Tag: edtech597

This week, I built an application that allowed you to draw on a pre-loaded photograph using different colors, and different dot sizes or using a line. You could clear edits on the screen using the wipe button, and I customized it so shaking the phone would also clear the screen. Finally, you could also take a new picture to edit on it.

I wanted to tweak how the buttons displayed on the screen and added extra Horizontal and Vertical Arrangements between the buttons and image to spread out the display. I wanted to tweak where the loaded photo displayed (I wanted it to be centered, not left-

justified), but couldn’t figure out how to do that yet. Hopefully we’ll learn how to do that in the future, maybe? One other thing I couldn’t figure out how to do is add a button that allowed the image to be saved to the phone or emailed to an email address. Maybe in the future, or could this not be possible in the App Inventor?

I’m finding the App Inventor interface easy to use, but not quite logical or intuitive yet. Maybe it will be eventually, through lots of practice and patience?

 

You can download my Android app, by scanning this QR code:

For mobile app design class this week, we designed our first, very simple app for the Android platform. Using the lesson in the App Inventor: Create Your Own Android Apps textbook and the appinventor website, we developed a very simple app using an interactive design tool. It reminded me somewhat of learning HTML — starting small at the very basic levels — and also a WYSIWYG editor, using buttons to add components of the app. As long as I was following the instructions, I found the process to be very simple. The appinventor interface was made up of buttons and palettes, similar to other design desktop applications. I’m sure this process will get complicated quickly, but I was happy with my results so far. Plus, when I would test the app, it drove my cats nuts. They don’t like to hear other cats meow!