Category Archives: App Inventor News

App Inventor News, Components

New App Inventor 2 “Companion” app released today; new features

Changes between nb143i and nb144 (June 30, 2015)

  • When a component is renamed in the designer, any related collapsed blocks will be properly renamed now.
  • Screen1 now has properties that permit you to hide both the top “Status” and “Title” Bars
  • The selected item in a ListView is now highlighted
  • Activity Starter component now has a “Activity Canceled” event
  • Fix to the Player Component so it doesn’t spontaneously start playing after a phone call or other interruption
  • Bugfix to Image Sprite rotation which had left screen artifacts on some devices
  • Add Math blocks to convert between decimal, Hexidecimal and Binary representation
  • Clock Component now permits you to format a date or time arbitrarily. You provide a “format string”
  • You can now have both a Background Image and a Background Color and the “right thing” happens
  • TextToSpeech: The designer now uses dropdown menus to select Country and Language. Added blocks to fetch the supports countries and languages on a given device

Source: Release Notes for MIT App Inventor 2 (Beta)

App Inventor News, STEM Education

MIT App Inventor usage triples during 2014-2015 school year

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Source: MIT App Inventor usage for 2014-2015 Academic Year

As they point out, the cyclical ups and downs in usage suggest App Inventor is primarily used by students – with drop off in usage during school vacation periods.

That suggests an opportunity to expand usage of MIT App Inventor – by insuring that AI2 appeals to a wide audience of potential app developers and not just educational programs!

App Inventor News

App Inventor Classic (version 1) to Shut Down on July 15 

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Most users are already using AI 2 and are unaffected by this change. But if you are still using AI Classic (version 1), then this message is very important – please click through the link to read the full story!

May 24, 2015 — MIT App Inventor Classic will shut down on July 15, 2015. After July 15, 2015, you will not be able to access or edit your existing AI Classic projects. It will be impossible to create new AI Classic projects.This shutdown applies only to AI Classic (AI1). App Inventor 2 (AI2) will not be affected.

MIT will not automatically convert your AI1 projects to AI2 projects. But MIT will provide a conversion tool that will help you convert the AI projects that are important to you into AI2 projects. We expect to release this converter in about 2 weeks (i.e., around June 8).

Source: App Inventor Classic to Shut Down on July 15 | Explore MIT App Inventor

How do you know which version you are using?
Login to App Inventor and create or open a project. If the URL address in your browser begins with
http://ai2.appinventor.mit.edu/

then you are using Version 2.

App Inventor News, General

App Inventor adds new source code “Gallery”

App Inventor has added a new source code “Gallery” for sharing source code with others.

From the My Projects list of your projects, at the far right, find a new feature to “Publish to Gallery”. To use, create a graphic image to illustrate your app – such as a screenshot. You will later upload this to the Gallery along with a description of what your source code does.

Add a link to a web page (if any) that contains a tutorial or video about your app or source code.

PublishGallery

To find other code already added to the Gallery, click on the Gallery menu item near the top/upper right of the AI menu.

Have fun!

(And yes, I am back from recent travels – still recovering – fell a sleep after lunch today! I hope to start adding some of the source code from this blog to the Gallery soon!)

How to take a Screenshot

(This works on my Android devices) To take a snapshot of what is on your Android device screen, press the device power button and the volume control DOWN button simultaneously. This captures a screen snapshot and saves it to your Photo Gallery.  Email that photo to yourself or do what ever you do to transfer files from your device to your computer, for subsequent processing/viewing, editing, re-sizing and what have you.

App Inventor News, General, STEM Education, Video

Raspberry Pi 2 (US $35) computer board features Scratch

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Raspberry Pi 2 is a US$ 35 computer board to which you attach a monitor, keyboard, mouse and Ethernet connection. You can use the Pi 2 for web browsing and other functions, but it also comes with Scratch.

Scratch is a programming system that is very similar to MIT App Inventor. You can learn more about Scratch in our previous post on that topic!

But because one of Raspberry Pi’s goals is to advance computer science education, there’s a few pieces of bundled software that can help achieve that goal. This includes a drag-and-drop visual programming language called Scratch (great for beginners to create animations and games), as well as Sonic Pi (for creating electronic music) and more advanced programming languages like Python (also included).

via Surf Report: Taking a bite out of Raspberry Pi.

And speaking of STEM, here are some videos from yesterday’s Oregon City FRC FIRST Robotics Pacific Northwest District 2 (Oregon) robotics competition. 35 high school robotic teams took part, with Team #4488 “Shockwave” taking first by total points. I am biased: I am a volunteer engineering mentor with the Shockwave team, from Glencoe High School, Hillsboro, Oregon. Go Shockwave!

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