Intro to Programming Android with AppInventor - XMission

Creating Apps With App Inventor

Cody Henrichsen CTEC

Presentation Links Notes: http://tinyurl.com/AppInventor-Intro AppInventor by GoogleLabs: appinventor.googlelabs.com

Design the application ●

What do you want to have the app do?

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What pieces (objects) are needed?

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How should it look?

Start simple: ●

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You want to have an image change and a sound play when you click on a button. Boring stuff we will skip just like cooking on TV –

get pictures and sounds

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Save pictures to the computer where we can easily find them

Go to appinventor website ●

You need a google account to use it – easy to make so take the TV cooking approach again

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Start a project

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Name it something that makes sense

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One of the key pieces of ez programming choose words that make sense –

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Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, Tests

SAVE! –

Save often

App Inventor starting screen ●

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Palette on left –

We will be using the basic components for this first app

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The ? sign gives a brief explanation of the piece and how it is used.

Viewer –

This is where we get a “View” of the app

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Do not rely on this completely as invisible items can be showing

Starting Screen cont' ●

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Components –

Only the added pieces for our app

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Screen1 is the top component

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All components are inside the screen

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Other components can be layered in further

Properties –

Where you set values for the components.

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Remember to save!

Blocks Editor ● ●

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This is where the programming happens Click and wait for it to load (Make sure that you have the java JNLP set to execute, look to the bottom of the screen in chrome, or check your downloads window in firefox This is where the programming happens

Built-In Blocks ●

Math, Logic, Control, Text, Definition, Lists, Colors –

Lots of options under each

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Puzzle pieces

My Blocks ●

My Definitions and then a section for each component you created