Book Image

Google App Inventor

By : Ralph Roberts
Book Image

Google App Inventor

By: Ralph Roberts

Overview of this book

<center><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/UgRhYG_bvW8" width="500" height="315" frameborder="0"></iframe></center> <p>The number of mobile apps has grown exponentially in the last two years. If you want to join the crowd, Google’s App Inventor is the easiest and best tool for you to get started with. It is a tool to create Android phone apps and uses a graphical user interface, and drag and drop methods to create apps. It’s so simple that anyone can build an app.<br /><br />Learn how Google App Inventor eliminates the mystery around programming. It is a visual language, where we simply drag and drop blocks (graphic elements representing blocks of code) in various combinations to give us applications that run on our phones or other Android-based devices. No programming background is required. Playing with blocks has never been more fun!<br /><br />The emphasis is on creating apps that work and that you understand fully. The first part of the book gives you a sound foundation in the basics, and lots of tips on how to use App Inventor. The second part is all about creating complete apps ready for real world use. The book includes apps that communicate, use databases to remember, surf the Web and other networks, use GPS and various sensors on your phone, and let you write or play games.</p>
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Google App Inventor
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface

Time for action seeing azimuth, pitch, and roll


In Design, drop in a label. Give it center justification, and make it about 32 points in size. Drop in an OrientationSensor component.

In Blocks Editor, drag out the OrientationSensor1.OrientationChanged block. It's all we need.

As ever, we find that App Inventor has ever so nicely created the value variables we need in the My Blocks/My Definitions drawer. Use those to build your label as previously, and check the result on your phone or other test device.

What just happened?

We now get a running account of the phone's orientation as to compass heading azimuth, pitch, and roll. Move it around and watch the results (as shown below):

Want to make something useful with this orientation data? What about a compass?