• MIT App Inventor - Anyone can create a mobile app. App Inventor - a visual development environment for Android applications Mit app inventor 2 create an application

    I remember in one of the articles on App Inventor I wrote that there was an attempt to Russify it, but I didn’t really like it. I don’t even remember why. Meanwhile, Russification from App Inventor2 has disappeared.
    But the world does not stand still and here again we have App Inventor in Russian. This happened thanks to the efforts of enthusiasts from "Learning with Google" community. Next I’ll try to figure out what happened, but now, first of all, applause for the enthusiasts! Well, simply because it turned out quite well, in my opinion, and the work was necessary in every way.

    But, from enthusiasm to action.
    You can switch to Russian in the language selection drop-down menu at the top right.

    Now what I liked:
    Competent and pleasant translation into Russian of various menus on the “Designer” and “Blocks” desktops

    This will immediately allow a person who is far from programming and the English language not to get lost. I myself am far from the first, and only a little closer to the second, so I like it, damn it! Although I’m already used to the English interface.
    We click the question next to it in the “Palette” menu and what do we see?

    Bah! Yes, this is a small hint, also translated into ours, the great and mighty. Great too! If I figured out a thing like a button without resorting to a dictionary, then, for example, to figure out sprites, I had to scratch my head. And here everything is on a silver platter.
    Let's go further and look at the blocks. And here there is complete splendor and Russification.

    I admit honestly that I seem to have figured out the AI ​​(well, okay, only part of it), but some blocks make me strain because, again, my English, alas, is lame. So App Inventor in Russian is here to help.
    There is also an error index in App Inventor. And his guys didn’t ignore him.

    In general, I repeat, I liked the Russification.
    There are, of course, small mistakes: for example, some words are missing in the “Properties” of the components.

    But, by God, this is such a small thing!
    Yes, here, the tooltips for the blocks are still in English. But their correct understanding is often lacking.

    Now about whether I personally will switch to the Russified version. Most likely not, and here's why: the vast majority of programming languages ​​use English. Hence the conclusion - anyone who wants to advance further in learning programming must work with the original language. And I want to.

    And the next argument: in the process of dealing with AI, I raised my level of English. And this is also very useful.
    But! I will still turn to the Russian-language App Inventor, since not everything is always clear. And what’s more, you don’t always have the time and desire to learn a foreign language if you need to write yourself, say, an alarm clock application with your own features. And here App Inventor in Russian will help. What if you want to teach how to create mobile applications for kids who have just started learning English? Yes, with English-speaking AI you will only confuse their heads. After all, remember that this thing was created for training.
    So, the work done deserves all the attention and respect. And, without a doubt, use.
    It would also be nice for the guys to create a complete Russian textbook... Stop! Stop! What will I do then?

    App Inventor- a visual development environment for Android applications that requires minimal programming knowledge from the user. Originally developed at Google Labs, after the closure of this laboratory it was transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At the beginning March 2011 year, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology launched a public beta version of the project, available on the website appinventor.mit.edu.

    This development environment works directly from the browser. There is no need to download or install anything. The result can be viewed on an Android device. Ready-made applications can be placed on the Play Market.

    Since August 2015, App Inventor 2 supports Russian language.

    In the online editor MIT App Inventor 2, applications are built on the basis of standard components, which are the main element of Android application development.
    App Inventor blocks. Important Concepts and Principles

    App Inventor blocks are tools for manipulating components and look like puzzles.

    The blocks in this Android application designer are divided into two large groups based on what they influence and what they relate to:

    • directly related to components
    • related to the application as a whole

    Let's start with blocks that belong to components. They can be divided into three types, which are easily distinguished by color:

    1. blocks describing the properties of the component. They are green and look like this:

    this block denotes the current property of the component. This picture shows the background color block for the TextBox1 text component. It involves obtaining an existing value.

    and this one sets the required value to the component (give TextBox1 a background color...). “set” - set. This type of property block could be classified as commands (handlers), since it actually gives a command to change any property of the component, including field values. However, the App Inventor developers decided this way - after all, these are properties too.

    2. event blocks, that is, those blocks that monitor the occurrence of an event in the application, for example, pressing a button and then launch a block command. They are painted bronze and look like this:

    this block, for example, performs an action when a button is clicked (when Button3 is clicked do...)

    3. block command, in App Inventor this block is often called a handler. This block specifies what needs to be done with the component to which the block belongs:

    This particular block calls data from the device timer.

    The second group of blocks relevant to the entire application, is organized somewhat differently.

    To begin with, here is their list of subgroups:

    • Logic blocks– logical blocks
    • Math blocks– math blocks
    • Text blocks– text blocks
    • Lists blocks– blocks for managing lists
    • Color blocks– blocks for color management
    • Variable blocks– blocks for controlling variables
    • Procedures blocks– blocks of procedures.

    All of them, with the exception of Procedures blocks, are built into other blocks. That is, they cannot serve as an initial block, unlike event blocks belonging to components - all actions are performed when some events occur with the components.

    Here it is worth talking more about the types of “puzzles”. So, you probably noticed that there are four types of puzzles.

    From their form it is quite obvious that any chain in a mobile application begins with the first type. This is an event and it is quite logical that it initiates all further actions. And this type is no different from that adopted in this Android application designer.

    But the following two types of block, according to the App Inventor typology, belong to different types: properties and commands (handlers), respectively. But according to the shape of the puzzle and the meaning, they could be classified as commands, since they set the action. Let's say second the puzzle shown in the picture gives a command to assign a specific value to a component, A third puzzle – call a component with a specific value. In addition, these puzzles are “intermediate”; they cannot be used to complete the chain.

    But fourth the species is final value, existing or calculated, and ends chains with it. For example, the fourth picture represents the current value of the Clock1 component.

    The IT company announces a competition for the development of mobile applications for the Android OS, created in the App Inventor programming language.

    Dates of the Competition
    • Reception and registration of competitive works: from January 1 to May 15, 2017.
    • Review of works by the competitive Jury - from May 15 to May 30, 2017.
    • Announcement of the results of the competition on May 30 on the competition portal.

    In this post I’m going to introduce you to the MIT App Inventor 2 software and I’m going to show you what you need to quickly getting started building Android apps that interact and control your Arduino.

    Here’s the contents that are going to be covered in this post:

    • Why MIT App Inventor 2 is a good choice?
    • Accessing MIT App Inventor 2
    • How to control Arduino with MIT App Inventor (Bluetooth)
    • MIT App Inventor Overview
    • Projects with MIT App Inventor
    • Android Apps for Arduino with MIT App Inventor 2

    Introducing MIT App Inventor 2

    MIT App Inventor 2 is a simple and intuitive free service for creating Android applications. If you want to start with MIT App Inventor, you don't need to download or install any program in your computer as the software is cloud-based, so you build the apps directly in your browser (Chrome, Mozilla, Safari, Internet Explorer , etc).

    For instance, you only need an internet connection for building the apps.

    Why MIT App Inventor is a good choice?

    • MIT App Inventor 2 is intuitive and simple to use.
    • You don’t have to be an expert in programming or design to build awesome apps that can do useful stuff.
    • Creating the design is as easy as selecting and placing widgets in the smartphone screen.
    • The code is done with drag and drop puzzle blocks.

    Anyone can learn how to build their own apps with MIT App Inventor 2 with a few hours of practice.

    Accessing MIT App Inventor 2

    The most common Bluetooth modules used with the Arduino are the HC‑05 bluetooth, HC-04 and HC-06.

    For more information about the bluetooth module, you can check this blog post:

    The Bluetooth module works with serial data. This means that the Arduino sends information and the Bluetooth module receives it via serial (and vice-versa).

    The following figure explains how the information flows from the Android app to the Arduino.

    Your smartphone sends information to the Bluetooth module via Bluetooth. Then, the Bluetooth module sends the information via serial communication to the Arduino. This flow also works the other way around: the Arduino sends information to the Bluetooth module that sends it to the smartphone via Bluetooth.

    MIT App Inventor Overview

    This is a step-by-step course to get you building cool Android applications for Arduino, even with no prior experience! A collection of 8 + 1 Projects.

    I hope you've found this post useful.

    Weather station in MIT App Inventor 2 – a weather station application for Android phones created using the online service.

    This weather station is described in the article, where we reviewed the operation of the weather station, created a sketch for arduino and the design of the weather station. Well, today we will look in more detail at how to create an application for Android and display all the data received from our weather station on the phone.

    To create a weather station application in MIT App Inventor 2 you will need:

    1. Background image size 540x960 pixels (the size of the background image depends on the screen size of your device)

    2. Application icon for the main screen 128x128 pixels (in PNG32 format)

    3. Button icons in the application in two colors, 80x80 pixels in size

    When we have prepared all the necessary images for the application, we can start working in MIT App Inventor 2. To begin, we will need the following components:

    • ListPicker1 – to start a Bluetooth connection, select available Bluetooth devices and display the connection status
    • Label3 – backup, for displaying additional information (temporarily not working, no need to add)
    • Label1 – for displaying received data from arduino
    • Label2 – to display a label (temperature in the room, temperature outside, pressure, etc.)
    • HorizontalArrangement1 – mode of horizontal alignment of elements, in our case mode switching buttons)
    • Button1 – button to turn on the “outside temperature” mode
    • Button2 – button to turn on the “room temperature” mode
    • Button3 – button to enable the “pressure in mmHg” mode
    • Button4 – button to turn on the “humidity in %” mode
    • Button5 – disable button (invisible)
    • Clock1 – timer
    • BluetoothClient1 – component for working with Bluetooth (receiving and sending data)

    Now let's switch to block programming mode in MIT App Inventor 2. First, let's write the functionality for ListPicker

    then for the timer

    to receive data via bluetooth

    for buttons 1-4

    for shutdown button

    After all development stages have been completed, we test the application on the phone and check its functionality.

    Installing the Windows software for App Inventor Setup has two parts:

    1. Installing the App Inventor Setup software package. This step is the same for all Android devices, and the same for Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, 8.1, and 10.
    2. If you choose to use the USB cable to connect to a device, then you"ll need to install Windows drivers for your Android phone.

    NOTE: App Inventor 2 does not work with Internet Explorer. For Windows users, we recommend using either Chrome or Firefox as your browser for use with App Inventor.

    Installing the App Inventor Setup software package

    You must perform the installation from an account that has administrator privileges. Installing via a non-administrator account is currently not supported.

    If you have installed a previous version of the App Inventor 2 setup tools, you will need to uninstall them before installing the latest version. Follow the instructions at How to Update the App Inventor Setup Software.

    Locating the Setup software

    In most cases, App Inventor should be able to locate the Setup software on its own. But if it asks for the location of the software, the path to enter is C:\Program Files\Appinventor\commands-for-Appinventor. If you are using a 64-bit machine ((How to tell if you"re on 64-bit Windows) , you should type Program Files (x86) rather than Program Files. Also, if you did not install the software as an administrator , it was installed in your local directory rather than in C:\Program Files. You"ll need to search for it to find the correct pathname.

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