Week 34
NOTE: BUG IN MIT APP INVENTOR as of 5/7/24 - if you try and use a JPG - simply export as a PNG and use that file instead. Otherwise you get an error when building that does NOT include hints as to why it failed.
Quick Custom Icon
The first thing users see of your app is its icon, so it's important to make a good first impression. Leaving Project Property blank leaves you with a generic Android icon that indicates your Multi-App is not ready for anyone to see yet. Since you already have several PNGs you can quickly edit to a square, small shape with a quick crop and export to JPG in Photoshop, it doesn't take long to add the "cherry on top".
Simple Difference Backgrounds
Color backgrounds for our app screens add creative elegance to your Multi-App. Even if you have experience with the difference mode in Photoshop, this video will cover features specific to using them as app graphics, like keeping the file size of the JPGs down.
230330 Multi-App Backgrounds.mp4Adding Features
Here we give users the ability to mute the sound of colors being named and make the color change continuously as they draw - a "Magic" button.
Hiding/Restoring Arrangements
We are running out of room! These videos show a method for switching out one set of choices (the colors) for an entirely different set of options. This can make it hard to see everything on the design screen. First thing to try is changing the viewer to Monitor. You can also select arrangements and make them temporarily invisible with a checkbox in the Properties panel, much like we are doing with block coding but for the purpose of designing. Setting all the correct visibilities in the "When Screen Initializes" is important so that it doesn't matter what you leave off/on during the design phase.
Coding a Single Custom Color
This tutorial made by Cristian Lozano explains how he was able to make a custom color into an actual paint color by converting the hex code to RGB values.
230414 CustomColor Paintpot - Cristian Lozano.mp4Custom Colors
This is last year's 4-part series demonstrating the use of a pop-up set of sliders to change the painting and canvas colors to a custom set of Red, Green and Blue values.
Multiple Coloring Pages
What better way to enhance the user experience (and get them to spend more time on your app) than have more than one coloring page for them to paint on? This series shows you how to set up a special list variable that can be expanded to as many coloring pages as you like. The more you add, the more compact each jpg should be - black and white images shouldn't be more than 20 - 30 Kilobytes!
Random Page Picker
It wouldn't be hard to create Next and Previous buttons to go through each page one at a time, but even easier is a Random button that will select one from the list at, well... random.
Customize Your Buttons
You can use any graphics program to make your own images to use as buttons - it's a very good way to make your app look unique.
