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 banging things off each other


  1. 1. In Design, start a new app design named collision, or whatever.

  2. 2. Drop in a Canvas component. Make it Fill Parent / Fill Parent. Upload and attach a background photo to it if you want.

  3. 3. Drop in a couple of Ball components onto the canvas from the Animation Drawer. Set the Radius (size) for each to 50. Select different colors for each by clicking on the box under PaintColor.

  4. 4. In the Properties column for each, change Heading, Interval, and Speed. Perhaps 225 / 60 / 60 (the direction the ball first moves to start it bouncing, interval speed) for the first and 25 / 50 / 50 for the second—that looks pretty good to me, but I encourage you to experiment and get a feel for how these parameters affect movement on the phone's screen by changing interval and speed. We want balls moving at slightly different speeds and intervals to enhance a look of randomness.

    In the Blocks Editor:

  5. 5. We only need one ball to respond if it collides with another...