Book Image

App Inventor 2 Essentials

Book Image

App Inventor 2 Essentials

Overview of this book

App Inventor 2 will take you on a journey of mobile app development. We begin by introducing you to the functionalities of App Inventor and giving you an idea about the types of apps you can develop using it. We walk you through the technical set up so you can take advantage of the interactive development environment (live testing). You will get hands-on, practical experience building three different apps using tutorials. Along the way, you will learn computer science principles as well as tips to help you prepare for the creative process of building an app from scratch. By the end of the journey, you will learn how to package an app and deploy it to app markets. App Inventor 2 Essentials prepares you to amass a resource of skills, knowledge and experience to become a mobile app developer

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App Inventor 2 Essentials
Apr, 2016 | 248 pages
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Table of Contents (15 chapters)
App Inventor 2 Essentials
App Inventor 2 Essentials
Credits
Credits
About the Authors
About the Authors
About the Reviewer
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Unleashing Creativity with MIT App Inventor 2
Unleashing Creativity with MIT App Inventor 2
What is MIT App Inventor 2?
MIT App Inventor – purpose and potential
Summary
2
Setting Up MIT App Inventor 2
Setting Up MIT App Inventor 2
The initial setup
Connectivity setup
Summary
3
Navigating the App Inventor Platform
Navigating the App Inventor Platform
The projects view
The Designer
Creating a game app
The Blocks editor
Summary
4
Fling App – Part 2
Fling App – Part 2
Adding a scoring feature
Increasing difficulty
Changing the game's dynamic
Creating levels
Updating the score label to display the level
Updating the Reset button
Updating the Play button
Summary
5
Building an Event App
Building an Event App
User Interface for an event app
Setting the background image
Adding an image component
Adding buttons
Adding the ActivityStarter
Adding screens
Programming the blocks
Summary
6
Introduction to Databases
Introduction to Databases
Creating a database
Designing the RSVP screen
Setting up Google Authentication
Sharing the Fusion Table with the service account email
Connecting the app to the Google Fusion Table
Pushing data to the Fusion Table
Ensuring empty rows are not inserted
Viewing the guest list
Coding the blocks – requesting data
Coding the blocks – receiving data
Sharing the Event App
Summary
7
Learning About Loops with a Raffle App
Learning About Loops with a Raffle App
Creating the project and building the GUI
Summary
8
Expanding Your Mobile App Development Skills
Expanding Your Mobile App Development Skills
Design principles
App Inventor extras
Distributing your app
Summary
Index
Index

Connecting the app to the Google Fusion Table

So far, we have created a Fusion Table and the GUI for the RSVP_Screen, and established our Google API credentials. Now it is time to create the code for RSVP_Screen.

Our goal

When the user clicks the Send RSVP button:

  1. The app takes the name from the NameTextBox, the selection from the NumGuestListPicker, and the contents of the ItemsBringingTextBox and inserts them as a single row in the appropriate column in the Fusion Table.

  2. Then the app clears textboxes and reset the Listpicker selection to 1.

We created the service-level credentials (the .p12 file and the service-level email address) so that our app is authorized to send or receive information from Google Fusion Tables. Next, we need to provide the FusiontablesControl component in our app with this information. We want to do this when a user opens the RSVP_Screen.

As shown in the following screenshot, once in the RSVP_Screen in the Designer, select the FusionTablesControl1 component under the...

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