Guthals - Building a mobile app: design and program your own app!

BUILDING A MOBILE APP: DESIGN AND PROGRAM YOUR OWN APP!

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Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2017934005

ISBN: 978-1-119-37642-2 (pbk); 978-1-119-37639-2 (ebk); 978-1-119-37638-5 (ebk)

1. Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

SO YOU WANT TO MAKE YOUR VERY OWN MOBILE APPS FOR ANDROID? That is an awesome idea!

Making mobile apps can be a lot of fun. You can make simple apps that provide people with information, fun apps that allow people to play with images, sounds, and drawings, and even make games! The world of mobile apps is huge, limited only by your imagination. This book guides you through the process of making mobile apps with software built by MIT called App Inventor; its free, and people of all ages can use it! With just a few clicks and drags, you can build a mobile app and learn how to program, all at the same time!

App Inventor is a website that makes building mobile apps easy and fun. There are two main parts to App Inventor, the design and the blocks. The design part is where you design what your app looks like; where the buttons go, what color it is, and add any pictures or things like drawing canvases and sounds. The blocks part is where you write real code to make your app do things; for example, you have to tell your app to play a dog barking sound when someone clicks on the dog button! Even though the blocks part is real coding, App Inventor makes it easy by putting the code into code blocks that you can click and drag to make your mobile app. This makes the entire process easy and fun!

Building Mobile Apps: Design and Program Your Own App! has four projects that guide you through the process of building four different mobile apps. First, you make a simple app that plays sound when you push a button. Then you move on to making a profile app all about you. In the third project, you add features to your profile app so that people can draw on your favorite pictures, making them even funnier. Finally, you make an actual mobile game called Feed Winston.

Also, if youre reading this as an ebook, you can tap any web addresses that appear in the text, like www.dummies.com , to visit those websites.

Everybody has to start somewhere, right? I had to start by assuming that youre comfortable doing this stuff:

• Typing on a computer, using a mouse, and using a mobile device. A Windows system or a Mac; either one will do. This book shows examples on a Mac and an Android tablet.
• Following Instructions. Coding is very precise. Its very important that you know how to follow instructions carefully, and that you compare pictures in the book to what you make on your own.

As you read through the projects in this book, youll see a few icons. The icons point out different things:

Watch out! This icon comes with important information that may save you from trouble the pro coders sometimes have.

The Remember icon comes with ideas that you should keep in mind.

The Tip icon marks advice and shortcuts that can make coding easier.

PROJECT 1

IN THIS PROJECT, YOU LEARN HOW TO SIGN UP FOR APP INVENTOR AND MAKE YOUR FIRST MOBILE APP. You also learn all the basic tools to use when you are making apps: tools like buttons, text, and multiple screens.

You can make mobile apps in a lot of ways. In this book, you make mobile apps for Android phones.