Category Archives: Components

Free-Download App Inventor Text Files Cheat Sheet

Download here: App Inventor Basic Text Files Cheat Sheet (PDF)

High res, suitable for printing. Feel free to share with others.

App Inventor sample source code: TextFile.aia

Be sure to follow the links for more information about text files and where they are stored on your device and how to transfer files to your computer.

Here is a GIF image but use the PDF for printing:

Voila_Capture 2015-11-02_10-45-33_AM

E-Books and Printed Books

If you find these tutorials helpful (I hope you do!) please take a look at my books on App Inventor. To learn more about the books and where to get them (they are inexpensive) please see my App Inventor Books page.

  • App Inventor 2 Introduction (Volume 1 e-book)
    Step-by-step guide to easy Android programming
  • App Inventor 2 Advanced Concepts (Volume 2 e-book)
    Step-by-step guide to Advanced features including TinyDB
  • App Inventor 2 Databases and Files (Volume 3 e-book)
    Step-by-step TinyDB, TinyWebDB, Fusion Tables and Files
  • App Inventor 2 Graphics, Animation and Charts (Volume 4 e-book and printed book)
    Step-by-step guide to graphics, animation and charts

Thank you for visiting! — Ed

Free-Download App Inventor Location Sensor Cheat Sheet

Download here: App Inventor Location Sensor Cheat Sheet (PDF)

High res, suitable for printing. Feel free to share with others.

App Inventor sample source code: Location_WhereAmI.aia

Here is a GIF image but use the PDF for printing – also, where it says “enter a mailing address”, that should probably be “enter a street address”!

Voila_Capture 2015-10-28_12-21-17_PM

Post comments here or on our Facebook group page. Thank you!

E-Books and Printed Books

If you find these tutorials helpful (I hope you do!) please take a look at my books on App Inventor. To learn more about the books and where to get them (they are inexpensive) please see my App Inventor Books page.

  • App Inventor 2 Introduction (Volume 1 e-book)
    Step-by-step guide to easy Android programming
  • App Inventor 2 Advanced Concepts (Volume 2 e-book)
    Step-by-step guide to Advanced features including TinyDB
  • App Inventor 2 Databases and Files (Volume 3 e-book)
    Step-by-step TinyDB, TinyWebDB, Fusion Tables and Files
  • App Inventor 2 Graphics, Animation and Charts (Volume 4 e-book and printed book)
    Step-by-step guide to graphics, animation and charts

Thank you for visiting! — Ed

Free-Download App Inventor OrientationSensor “Cheat Sheet”!

Download here: App Inventor Orientation Sensor Cheat Sheet (PDF)

High res, suitable for printing. Feel free to share with others.

Here is a GIF of the cheat sheet but use the PDF for printing (higher resolution):

Voila_Capture 2015-10-28_12-25-22_PM

Post comments here or on our Facebook group page. Thank you!

E-Books and Printed Books

If you find these tutorials helpful (I hope you do!) please take a look at my books on App Inventor. To learn more about the books and where to get them (they are inexpensive) please see my App Inventor Books page.

  • App Inventor 2 Introduction (Volume 1 e-book)
    Step-by-step guide to easy Android programming
  • App Inventor 2 Advanced Concepts (Volume 2 e-book)
    Step-by-step guide to Advanced features including TinyDB
  • App Inventor 2 Databases and Files (Volume 3 e-book)
    Step-by-step TinyDB, TinyWebDB, Fusion Tables and Files
  • App Inventor 2 Graphics, Animation and Charts (Volume 4 e-book and printed book)
    Step-by-step guide to graphics, animation and charts

Thank you for visiting! — Ed

App Inventor introduces copy and paste of code blocks!

App Inventor has introduced “copy and paste” of code blocks. Now you can copy blocks of code within a current screen, or from one screen to another screen, or even between projects. This is great news!

Look for the “backpack” icon at upper right of the blocks Viewer screen:

AI_Copy1

Select a block or blocks with the mouse pointer, and then click and drag the selected blocks into the backpack. A copy of the blocks are placed into the backpack and your original blocks also remain in the editing window.

Click on the backpack icon and it displays the code blocks currently stored in the backpack:

AI_Copy2

Click on the code block in the backpack (at right) and drag it into the Blocks Viewer. That is all you need to do to copy blocks.

Use this feature to copy blocks within your current screen, or to copy blocks from one screen to another screen, or to copy blocks from one app to another app.

You can put several blocks into the backpack, and then select only the ones you wish to copy over to another blocks Viewer.

How do you empty the backpack? It seems the only way to empty the backpack of saved items is to close the editing windows, go back to the MIT App Inventor home page (http://appinventor.mit.edu/) and select the Create apps! button to re-enter the designer and blocks editor.

Regardless, this is a GREAT NEW FEATURE! Thanks MIT App Inventor team!

How to use the “2 Button” Notifier dialog box

A reader asked, “When using the 2 button Notifier dialog, how do we know which button was pressed?

The 2 button Notifier dialog alert box displays 3 buttons(!) – the first two have values you specify, such as “Ok” and “Done”, as shown here, and the third is an optional generic “Cancel” button:

Screenshot_2015-09-11-15-07-15

The Notifier component block is a procedure call that has no return value – so how can you determine which button was selected?

The answer is that the selected button is returned to a separate event handler.

Continue reading How to use the “2 Button” Notifier dialog box

Tip: Using component colors to find components in the Blocks Editor

Finding a specific programming block with in the AI2 Blocks editor can be hard for new AI programmers.

You found a great code example online and want to recreate it by entering the blocks in to your program – but you cannot find that red block in the middle of the code sample? Where is it? !!!

You start poking around the drop down lists, scanning up and down the pop up menus, missing it the first time(!) and then going through all the blocks again until you finally locate that darned block! Frustrating!

Continue reading Tip: Using component colors to find components in the Blocks Editor