A desktop quiz for pub competitions — it works when the internet drops
An app for running quiz nights: a question bank, an admin panel, a timed game and results. It installs with one click and works offline.
Context
The client runs quiz nights in cafés and pubs. Until then everything went on paper and through a projector: questions in a document, time measured on a phone, scores added up by hand at the end of each round.
The problem was not that it was tiring — it was unreliable. Scores get wrong, a round drags while someone adds up, and questions repeat because nobody remembers what has already been used.
The brief
They needed an app for running a live quiz, with three conditions that shaped the whole approach:
- It must work without internet. Café Wi-Fi is not something you count on while fifty people wait for the next question.
- It must install without a technician. The quiz host runs it on their laptop, and they are not an IT person.
- The question bank must grow. Every week brings new questions, and they stay for later.
How we solved it
We built a desktop app with a local database and no network dependency. On first launch the app creates the database schema itself — users, administrators, questions, answers — so install needs no setup beyond login details.
The app has two modes. Admin is for entering and reviewing questions with offered answers and a marked correct one. Play runs the competition: a question is shown, a timer counts down, and correct answers are scored during the game. At the end of a round the results screen shows the final score — no manual adding up and no argument about points.
It shipped as a Windows .exe and as a .jar for everything else, so the host does not need to know anything about Java.
Technologies
- Java and Swing — desktop interface
- MySQL and JDBC — local question database, with one shared connection
- TimerTask — countdown per question
- Automatic schema install on first launch
- Packaging as an
.exeand a.jar
What this means today
Apps that must work when there is no network are still a common brief — tills, field entry, goods-in in a warehouse without signal, event tools. The principle is the same as here: data locally, sync when there is a connection, and an install the user can do themselves.
If you need a tool like that, we still build it — just in a more modern form than 2016.
