App Inventor for Android: Build Your Own Apps – No Experience Required!

Book Description

Create Android mobile apps, no programming required!

Even with limited programming experience, you can easily learn to create apps for the Android platform with this complete guide to App Inventor for Android. App Inventor for Androidis a visual language that relies on simple programming blocks that users can drag and drop to create apps. This handy book gives you a series of fully worked-out apps, complete with their programming blocks, which you can customize for your own use or use as a starting point for creating the next killer app. And it’s all without writing a single line of code. Don’t miss the book’s special section on Apps Inventor Design Patterns, which explains computer terms in simple terms and is an invaluable basic reference.

• Teaches programmers and non-programmers alike how to use App Inventor for Android to create Android apps
• Provides a series of fully worked-out apps that you can customize, download, and use on your Android phone or use as a starting point for building the next great app
• Includes a valuable reference section on App Inventor Design Patterns and general computer science concepts
• Shows you how to create apps that take advantage of the Android smartphone?s handy features, such as GPS, messaging, contacts, and more

With App Inventor for Android and this complete guide, you’ll soon be creating apps that incorporate all of the Android smartphone’s fun features, such as the accelerometer, GPS, messaging, and more.

From the Author: Getting Data In and Out of App Inventor Apps

In today’s mobile world, applications are expected to not only provide functionality locally but also have up to date content and external awareness.

“How do I get all this data into App Inventor?” is one of the most frequently asked questions by new developers. Initially getting rows and columns of data into App Inventor was a kind of linear equation. You used the TinyWebDB or you turned to some of the third party hacks that are available.

The TinyWebDB component is still a possibility for volatile data that needs to be pulled from the internet and placed into App Inventor. It has the added benefit of being quick and allowing write to the web database. For getting rows and columns of data into App Inventor the algorithm would follow these steps:

1. Pull data from WebService and place in temporary variable.
2. Parse data into psuedo-array
3. Write data to a local TinyDB
This is still an option for getting tabular data into App Inventor. It has the advantage of being fast and stable. It has the disadvantage of needing the TinyWebDB service installed and running on a web server. Setting up and installing the TinyWebDB service can be complex and frustrating. There is the added complexity of needing a separate application to actually pre-populate TinyWebDB with data.

The App Inventor team recently released an update to App Inventor that includes functionality to allow access to the Google Fusion Tables. Google Fusion Tables is an online database solution that allows simple SQL like commands to be sent via HTTP to stored data. There is a nice back-end management solution that allows a user to pre-build and pre-populate data into created tables. All of the data lives in Google’s “cloud” service. The back-end management system will be very familiar to users of Google Docs or other Google cloud products.

The algorithm for getting tabular data into an App Inventor app using Fusion Tables will follow these steps:

1. Create the desired Fusion Table and populate the table with data using the Web backend.
2. The app will be “initialized” by pulling the data from a Fusion Table.
3. The app will store the returned Lists in a local TinyDB
The advantage of Fusion Tables is the ability to easily pre-populate the online data by hand entering or importing a spreadsheet of values. This will allow the developer to maintain the data that all the deployed apps consume. Thereby, fresh content and data could be added to applications by changing the data in the Fusion Table.

The disadvantage of Fusion Tables is the data retrieval method. When the data is pulled from the Fusion Table the application stops while displaying a notification that it is pulling data from a Fusion Table. Which appears a little bit hokey on a professional level application. It is also linear and fairly slow. In other words you will not likely be repeatedly and frequently pulling data from a Fusion table in the same App session. Instead, an application would likely pull data once when the application starts and then only when specifically refreshed.

The options and power that are given to developers with the new Fusion Table has yet to be fully explored and I look forward to some exciting uses of Fusion Tables. (Hint: Someone should use this for a text based MMORPG … the possibilities are endless. ) The newest version of App Inventor released by the incredible rock stars on the Google App Inventor developer team includes the long awaited Holy Grail. I am, of course, talking about the “WebComponent”. Now the web component as it currently exists is a little bit limited and not easy to implement. However, it is REALLY powerful even in its current iteration. It has the power to send HTTP formatted requests to existing web services and web sites and then store and manipulate the returned data. It combines the speed of the TinyWebDB service requests and the flexibility of using existing data like with the Fusion Tables. The web component brings the ability to use HTTP POST and GET commands which are the foundation of most simple web services. The algorithm for using the WebComponent would (or at least could) follow these steps:

1. Establish (or use existing) web service that will respond to GET/POST.
2. Use the WebComponent to send a GET request to the service.
3. Use the Text parsing blocks to parse out the tabular data sent by the web service.
The advantage of using GET/POST commands is the speed with which they can be used inline with programmatic functions in an application. Another advantage is the flexibility of using existing data and or maintaining external data in a database behind your webservice. The WebComponent opens up App Inventor to REAL web service and interactive internet services development.

I am excited about the direction the App Inventor team is taking this awesome product and look forward to an even more mature Rapid Application Development framework.

中文：

书名：Android应用程序发明者：构建自己的应用程序#8211；不需要经验！

创建Android移动应用程序，无需编程！

即使编程经验有限，您也可以通过这本完整的适用于Android的App Inventor指南轻松学习为Android平台创建应用程序。 适用于Android的App Inventor是一种可视化语言，它依赖于简单的编程块，用户可以通过拖放来创建应用程序。这本方便的书为你提供了一系列完善的应用程序，以及它们的编程模块，你可以定制这些应用程序供自己使用，也可以作为创建下一个杀手级应用程序的起点。而且这一切都不需要编写一行代码。不要错过这本书关于应用程序发明者设计模式的特别部分，它用简单的术语解释了计算机术语，是一本无价的基本参考资料。

• 教授程序员和非程序员如何使用适用于Android的App Inventor创建Android应用程序
• 提供一系列完善的应用程序，您可以自定义、下载并在您的Android手机上使用，也可以作为构建下一个伟大应用程序的起点
• 包括关于App Inventor设计模式和一般计算机科学概念的有价值的参考部分
• 向您展示如何创建利用Android智能手机的便捷功能的应用程序，如GPS、消息、联系人等

使用 适用于Android的App Inventor and this complete guide, you’ll soon be creating apps that incorporate all of the Android smartphone’s fun features, such as the accelerometer, GPS, messaging, and more.

来自作者：从App Inventor应用程序中获取数据

在当今的移动世界中，应用程序不仅需要在本地提供功能，还需要具有最新的内容和外部感知。

&#8220；如何将所有这些数据放入App Inventor？&#8221；是新开发人员最常问的问题之一。最初，将行和列的数据放入App Inventor是一种线性方程。您使用了TinyWebDB，或者求助于一些可用的第三方黑客。

TinyWebDB组件仍然可能需要从互联网上提取不稳定的数据并放置到App Inventor中。它还有一个额外的好处，那就是速度快，并允许写入Web数据库。要将行和列数据放入App Inventor，算法将遵循以下步骤：

1.从WebService拉取数据放入临时变量。
2.将数据解析为伪数组
3.将数据写入本地TinyDB
这仍然是将表格数据导入App Inventor的一个选项。它具有速度快、稳定性好的优点。它的缺点是需要在Web服务器上安装和运行TinyWebDB服务。设置和安装TinyWebDB服务可能既复杂又令人沮丧。还需要一个单独的应用程序来实际使用数据预先填充TinyWebDB，这就增加了复杂性。

App Inventor团队最近发布了App Inventor更新，其中包括允许访问Google Fusion表的功能。Google Fusion Tables是一个在线数据库解决方案，它允许通过HTTP将简单的类似SQL的命令发送到存储的数据。有一个很好的后端管理解决方案，允许用户预先构建数据并将数据预先填充到创建的表中。所有数据都存储在谷歌的云服务中。Google Docs或其他Google云产品的用户将非常熟悉后端管理系统。

使用Fusion表格将表格数据导入App Inventor应用程序的算法将遵循以下步骤：

1.创建所需的Fusion表，并使用Web后端使用数据填充该表。
2. The app will be “initialized” by pulling the data from a Fusion Table.
3.应用程序会将返回的列表存储在本地TinyDB中
Fusion表的优势是能够通过手动输入或导入值的电子表格轻松地预先填充在线数据。这将允许开发人员维护所有部署的应用程序使用的数据。因此，可以通过更改Fusion表中的数据将新的内容和数据添加到应用程序中。

Fusion表的缺点是数据检索方法。当从Fusion Table中提取数据时，应用程序停止，同时显示它正在从Fusion Table中提取数据的通知。这在专业级别的应用程序中显得有点做作。它也是线性的，而且相当慢。换句话说，您不太可能在同一个App会话中重复频繁地从Fusion表中提取数据。相反，应用程序可能会在应用程序启动时提取一次数据，然后仅在专门刷新时提取数据。

新的Fusion Table为开发人员提供的选项和功能尚未得到充分探索，我期待着Fusion Table的一些令人兴奋的用法。(提示：有人应该将其用于基于文本的MMORPG&#8230；可能性是无穷的。)由Google App Inventor开发团队中令人难以置信的摇滚明星们发布的最新版本的App Inventor包括了期待已久的圣杯。当然，我说的是WebComponent。现在，现有的Web组件受到一些限制，不容易实现。然而，即使在目前的迭代中，它也真的很强大。它能够向现有的Web服务和网站发送HTTP格式的请求，然后存储和操作返回的数据。它结合了TinyWebDB服务请求的速度和使用现有数据(如Fusion表)的灵活性。Web组件提供了使用HTTP POST和GET命令的能力，这些命令是大多数简单Web服务的基础。使用WebComponent的算法将(或至少可以)遵循以下步骤：

1.建立(或使用现有的)响应GET/POST的Web服务。
2.使用WebComponent向服务发送GET请求。
3.使用文本解析块解析出Web服务发送的表格数据。
使用GET/POST命令的优势在于它们可以与应用程序中的编程函数内联使用的速度。另一个优点是可以灵活地使用现有数据和/或在Web服务背后的数据库中维护外部数据。WebComponent为App Inventor提供了真正的Web服务和交互式互联网服务开发。

我对App Inventor团队开发这款了不起的产品的方向感到兴奋，并期待着一个更成熟的快速应用程序开发框架。