6.5. App Examples Using App Inventor
In this Lesson You Will …
- Experiment with app examples that align with your solution idea
Dive Deeper
You’re at the stage where you’re ready to dive into coding your app, or maybe you’ve already started!
If you’re still unsure how to bring all the pieces together to make your app function, that’s okay, too.
We’ve put together a list of common app categories based on past ICT Club projects. The tutorials provided are there to help you learn and get inspired. They won’t give you step-by-step instructions to build your exact app (where’s the challenge in that?), but they will show you how to use specific features in App Inventor. It’s up to you to take that knowledge and apply it to your own unique project.
It might be tough, but that’s part of the learning journey!
WHERE TO FIND HELP
Search Online
Google (or alternate search engine) “App Inventor” and whatever feature you want. For example, you might Google “App Inventor quiz” if you wanted to make an app that quizzed users on a topic.
App Inventor website
Lots of great resources provided by MIT. Start with App Inventor tutorials but check out the rest of the website for great resources.
Forum Help
Community forum for App Inventor users is a friendly place to post a question and get some expert help!
Youtube
App Inventor has their own channel with lots of great tutorials.
ChatGPT
ChatGPT is great at helping with coding questions, even block-based coding platforms like App Inventor. You won’t get visual blocks but very good text-based answers
COMPLETE A TUTORIAL
Follow a tutorial that aligns with your project
- Choose one example app below that has some of the features of your solution app.
- Complete the tutorial, bearing in mind that the app may not be exactly like your app.
- Use the experience to learn more about the components and how they can be used within an app.
Login App
This tutorial shows you one way to add signup/login capability to your app using the CloudDB component. You can then add the critical features to your app that actually solve your problem.
Location App
This app is a good example of using the Map component to provide location-based information to users. In this case, volunteer opportunities. The app also uses WebViewer to display website information, and PhoneCall so the user can call volunteer organizations from the app.
Part 1 – add Map, Markers, and basic information
Part 2 – add second screen to display website and make phone calls
Tracking App
This app is an example of storing a user’s personal information on their phone using TinyDB so they can track something – in this case, how green they are acting.
Optional:
Part 2 – Add consecutive day tracking
Part 3 (advanced) – Test using “Do it” to force date changes
Forum App
This app uses CloudDB to allow users to share information between each other – in this case, forum messages. It’s part of a larger app about diabetes, but you can just focus on the forum features.
Other parts of the full app tutorial are included for reference.
This video demonstrates how you add the necessary components to add a forum to an app. While this is part of a bigger app, you can just ignore the existing components related to user login and start with a new project.
Here is the full playlist for the diabetes app tutorial.
The full app includes an information screen as well as user signup/login and the forum.
