{"id":1358,"date":"2016-08-01T17:59:39","date_gmt":"2016-08-02T00:59:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/appinventor.pevest.com\/?p=1358"},"modified":"2016-08-01T17:59:39","modified_gmt":"2016-08-02T00:59:39","slug":"what-is-the-firebasedb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/appinventor\/2016\/08\/01\/what-is-the-firebasedb\/","title":{"rendered":"What is the FirebaseDB?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hidden at the bottom of the Designer palette, is a category labeled Experimental<\/em> and within that, there is a single item, the FirebaseDB<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\"Firebase\"<\/a><\/p>\n

What is FirebaseDB?<\/h3>\n

FirebaseDB<\/em> provides a database “in the cloud” for your MIT App Inventor apps and supports the sharing of data between users\u00a0simultaneously. When data in your FirebaseDB<\/em> is changed, all apps are\u00a0alerted to the updated data.<\/p>\n

At this time, FirebaseDB is an experimental feature with critical limitations – notably you cannot yet set up your own personal FirebaseDB account but must instead use a single FirebaseDB run by MIT as a “shared account”. Sharing is limited to all users of a single app, and is not available\u00a0between different apps.<\/em><\/p>\n

FirebaseDB is Similar to TinyWebDB<\/h3>\n

The programming interface for FirebaseDB<\/em> is nearly the same as that used for TinyWebDB<\/em>. TinyWebDB<\/em> is a simple cloud-based database – to use, you need to set up the TinyWebDB<\/em> on your own server or on Google’s servers. With your data stored in the “cloud”, your data may be shared among many apps.<\/p>\n

For details on setting up and using TinyWebDB – including some tricks that enable sharing of TinyWebDB data between apps – please see my book,<\/p>\n