General, Uncategorized

Anti-spam feature added to this web site blog

1 Comment

Spammers are starting to hit this web site pretty hard – registering fake accounts, attempting to post comment spam and more. I have just paid for a software plug-in that appears to prevent the fake accounts and comment spam.

I hope this does not impact the ability of readers to post their questions and comments and I will be checking on this over the next week to adjust settings, if needed. So far today, the plugin has successfully blocked 100% of the spammers.

With volume 4 done and rain in the forecast soon, I should have a moment to resume work on new tutorials and examples!

Uncategorized

App Inventor 2 Graphics, Animation and Charts, e-book available now

6 Comments

The e-book is now online and available. More information here including links to e-reader software for your Windows or Mac OS X computer.

  • App Inventor 2 Graphics, Animation and Charts (Volume 4 e-book and printed book)
    Step-by-step guide to graphics, animation and charts
    Buy e-book from: Amazon, Google Books, Kobo Books
    Price: US$5.99, 227 pages

The e-book includes access to video tutorials that supplement the text. A big thank you to all of you that have found this web site and its tutorials helpful to you and your projects!

P1060323-1

UPDATE: Sales of the print version of Volume 4 are being discontinued as of October 18, 2016, due to rampant copyright theft. There are more used copies for sale than the total number of printed books actually sold. Based on sales, readers prefer the e-book version – therefore I am in process of discontinuing sales of the print version. The e-book continues to be available.

Uncategorized

Announcing App Inventor 2 Graphics, Animation and Charts book

12 Comments

Volume 4 of my App Inventor guide books series is now available in e-book and print format. The book also includes video-based tutorials to supplement the text.

Back Cover Description

MIT App Inventor is the fast and simple way to develop Android apps. Using a programming system that runs in your Internet browser, just drag and drop user interface components and link together program functions on screen, and then run your app directly on your Android phone or tablet.

Learn to create apps using simplified interactive image sprites and to control movement using a finger on the screen or by tilting the phone or tablet. Learn how to use the “Canvas” features for drawing, including a unique way to implement traditional animation features.

Includes numerous sample apps, detailed explanations, illustrations, app source code downloads and links to video tutorials.

Volume 4 introduces the use of graphics drawing features, including general graphics features, image sprites, animation and charting. Charting refers to the creation of line, column, scatter plot, and strip recorder charts commonly used in business and finance.

This is volume 4 of a 4 volume set. Volume 1 introduces App Inventor programming, Volume 2 introduces advanced features and Volume 3 covers databases and files.

Visit the web site at appinventor.pevest.com to learn more about App Inventor and find more tutorials, resources, links to App Inventor books and other App Inventor web sites.

Edward Mitchell is an experienced software developer, having worked in Silicon Valley, for Microsoft and other high tech firms. He has taught college and university courses in programming and information systems. He is the author or co-author of a dozen books on software development. He has a B.S. in information and computer science, an M.S. in software engineering, and an M.B.A. degree.

Target Audience

The text is an introduction to the graphics features of MIT App Inventor covering basic graphics and basic animation methods provided by MIT App Inventor, plus creating traditional animation effects using programming methods, and business/science oriented charting. This is not a text about writing games but a book about the graphics features and how to put them to use for practical applications programs.

Table of Contents

Continue reading Announcing App Inventor 2 Graphics, Animation and Charts book →

General, Uncategorized

appinventor.pevest.com is back online!

2 Comments

On 28 March 2016 you may have received a “Bandwidth Limit Exceeded” error message when trying to access appinventor.pevest.com.

This occurred because interest in tutorials on coding in MIT App Inventor is high! And the web server had exceeded the total bandwidth permitted for the month of March. I should have paid attention to the bandwidth logs and noticed sooner that I was closing in the bandwidth limit.

As soon as I learned about the problem, my Internet host (Tierpoint/webiness.com) responded very quickly to increase my bandwidth to six times more than it was previously. Hopefully this will hold us for a few months! It costs me a bit more but I want to ensure you have access to the current content and more to come!

Ed

P.S. Tierpoint/Webiness.com has been a great hosting provider for this and other web sites I have run for years, with excellent customer service. I am glad to put in a plug for them!

Android Development, Tips, Uncategorized

Using droid-at-screen to see your phone’s display on your computer

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droid-at-screen is a free Java-based app that displays the content of your phone’s display to your computer’s display, when the phone is connected via a USB cable.

Below is a screen snap shot taken from my computer display. At the upper left is the Droid@Screen application running.  Droid@Screen is connected to my Nexus 5 phone.

At right is the display showing on my phone, which has been transferred from the phone to my computer over a USB connection. I’ve circled two user interface items – the magnifying glass icon is used to adjust the display size of the phone’s screen. Since the phone has a 1920×1080 display, the initial image is quite large!

Below that is a camera icon. Click on that to take a snapshot of what is on the screen, and then save the screen image to a local file.

Capture

At the lower left is the DroidAtScreen .jar file. This is the Java executable program file. Assuming Java is installed on your system, double click the .jar file to begin running Droid@Screen.

Continue reading Using droid-at-screen to see your phone’s display on your computer →

Components, Programming Method, Tips, Uncategorized

Can you “gray out” a button until data entry is complete?

5 Comments

A reader asked  if it might be possible to “gray out” a button so that pressing it has no action, until appropriate data has been entered?

The answer is “Yes, we can do this.” After some thought, I came up with the following simple solution.

Update 1: Check the comments to this post for a reader’s great solution for doing this for Location services dependent function.

Update 2: Also, you can set the button component’s Enabled property to false, so that the button will not function. Then set Enabled to true once the data entry meets your app’s requirements.

User Interface

What we want to do is have the button look like it is “grayed out” and unusable until after some data is entered into the field. In the text box, I have set the  “hint” value to “Button available when data entered”:

Screenshot_20160317-202312After the user has entered some data, the button becomes “active” as shown here:

Screenshot_20160317-202334

Continue reading Can you “gray out” a button until data entry is complete? →

App Inventor News, Uncategorized

Thunkable turns programming into a drag-and-drop solution – based on App Inventor

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Thunkable is a spin off of the MIT App Inventor project. If you can program in App Inventor, you can program in Thunkable. Their goal is to get the App Inventor concept running on both Android and iOS (iPhone).

Visit Thunkable at http://thunkable.com

Thunkable, built on top of the open-source project MIT App Inventor, is a visual programming tool

Source: Thunkable turns programming into a drag-and-drop solution – SD Times

There are indications that MIT App Inventor will focus on education and training applications and that spin offs will offer more powerful (and likely complex) features such as increased database functionality or media handling. These new features, oriented perhaps towards businesses and organizations (rather than education) might become a subscription service – but with added value in terms of features and capabilities.

Documentation, General, Uncategorized

More stuff coming soon …

6 Comments

Each week the past 3 weeks I thought I was going to have time to put together some new tutorials and post them, but “stuff happens” and I have not had time. I have a great list of tutorial suggestions that have come from readers and I really want to work on them and get them posted!

Sorry for the long delay!

In other news, I have completed the writing of Volume 4 of my App Inventor tutorial guide books. The book is now undergoing proof reading and final formatting. I hope to have it available as both an e-book and as a printed book.  I can now announce the title of the book “App Inventor: Graphics, Animation and Charts”. More details including a table of contents and sample pages as we get closer to release!

General, Uncategorized

Update on FB – website link and Volume 4 App Inventor Guide

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Facebook – Web site link

Short update – my web site at http://appinventor.pevest.com was linked directly to FB so that comments entered here, appeared there, and comments entered on the web site, appeared here on Facebook. All automatically.

However, that link is now broken. I was using a WordPress plugin to cross link the web site and FB page but last week, the makers of the plugin discontinued its use and the cross linking is no longer working. Hopefully I can find a new plugin to perform that function!

It was a nice to have feature as I could just check for updates on the web site without having to also check on FB. Oops! Now that this feature is gone, I will try to check the FB page more frequently.

Volume 4 Update

Volume 4 of my App Inventor guides is nearing completion. I have to write one last demo program,  the  text for one chapter, proof read the entire text, and begin the publishing process. I will announce the book topic once I get the final chapter written (I prefer not to pre-announce until I know the availability). I can announce now that Volume 4 should be available in both print and e-book formats! Producing the print version adds a little delay to the final release but the final result should be very good.

UPDATE: Sales of the print version of Volume 4 are being discontinued as of October 18, 2016, due to rampant copyright theft. There are more used copies for sale than the total number of printed books actually sold. Based on sales, readers prefer the e-book version – therefore I am in process of discontinuing sales of the print version. The e-book continues to be available.

The quick and easy way to write Android Apps