App Inventor 2 Essentials电子书

App Inventor 2 Essentials

Table of Contents

App Inventor 2 Essentials

Credits

About the Authors

About the Reviewer

www.PacktPub.com

eBooks, discount offers, and more

Why subscribe?

Preface

What this book covers

What you need to build mobile apps

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Unleashing Creativity with MIT App Inventor 2

What is MIT App Inventor 2?

Understanding your role as a mobile app developer

Brainstorming app ideas

The Design Thinking process

Empathize

Define

Ideate

Prototype

Test

Computational thinking

Best practices to design apps

MIT App Inventor – purpose and potential

Discovering the possibilities of MIT App Inventor

MIT App Inventor examples

Stopwatch and Timer

Yahtzee

BYJ3S

Loops

Quartet

Brain Reaction Accelerator

ConstHelp – Contractor Tools

UMATI

Ez School Bus Locator

Youth Radio

Rover 800 Remote

Summary

2. Setting Up MIT App Inventor 2

The initial setup

System requirements

Signing up a Google account

Logging in to MIT App Inventor

Connectivity setup

Downloading the AI2 Companion app

Connecting your computer and Android device with WiFi

Connecting the emulator or connecting using a USB cable

Step 1 – installing the App Inventor setup software

Installing the App Inventor setup software for Mac OS X

Installing the App Inventor setup software for Windows

Software installation – part A

Driver installation – part B

Installing the App Inventor setup software for GNU/Linux

Instructions for systems that can install Debian packages (for example Debian or Ubuntu)

Instructions for other GNU/Linux systems

Step 2 – launch aiStarter

Starting aiStarter

Step 3 – opening a project and connecting to the emulator

Step 4 – setting up your device with a USB cable

Step 5 – connecting your computer and device (authenticating if necessary)

Step 6 – testing the connection

Summary

3. Navigating the App Inventor Platform

The projects view

Creating a new project

The Designer

Palette

Viewer

Components

Properties

Media

Creating a game app

Creating the UI in designer

IDE

The Blocks editor

The Blocks drawer

Types of Blocks

Using Blocks to program Fling

The Play button

Moving the ball

Flinging the ball

Ending the game or bouncing the ball

The Reset button

Summary

4. Fling App – Part 2

Adding a scoring feature

Coding scoring blocks

Updating the score label

Increasing difficulty

Changing the game's dynamic

Creating levels

Updating the score label to display the level

Updating the Reset button

Updating the Play button

Summary

5. Building an Event App

User Interface for an event app

Setting the background image

Adding an image component

Adding buttons

Adding the ActivityStarter

Adding screens

Programming the blocks

Navigating between screens and launching maps

Screen1

Sharing blocks between screens using the Backpack

Adding text to screens

Summary

6. Introduction to Databases

Creating a database

Creating a Google Fusion Table

Designing the RSVP screen

Creating the GUI in the designer window

Setting up Google Authentication

Sharing the Fusion Table with the service account email

Connecting the app to the Google Fusion Table

Our goal

Pushing data to the Fusion Table

Ensuring empty rows are not inserted

Viewing the guest list

Coding the blocks – requesting data

Coding the blocks – receiving data

Sharing the Event App

Summary

7. Learning About Loops with a Raffle App

Creating the project and building the GUI

Creating a new project

Creating the User Interface (UI)

Programming the behavior of the Digital Raffle app

Creating and initializing the variable and list

Receiving text messages from participants

Adding the phone numbers of all the participants to the list

Selecting a winner

Notifying the winner

Notifying everyone else

Using loops

Clearing out the list and variable

Summary

8. Expanding Your Mobile App Development Skills

Design principles

User-centered design

Visual hierarchy

Responsive design

Research app markets

Design tools

App Inventor extras

Shortcuts

Help

Titles

Images

Virtual screens

Backups

Distributing your app

The App Inventor Gallery

Viewing the Gallery apps

Sharing your app in the Gallery

Creating an AIA file

Downloading and sharing

Creating an APK

QR code

Direct download (or side-loading)

The Google Play Store

Summary

Index