University:
Boston University
Course:
CAS EC 203 | Empirical Economics 1
Academic year:

2021
Views:

413

Pages:

17
Author:

Jerimiah Montoya

APP INVENTOR About App Inventor What is App Inventor? Website for making simple apps Fun, useful, easy to use, and free! Languages: Java, Kawa, Scheme Great for: teaching understanding, basics, troubleshooting, and persistence of programming ● Similar to Scratch ● Can use your own app on an android or emulator ● ● ● ● Uses of App Inventor You can… - Get introduced to coding - Make cool apps in a short amount of time without having to learn code - Test out ideas for apps - Learn about the general structure of code - Express your creativity Possible types of apps you can make! - Choose your own adventure game Personality quiz app Soundboard app App that provides information on a speciﬁc topic Name that movie app How to use App Inventor How to use App Inventor (Part 1) How the process works First, you can choose the layout and how your app looks in the App Inventor Designer. Second, you can program certain features and screens to however you want them in the App Inventor Blocks Editor. The ﬁnal step is to try out your app on an Android Emulator or an Android phone. How to use App Inventor (Part 2) How to navigate the App Inventor website: This is called the “Palette”, where you can This is called the “Viewer”, choose different where you can add the features to add into your features from the “Palette” app. to the screen in the middle. This screen right here is called the “Designer Screen.” This is called “Components” where you can see what features you added to your screen. This is called “Properties”, where you can choose the size, color and more, for a feature. How to use App Inventor (Part 3) Designer Blocks Using the Designer User Interface - Button - Checkbox - Image - Switch - Textbox ▹ ▹ Layout - Horizontal Arrangement. Media - Video - Sound Drawing and Animation - Canvas ▹ Most Commonly Used Palette Features How to Insert Media in your App First, you must download the Media ﬁle to App Inventor 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) In the “Media” column, click → “Upload ﬁle” Click → “Choose File” Locate your desired media ﬁle. Click → Open. Now you should see the ﬁle in the “Media” column. To insert the media ﬁle inside the app: 1) 2) 3) 4) Unless you want to insert an image into your app’s background, choose something under the “Palette” column that can support a media ﬁle. Then, drag it onto the Viewer. Under the column called “Properties”, ﬁnd the “Image”, “Background Image”, or “Source” option and click on it. Select the media ﬁle you want to insert. For images and videos, you can adjust the size by clicking on the “Height” and “Width” option underneath “Properties”. At one point in the video, I am searching through the ﬁles on my computer. It is located on a separate window. Since my computer does not support screen recording two windows, you cannot see the ﬁles window popping up on my screen. 13 14 Using the Coding Blocks App Inventor Blocks Control Tell when or under what conditions parts of the program should run or perform direct tasks Logic Label or check certain conditions as true or false (boolean operators), check if arguments are equal or program a certain value to be returned Math Perform math operations along with absolute value and rounding, compare values or perform conversions App Inventor Blocks Text Create and manipulate strings (Ex. reverse a string, join strings, compare two strings, etc.) Lists Create and manipulate sets of values, or ﬁnd a speciﬁc value in a list created (choose list items by naming their index or indices) Dictionaries Build and use data structures with key-value pairs, which can then be added to or changed App Inventor Blocks Colors Pick colors for components of design or pen colors, make your own color by inputting R, G, and B values or split a color Variables Create variables to store values mentioned before (lists, strings, integers) which you can get easily later in your program Procedures Similar to variable blocks, except instead of storing values, store a sequence of blocks which can be called later for efficiency