WHAT IS MIT APP INVENTOR?

Hi guys! Today, I am gonna tell you all you need to know before you can create some cool apps in MIT app inventor. 

What is MIT App inventor?

MIT App Inventor is an online platform designed to teach computational thinking concepts through development of mobile applications. Students create applications by dragging and dropping components into a design view and using a visual blocks language to program application behavior.

How to start with MIT App inventor?

Go to your favorite Brower and type 'https://appinventor.mit.edu/'. Then, you would land on the home screen of MIT App Inventor. Then click on 'Create Apps'. Go ahead and type in your Gmail address. After all those process, you would eventually land on a screen which looks like this. 

Now, click on 'Start new project' to create your very own app!

Before starting your first project:

Before starting your first project, it is advised to install the 'MIT AI2 Companion' app. It is available in both App Store and Play Store.

How does MIT App inventor works?

 

When you click on 'Start new project', it would ask for the your project's name. Go ahead and give your first project a name.

After giving a name, another screen would appear. There on the top, you would see two buttons. One for Designer and one for Blocks. By default, you will always be in the designer view.

Now allow me to explain these two buttons in brief:

1. Designer - Designer section allows us to design the applications. This section determines the appearance and how the application would look. Also, all the components (such as buttons, textbox, switch) needed for the application would be made available in designer section only.

2. Blocks - Blocks section is the section where we do the programming. This section allow us to communicate to all the components and give the necessary commands. As programming in MIT App inventor involves linking of blocks, this section's name is blocks.

Now, lets zoom in and figure how the designer section works.

Designer Section:

If you look closely at the designer section, you would discover that it is divided into 4 parts.

 Lets now know about them in detail.

1. Palette - This is where all the components are there and are arranged according to their types. As TinyDB and CloudDB are databases, they can be viewed underneath the 'Storage'. 

2. Viewer - This is the section where you can see how your app is getting constructed.

3. Components - This would show all your components. Here, you can rename and delete the components you have added to your application. 

4. Properties - This section allows you to edit your components such as changing the font style, size etc. Remember, that you can do most of the things in the blocks section too.

Okay, with all of them completed, lets see what all you can do with all the other features given by MIT App inventor.

1. Projects - Here, you can do some cool things. You can save your project and see all your projects. You can also import and export projects from your computer and from a repository.

2. Connect - This is where you have to use your mobile. Remember when I told you to install the companion app? Well, now you can open it up and click on 'scan QR code'. After clicking that, go to Connect and click on 'AI Companion'. There, you would be provided with the QR code. After you have scanned the QR code, you can actually review what you have made. Yeah, you can actually review what your app looks like before you export it. Pretty nice, huh? Also, if you don't wanna scan the QR code, you can type the given code to connect your phone to the MIT App inventor platform. 

Other option you are given with is 'USB'. It works just like your companion app but here you only require an USB cable to connect your phone and our system.

3. Build - Lets say that you wanna download the project you developed in your phone. How will you do that? Simply, go to Build and click on 'App ( provide QR code for .apk)'. After a few minutes, you would get a QR code which has to be scanned by the companion app. Once it is done, your project would be installed in your phone.

Other option you have is to save the apk in your computer. This would install the project in your system and you can access it through your system.

4. Screen 1 - With this, we can navigate through various screen we create.

5. Add Screen - To add screens, just click on this button, name the screen and click on 'OK'. You would be automatically be navigated to the newly created screen.

6. Remove Screen - To delete screens, click on remove screen, write the name of the screen and click on 'OK'. The screen would be deleted. But remember. You cannot delete the first screen.

7. Publish to Gallery - With this, we could publish the apps we create to the app store created by MIT App Inventor. 

Blocks:

This is how blocks section looks. Inside this section, we can see six things. They are:

1. Built-in - This is where you would be given all the blocks which you might have to use while making programs. Do check them before you start programming!

2. Screen 1 - This is actually not a section rather it is a starting point of a section. All the components you add would be shown here and all the blocks corresponding to them would be shown when you click on them. 

3. Any Components - This is an advance feature which would not be required if you are making simple projects. These blocks would be used when you are uncertain which component you want to make changes in. This happens when you randomize the things. For that kind of situation, you would use this feature.

4. Bag - This is a storage box where you can store all the frequently used blocks. Just drag the block to the bag and it would be automatically saved.

5. Zoom - This feature allows us to zoom in and out.

6. Bin - When you want to delete a block or set of blocks, just drag it to the bin. It would be deleted.

This is a sample project I made on MIT App inventor:

This is all I have for the post. You can also check on 'Kodular' and 'Appy builder' which are also some cool softwares to make apps. 

Thank you.