I'm a network and systems engineer by trade so "cloud" gives me the willies. I've used REST APIs before with different software but never implemented one myself. I'll have to sleep on this a few days after some googling. I'm sure my brain will spit out something useful to this effect.

This is by far the best suggestion I've seen Thanks.