Google App Inventor

356 Pages·2011·11.65 MB·English

by  Ralph Roberts

Google App Inventor
Beginner's Guide
Create powerful Android apps the easy all-visual way with
Google App Inventor

Ralph Roberts
BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
Google App Inventor
Beginner's Guide
Copyright © 2011 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the
publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the
information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without
warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers
and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or
indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the
companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals.
However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: October 2011
Production Reference: 1171011
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
Livery Place
35 Livery Street
Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.
ISBN 978-1-84969-212-0
www.packtpub.com
Cover Image by Fillippo ([email protected])
Credits
Author Project Coordinator
Ralph Roberts Srimoyee Ghoshal
Reviewers Proofreader
M. Hossein Amerkashi Jonathan Todd
Tony Barnes
Roger Belk Indexer
Tejal Daruwale
Bart Van Den Brande
Monica Ajmera Mehta
J.S. McClellan
Production Coordinator
Acquisition Editor
Shantanu Zagade
Rashmi Phadnis
Cover Work
Development Editor
Shantanu Zagade
Hyacintha D'Souza
Technical Editors
Arun Nadar
Ajay Shanker
About the Author
Ralph Roberts is a decorated Vietnam Veteran and worked with NASA during the Apollo
moon program. He built his first personal computer in 1976 and has been writing about
them and on them since his first published article, "Down with Typewriters", in 1978. He has
written over 100 books along with thousands of articles and short stories. His best sellers
include the first U.S. book on computer viruses (which resulted in several appearances on
national TV) and Classic Cooking with Coca-Cola®, a cookbook that has been in continuous
print for the past 17 years and sold half a million copies. He is also a video producer with
over 100 DVD titles now for sale nationally on places such as Amazon.com. He has also
produced hundreds of hours of video for local TV in the Western North Carolina area and
sold scripts to Hollywood producers. And, he has a number of apps on Android Market
written with App Inventor—search for ArrSoft (his software company) to see them.
Previously for Packt Publishing, Ralph wrote Celtx: Open Source Screenwriting. Ralph
and his wife Pat live on a farm in the mountains of Western North Carolina.
About the Reviewers
M. Hossein Amerkashi is a Java/J2EE Software Engineer/consultant in Maryland.
Hossein, a full time Software Engineer/consultant, has been in the IT field for over 15
years. He is also the CEO of 3N Portal LLC, an IT consulting company, and works on
large-scale Enterprise Application Software (EAS) development. He has extensive experience
in Android Software Development using Google App Inventor, Android SDK, and App Inventor
JavaBridge. He has a prominent role in the App Inventor community. He lives in Maryland
with his wife and three kids.
Hossein has developed AppToMarket tool that has helped thousands of AI developers
to auto-convert and publish their AI apps to Android Market. He has also developed and
published many tutorials in his Weblog, apptomarket forum, and code repository.
I would like to thank my family, especially my wife Lila, who have been
very patient with me for putting so many hours into developing tools and
tutorials to help the AI community.
Tony Barnes has been an IT Consultant for over 20 years. He is the founder of tAIR.info
and has been working with App Inventor since 2010. He is also a forum moderator for the
Google App Inventor Coffee Shop and Programming forums. He likes helping people learn
App Inventor.
tAIR – The App Inventor Repository-was started by him as a community-based site. Along
with his right-hand helpers Gary Frederick and Gene Kupfer, he built a helpful community
site and they are all very active within the App Inventor community. They host a weekly App
Inventor Enthusiast webchat at 5pm Eastern U.S. time. You can get to it by pointing your
browser to www.tair.info/webchat.
Roger Belk, aka Big Daddy App, has been developing Android apps for the past year. He is a
self-taught 43 year-old Ironworker. He builds apps using Eclipse with the Android SDK, Java,
and Google's App Inventor. You can check out his website at www.BigDaddyApp.com.
Roger is also a power user in Google's App Inventor forums, answering help requests from
new AI developers, from the set up, How-To, and the Coffee Shop, just chatting and kicking
around ideal for AI apps.
He has also worked on Animation 3.0 and Google App Inventor books.
J.S. McClellan has been working with computers for the past 25 years in various forms/
fashions and is a computer/technology enthusiast. From programming with Apple Basic,
Pascal, C+, to currently working with App Inventor and learning Eclipse, McClellan also enjoys
learning and experiencing new things/technologies including programming languages that
make it easier for people to make things which they can use. That is what drew McClellan's
attention to Google's App Inventor. The ease-of-use of the product makes it enjoyable to use
and help others to use too.
www.PacktPub.com
Support files, eBooks, discount offers and more
You might want to visit www.PacktPub.com for support files and downloads related to
your book.
Did you know that Packt offers eBook versions of every book published, with PDF and ePub
files available? You can upgrade to the eBook version at www.PacktPub.com and as a print
book customer, you are entitled to a discount on the eBook copy. Get in touch with us at
[email protected] for more details.
At www.PacktPub.com, you can also read a collection of free technical articles, sign up
for a range of free newsletters and receive exclusive discounts and offers on Packt books
and eBooks.
http://PacktLib.PacktPub.com
Do you need instant solutions to your IT questions? PacktLib is Packt's online digital book
library. Here, you can access, read and search across Packt's entire library of books.
Why Subscribe?
 Fully searchable across every book published by Packt
 Copy and paste, print and bookmark content
 On demand and accessible via web browser
Free Access for Packt account holders
If you have an account with Packt at www.PacktPub.com, you can use this to access
PacktLib today and view nine entirely free books. Simply use your login credentials for
immediate access.

Table of Contents
Preface 1
Chapter 1: Obtaining and Installing Google App Inventor 7
Getting a Google App Inventor Account 8
Time for action – signing up for a Google Account 8
Google App Inventor on the Web 9
Time for action – logging into App Inventor 9
Requirements for Windows, Mac, and Linux 13
Obtaining and installing Java 14
Installing Java on your computer 15
Installing App Inventor locally 15
Time for action – installing App Inventor on Mac 16
Time for action – installing App Inventor on GNU/Linux 16
Time for action – installing App Inventor on Windows 18
Setting up and running the emulator 19
Time for action – opening up the emulator 20
Finding and downloading drivers 25
Mac 26
Linux 26
Time for action – connecting a Droid to Ubuntu 26
Windows 28
Time for action – configuring our device 29
Summary 33
Chapter 2: Learning Components 35
Using App Inventor's web interface 36
My Projects 37
Time for action – creating a new project 38
Time for action – downloading our projects 40