[Create your own apps] Google App Inventor - Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Android Development

Probably the wrong thread, but...
You can build just about any app you can imagine with App Inventor. Often people begin by building games like WhackAMole or games that let you draw funny pictures on your friend's faces. You can even make use of the phone's sensors to move a ball through a maze based on tilting the phone.
But app building is not limited to simple games. You can also build apps that inform and educate. You can create a quiz app to help you and your classmates study for a test. With Android's text-to-speech capabilities, you can even have the phone ask the questions aloud.
To use App Inventor, you do not need to be a developer. App Inventor requires NO programming knowledge. This is because instead of writing code, you visually design the way the app looks and use blocks to specify the app's behavior.
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App Inventor

cashless said:
Probably the wrong thread, but...
...To use App Inventor, you do not need to be a developer. App Inventor requires
NO programming knowledge...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
[sarcasm]perfect. apps developed by non-developers without any programming knowledge is exactly what this world needs. [/sarcasm]
I guess some good may come of it, but it just reminds me too well of script kiddies running amock in the software store with unlicensed compilers.

Related

Apps so buggy

Ive had so many apps that suck so bad, they are so buggy and barely work. Such as Opentable, podcast, and several others. Makes me weary to even purchase full apps even though you can try them. Most apps available suck anyways.
I need:
Best buy app
Chipotle app
Panera bread app
Good podcast app
Good radio app
Good turn by turn navigation app
Opentable that actually works
and im sure there are several apps that I would like to use but not yet available, marketplace is full of bull crap. lets get some stuff people will actually use on a daily basis.
This whole market place concept is a bust.. just because it worked for iphone dosent necessarily mean it will work for wp7. They said marketing stuff like 'oh we have 6000 applications in marketplace!' Reality is its not even worth except for more than 1-2 of them to even download and waste time on.
937dytboi said:
Ive had so many apps that suck so bad, they are so buggy and barely work. Such as Opentable, podcast, and several others. Makes me weary to even purchase full apps even though you can try them. Most apps available suck anyways.
I need:
Best buy app
Chipotle app
Panera bread app
Good podcast app
Good radio app
Good turn by turn navigation app
Opentable that actually works
and im sure there are several apps that I would like to use but not yet available, marketplace is full of bull crap. lets get some stuff people will actually use on a daily basis.
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Click to collapse
Zune is great for podcasts. What do you want a podcast app to do? The Maps app has great TBT nav - no voice, though.
937dytboi said:
Good radio app
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I'm going to guess you don't like the radio that's already in there.
This is the kind of thing that may suck on WP7 phones for a little while...but i expected that didnt you?
The iphone apps were all full of crap when they first came out....it took time for people to get used to making them, I think the promising thing is that big companies are starting to bother making apps, so it shows people are getting serious.
I read it in an article that MS is a software company and if theres anyone who is going to be able to make it work at this sort of 'late entry' into the market its them.
I have at least 12 APPS I really like and that I use all the time
I think we are just guna have to wait for a bit
The marketplace idea is not a bust.
Developers who want to earn money selling their apps and games have a better chance when all the customers are funneled to one place, as opposed to having to search obscure sites, to find their product.
At that point, it's up to the developer to try to make a compelling enough product for the customer to think it's worth purchasing.
For the customer, they could go to one place to look for anything that is currently available for their phone. They can try out any application without risk, and if they feel that the product is worthy, they can purchase it easily. The rules for purchasing each app/game will be universal. They don't have to go through different payment processes with different companies.
Purple11 said:
Reality is its not even worth except for more than 1-2 of them to even download and waste time on.
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Really? So which one or two out of the following do you feel is worth downloading?
Twitter
Facebook
Youtube
Microsoft Tag Reader
Adobe Reader
Shazam
IGN
IMDb
eBay
Flixter
These are just some of the apps I couldn't live without - however, if you manage to witter it down to 1 or 2 I'll post an updated list of all my "important" apps. Although, IMO, 99% of people would have maxed their 2 apps from the top 5 in the list above.
emigrating said:
Really? So which one or two out of the following do you feel is worth downloading?
Twitter
Facebook
Youtube
Microsoft Tag Reader
Adobe Reader
Shazam
IGN
IMDb
eBay
Flixter
These are just some of the apps I couldn't live without - however, if you manage to witter it down to 1 or 2 I'll post an updated list of all my "important" apps. Although, IMO, 99% of people would have maxed their 2 apps from the top 5 in the list above.
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This and more and more and more.
OP and hater beneath him, you're just being a little narrow minded tbh.
given that A LOT of the applications are data based, how is your network coverage? is it quite patchy? if so, this would explain why a lot of applications appear very bad constantly not responding/loading data.
as for the market place, i think it's a bit of a good and bad thing. the iPhone model is good for itself, but WP can't copy it completely because of the differences it has. for example, WP offers in app trial mode. this needs to be made more promonent and needs to encourage the end user that these apps work as a trial. with this, then more people who list their apps as a paid app would get better usage as people don't instantly think they have to pay anything to use it.
i personally don't buy any app unless i get a bit of a play with the app first. but the problem is, i have to go to each app to see if it has trial available. the market place needs to adjust to this variable in greater force because it's actually what makes the WP market place a great prospect and cancels out the duplicates which you see in the iOS market place (the free and paid version of apps).
emigrating said:
Really? So which one or two out of the following do you feel is worth downloading?
Twitter
Facebook
Youtube
Microsoft Tag Reader
Adobe Reader
Shazam
IGN
IMDb
eBay
Flixter
These are just some of the apps I couldn't live without - however, if you manage to witter it down to 1 or 2 I'll post an updated list of all my "important" apps. Although, IMO, 99% of people would have maxed their 2 apps from the top 5 in the list above.
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Other than Adobe Reader all other software you mentioned are useless to me. I am a smartphone user, not an Iphone user.
Oookayyy... so what do you want then?
zukа said:
Oookayyy... so what do you want then?
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Better: Calendar, Appointments, Time Management, Alarm, Wallet, Book Keeping, Expense Records, Maps, Navigation, SMS/Mail Organizing, Dialer, Auto-Call Record, Call Management, Data Management etc etc you should get an idea ..
Purple11 said:
Better: Calendar, Appointments, Time Management, Alarm, Wallet, Book Keeping, Expense Records, Maps, Navigation, SMS/Mail Organizing, Dialer, Auto-Call Record, Call Management, Data Management etc etc you should get an idea ..
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Most of which is part of the core OS - now if all you want are better implementations of the above, feel free to discuss what, specifically, needs fixing in the core experience.
If you ask me, the calendar, appointments, time management, alarms and email are all working fine out of the box - sure, we need better exchange support (server search etc), but it does what it's supposed to for now.
As for Book Keeping / Expense Records (why are you listing both?) - there are apps for this.
Bing Maps is included out of the box. Navigation may be poor, but there are apps for this that help somewhat.
In any case - if you need enterprise features like what you've listed above you're really not part of the target audience for WP7 at the moment. Something which has been very clear ever since the February unveiling of WP7 last year.
emigrating said:
Really? So which one or two out of the following do you feel is worth downloading?
Twitter
Facebook
Youtube
Microsoft Tag Reader
Adobe Reader
Shazam
IGN
IMDb
eBay
Flixter
These are just some of the apps I couldn't live without - however, if you manage to witter it down to 1 or 2 I'll post an updated list of all my "important" apps. Although, IMO, 99% of people would have maxed their 2 apps from the top 5 in the list above.
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Click to collapse
See we are just two different people, KI dont have a twitter or Facebook account. So thats useless to me, Shazam I wont really use. But everything on your list is fine. My problem is that some apps that ive downloaded seem not to work like advertised and they crap out by running slow or not working at all. But I think im jumping the gun here, I just think we should have a better marketplace selection but I have to realize that the marketplace has just really opened to be honest. Just felt I needed to gripe about my experience
What's also a problem (for now) is that development for Windows Phone is so similar to developing for regular Windows environments: same tools, same programming languages, etc. A lot of "normal" Windows / .NET developers are early adopters of the platform and are having their go at developing a Windows Phone app. Unfortunately they don't always consider the limitations that the platforms has. They'll use a lot of heavy animation, request huge amounts of data, use imagery not optimized for mobile use. Thus: crappy apps.
I think over time this will all settle and the apps will become better.
That said, Microsoft does need to increase the overall app performance on the phone. There's a noticable difference between the built-in (native) apps and the managed apps.
stringray said:
What's also a problem (for now) is that development for Windows Phone is so similar to developing for regular Windows environments: same tools, same programming languages, etc. A lot of "normal" Windows / .NET developers are early adopters of the platform and are having their go at developing a Windows Phone app. Unfortunately they don't always consider the limitations that the platforms has. They'll use a lot of heavy animation, request huge amounts of data, use imagery not optimized for mobile use. Thus: crappy apps.
I think over time this will all settle and the apps will become better.
That said, Microsoft does need to increase the overall app performance on the phone. There's a noticable difference between the built-in (native) apps and the managed apps.
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this is blatantly false. First of all unless you're doing game programming you can only make Silverlight apps. Most regular windows applications do not use silverlight! You would think the web designers who use that stuff can create better apps, guess not.
Secondly the reason for crappy apps is entirely microsoft's fault. To get your app published, you need to pay 99$ a year for a developers license and get your identity verified by some thirdparty. After that when you submit an app, it is supposed to get reviewed by a team at microsoft to verify that your app meets many of the app guideliness set (like not crashing!).
I remember going to Tech Days (microsoft developer conference) and hearing them bragging about how their app reviews ensured that only quality apps were released but lately the amount of **** apps that have been appearing on the app marketplace makes me think they are just auto approving anything without even checking to see if it works.
pillsburydoughman said:
this is blatantly false. First of all unless you're doing game programming you can only make Silverlight apps. Most regular windows applications do not use silverlight! You would think the web designers who use that stuff can create better apps, guess not.
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Zero windows applications use Silverlight. WPF maybe, but Silverlight is a web-only subset. What stringray actually said was:
Windows Phone is so similar to developing for regular Windows environments: same tools, same programming languages, etc.
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Which is correct. Visual Studio is the primary development tool for desktop and C# is very popular development language for desktop.
The rest of what you said is probably true. But you can never test an app and say that it will never crash. Do you remember WM6.5 when you downloaded an app to find it didn't even launch on your device? Well at least it's filtering out all that crap
Silverlight is not only for web development. I believe since Silverlight 3.0 you can use them as desktop applications as well.
pillsburydoughman said:
Secondly the reason for crappy apps is entirely microsoft's fault. To get your app published, you need to pay 99$ a year for a developers license and get your identity verified by some thirdparty. After that when you submit an app, it is supposed to get reviewed by a team at microsoft to verify that your app meets many of the app guideliness set (like not crashing!).
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Click to collapse
How is the way you pay and get verified the reason why the apps are MS' fault?
Yea, they check them but rarely have I seen an app crash (actually I haven't yet but I'm not going to state that all of them have).
I just want to quickly point something to the ones you have hated apps.
Why don't you give feedback to developers? I have given serveral and emailed several feedback and have gotten a response each time. And each time, they take my feedback into consideration and either plan to implement them in the future.
As the end-user don't we want the best product? To get the best, we have to critique and help evolve the marketplace/apps. Only this way do developers know how to improve and what needs to be improved.
Otherwise they believe everything is dandy.
pillsburydoughman said:
this is blatantly false. First of all unless you're doing game programming you can only make Silverlight apps. Most regular windows applications do not use silverlight!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, Silverlight development does resemble WPF programming a lot (afterall, it is a subset of WPF). And we've been doing WPF programming for years now, haven't we? Actually, if you stick to simply placing controls on a page and adding event code it resembles WinForms very much. And that last thing is what I see happening a lot. Many developers create some spaghetti app, which totally messes up tombstoning or page navigation.
Once developers get more comfortable with Windows Phone (Silverlight) programming, they'll see that things like the MVVM pattern, async processing , etc. actually do make sense and can be very helpful. And that's when the good apps are starting to get made.
Secondly the reason for crappy apps is entirely microsoft's fault. To get your app published, you need to pay 99$ a year for a developers license and get your identity verified by some thirdparty. After that when you submit an app, it is supposed to get reviewed by a team at microsoft to verify that your app meets many of the app guideliness set (like not crashing!).
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Click to collapse
In general I think they do a really good job. Of course they had to learn in the beginning and a lot of faults were made. But the test department is getting better and better. The reports you get when an app fails certification are often very detailed.
Don't forget they check apps against the Guidelines. I agree there are a lot of stupid apps (Peace Sign app, anyone?). But those apps do follow the Guidelines.
Crashes are hard to predict and it's not that easy to test for them. Personally, I haven't experienced much app crashing on my device. In fact, I've seen more apps crash on my iOS devices than on my WP7.
Microsoft has said they collect crash dumps from all apps on the phone (at least, if you've opted in for that). I hope that someday they'll give us developers access to those dumps, so we can do post-mortem analysis of our app's crashes.
But lately the amount of **** apps that have been appearing on the app marketplace makes me think they are just auto approving anything without even checking to see if it works.
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Totally disagree. The apps may be not to your liking, but most of them do work according to the Guidelines. And did you give feedback to the developers of those apps? They often actually listen!

[Q] App Development?

I have a question. Ive been doing web development for two years now. I would say I am at an expert level in XHTML/HTML and CSS, and I know a little bit of basic PHP. I want to get into Android app development, but I have no idea where to begin. What language do I need to learn? Java?
Should I become more comfortable with PHP first, does it matter?
Sorry for the noob question. I am just interested in hearing from some other devs about this, any advice is appreciated.
Yes, you will need to learn Java programming language. SDK
ryno502 said:
I have a question. Ive been doing web development for two years now. I would say I am at an expert level in XHTML/HTML and CSS, and I know a little bit of basic PHP. I want to get into Android app development, but I have no idea where to begin. What language do I need to learn? Java?
Should I become more comfortable with PHP first, does it matter?
Sorry for the noob question. I am just interested in hearing from some other devs about this, any advice is appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here's a video tutorial to get you started in application development in android.
http://www.xtensivearts.com/2009/07/03/episode-1-getting-started/
Learn Java, XML, and the inner workings of Android / Linux at the bare minimum. You should be able to make something simple and worthwhile with just that. Once you do, you should learn some basic computer science concepts, such as procedural programming, oo programming, algorithms, data structures, and basc compiler theory. Lastly, you should learn C/C++ and how they hook into Java using JNI. At that point, you could make something really sweet.
Application development is hard and it, in many ways, is a different beast from web deveopment. Experience with HTML / CSS will come in handy when dealing with the XML files. Experience with PHP an Javascript will aid you in learning Java.
I have heard that a true hacker knows at least five different programming languages ( sorry HTML and CSS don't count for that ), and most really good programmers know more. Once you understand the concepts behind programming, and exactly how the code you type becomes binary code that your computer executes, picking up new languages is a breeze.
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Thank you. I know some basic PHP, but I am not an expert by any means. I will look into taking some tutorials in Java, XML, etc.
I was reading into Android App Inventor, and I know its no substitute for Eclipse/Android SDK for making full blown complex applications, but do you think It would be beneficial for me to experiment with that?
Be sure to check out Adobe AIR. It's open source and you can develop under OS X, Linux or Windows. You can also do cross-platform apps for iOS or Blackberry's new tablet.
Is that whassup adobe air is? Basically dreamweaver for apps?
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ryno502 said:
Is that whassup adobe air is? Basically dreamweaver for apps?
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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd compare it to Visual Basic. You code in a combination of Actionscript 3 (basically a javascript clone) and mxml. Programs require the Air runtime (again, like old visual basic) to run, except for iOS where supposedly native code is generated.
You can code using Adobe's Flash Builder IDE or other third-party IDEs, or from the command-line.
No Android SDK or Java required.
So can I use Air instead of Eclipse?
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ryno502 said:
So can I use Air instead of Eclipse?
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Click to collapse
No. Adobe's IDE is a modified version of Eclipse. You can also get a plugin for "regular" Eclipse.
ryno502 said:
So can I use Air instead of Eclipse?
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Click to collapse
I would imagine you would get far better results using Java (what I imagine you mean by Eclipse), but if any of you have experience developing for Air for Android, please put your experiences! I have not tried it myself, but usually those sort of "easy programming tools" are good mostly for rapid prototyping.
Im just looking for a good place to start. I have zero programming experience.
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My suggestion then would be to focus more on learning to program, and getting some experience programming in general. It would might be best to start learning Java while you learn some of those basic CS concepts I mentioned in te earlier post. In the long run, those general programming skills will help you way more than learning to code for a specific platform.
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Thanks for the advice. I will look into learning some java.
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Dont touch app inventor. Its nasty and will make you lazy. Kind of like learning vb before c. You get backwards and lazy and its hard to correct. I won't even higher developers who list vb as a language on their resume, we have no use for it and c# does all of the same things in good oop fashion. Vb should die a horrible painful death.
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Kcarpenter said:
Dont touch app inventor. Its nasty and will make you lazy. Kind of like learning vb before c. You get backwards and lazy and its hard to correct. I won't even higher developers who list vb as a language on their resume, we have no use for it and c# does all of the same things in good oop fashion. Vb should die a horrible painful death.
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Click to collapse
I'll have to politely disagree. First, its been my experience that once you know one language, picking up another isn't a big deal.
I'm retired now, but in general business (circa 1978-2001), application development was always about selection of the best tool for the job at hand. Low-level languages like assembler ,c ,c++ were considered overkill for jobs like data entry screens, batch processing, report-writing,etc,etc. You know, the stuff that most businesses do every day
Tools like VB and Delphi were godsends.
Of course if you're coding kernels and compilers, it's a different story
ryno502 said:
I was reading into Android App Inventor, and I know its no substitute for Eclipse/Android SDK for making full blown complex applications, but do you think It would be beneficial for me to experiment with that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From my experience with it, I would say don't bother. I made my first android app with it, but I found it very convoluted and not intuitive at all. It was like they were so intent on everything being graphical that they did everything that way, even it made things ten times harder.
But here were the real problems with it, and why I would not recommend it:
1. Though you can make a functioning app with it, you cannot put that app in the market. This wouldn't be a problem if your goal was simply to use this as a learning step, but for the next item:
2. What you do in app inventor is in no way similar to writing actual code in Eclipse. Nothing I did with app inventor helped me in any way when I started using Eclipse. It might be useful for someone who's never done any programming whatsoever, since you do have to deal with variables and logic, etc., but knowledge of any programing language at all would be more useful that what you'd learn with this.
3. The functionality of an app inventor app is very limited. For example, I do not believe there is a way to have your app access anything on the internet.
It was an interesting experience, and in defense of app inventor, I was able to produce a highly useful app for my co-workers (though I've since re-written it using the standard eclipse/java method). It took no more than a couple of hours to do, which is really pretty amazing since it required no foreknowledge. But ultimately, I don't think it's worth the effort to learn to use if you have any long-term goals related to writing useful android apps, especially apps that any other people will use.
[It was many months ago that I last tried it, so it's possible they have made some improvements to it. The most useful one would be to be able to convert your app into java code --- then it might really become a learning tool for the person with coding and even java code but no familiarity with the android sdk.]
I think app inventor is meant primarily as a rapid prototyping tool and secondarily as an aid to learning the high level view of how Android functions. I haven't used it myself, but it sounds like it is serving its purpose.
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App Developers
Looking for a developer to build an app for my industry. Thank you.
In an earlier post, I suggested that learning functional programming would be a good idea. I meant procedural programming. My bad, sorry if I caused any confusion.

[Q] Website into an App

I'll keep this as simple as possible.
First:
my coding experience is that of a Kindergartners. I'm sure at this rate if i want to get anything done i may need to hire someone.
However, i would still like to learn.
SO MY QUESTION:
Is it possible to make an app that pretty much is just a website?
For example, the app would essentially be the website. I.e rather than go to m.Facebook.com you would be downloading Facebook App.
However the only difference would be that one is via an app and one is via the mobile browser. No feature difference. nothing.
I think of it as a "Drag and Drop" you take the website and drop it into the 'framework' of an app.
it must be possible, if so. How? is there a tutorial? or is someone willing to explain this?
I Do know exactly what i want done, so if you're super educated with something like this i am willing to pay a small amount for the app.
Or if you want to know more about exactly what i want message me.
Of corse it is possible - that's what a Web App is.
Take a look at developer.android.com/guide/webapps/index.html
Basically, you just toss your web stuff (html, css, javascript, ...) inside an app acting as native wrapper and displaying your content through a Web View.
But if your app is just ment to be an identical copy of your website, I would not advise it:
WebViews are not exactly state-of-the art, and may show little inconsistencies or behave differently than mobile browsers
Every time you update a single file on your website you need to release an update for the app as well - unless you leave your content on the web and the app loads it remotely, but that would mean a very slow app
Web Apps are tipically a choice when you need to target multiple platforms (android, ios, ...) at once or when you want to fast-prototype an app and you're more skilled at html development than Android.
Unless, of course, you have other specific reasons to build an app for your website.
There is also another way to make your website look like an app (at least, for those using Chrome Mobile):
developers.google.com/chrome/mobile/docs/installtohomescreen
Mobile App Developers
Yes for sure.. We can convert an website into app. This is all covered in Mobile App Developers work...
Yes, of course. Use PhoneGap
Hi,
of course, that's possible. All you have to do is try out PhoneGap. Use google to find it.
I did not use it before, because I like native apps without any "gaps" between. But for a quick'n'dirt hack you will find it usefull, I think.
The site says:
Easily create apps using the web technologies you know and love: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please provide the code
Sure. It is just what phonegap can do for you.
sensislee said:
Sure. It is just what phonegap can do for you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do we need to pay Phonegap for Code?
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snowsunil said:
Do we need to pay Phonegap for Code?
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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, as I know, Phonegap is open source and free.

How to create an Android app using HTML, CSS and JavaScript

Hello, I have a question on Android development. Personally, I know web development but I do not know JAVA programming because I am not into software development.
I want to develop an android app by using HTML5, CSS3 and JQuery Mobile. The app will be simple, it will be just an app on poetry where users will click some categories and read poems, and also search. That's all. It will be free, no registration, no ads and no server side. I want to use JQuery Mobile for this or even pure HTML5 and CSS3. In fact, HTML and CSS will be used of course.
Bear in ind that I am NOT converting an existing website into an app, but rather creating an app through HTML, CSS and JavaScript. So, the Web View tool is not appropriate here.
My questions are:
1/ Can we really create an APK with obly HTML, CSS or JavaScript?
2/ If we can create, what software (which is free) can I use to create the APK by compiling/converting my web pages?
Thank!
ali20142014 said:
Hello, I have a question on Android development. Personally, I know web development but I do not know JAVA programming because I am not into software development.
I want to develop an android app by using HTML5, CSS3 and JQuery Mobile. The app will be simple, it will be just an app on poetry where users will click some categories and read poems, and also search. That's all. It will be free, no registration, no ads and no server side. I want to use JQuery Mobile for this or even pure HTML5 and CSS3. In fact, HTML and CSS will be used of course.
Bear in ind that I am NOT converting an existing website into an app, but rather creating an app through HTML, CSS and JavaScript. So, the Web View tool is not appropriate here.
My questions are:
1/ Can we really create an APK with obly HTML, CSS or JavaScript?
2/ If we can create, what software (which is free) can I use to create the APK by compiling/converting my web pages?
Thank!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You'll need to go through the (sometimes painful) installation of Eclipse/Android Developer Tools and the Android SDK...
https://developer.android.com/sdk/installing/bundle.html
After that you can then do exactly what you are asking for with this...
http://cordova.apache.org/
I'm using that technology to create professional apps (as in, commercial apps for customers) using HTML5 & CSS, Javascript, jQuery and I opt for Bootstrap over jQuery Mobile as it's a lot lighter, but jQuery Mobile works fine with it too.
There's also PhoneGap, but that's just a rebranding of Cordova at the moment. They may branch out in different directions at some point, but at the moment there's no difference. The only advantage to PhoneGap is that you can point it at your source on GitHub and it will build online for you. Very handy if you want to do pure online development, but a bit messy.
Thank you for replying. I think I will try with the PhoneGap and Eclipse as you suggested. I have other questions:
1/ Even the APK will be developed using just HTML, CSS and JavaScript, how to notify the user an update is available through a notification method? I am not asking for tutorials, but just the steps.
2/ As you know, to view the source code of a website, a user will right click and view. As the APK will be developed using client side languages, will they be able to view the source codes in any other way apart decompiling?
ali20142014 said:
Thank you for replying. I think I will try with the PhoneGap and Eclipse as you suggested. I have other questions:
1/ Even the APK will be developed using just HTML, CSS and JavaScript, how to notify the user an update is available through a notification method? I am not asking for tutorials, but just the steps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your best bet is to let Google Play Store do all that for you. It means paying for a developer account, but it's not expensive and it means that people can get your app from the Play Store, which looks a lot more credible than a link and instructions how to allow 3rd party apps. Also, you push an update to the Play Store, and that pushes the update to all your users. You can't really ask for better than that.
ali20142014 said:
2/ As you know, to view the source code of a website, a user will right click and view. As the APK will be developed using client side languages, will they be able to view the source codes in any other way apart decompiling?
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They can't do anything as simple as "View source" as all the files are embedded in the application, but they can decompile it and get at your source that way, but there's nothing to stop someone doing that with an APK anyway. They best thing would be to develop your app till your happy with it, and then obfuscate the crap out of the html, css & js files. Sure someone could decompile the app and get your source, but they'd really struggle to do anything with it.
Have a play with it and see if it's any good for you. It really does make it simple for a developer with web experience to make apps.
Also, if this is of any use, I made a guide for developing and building Phonegap Android apps purely online, without any SDK or IDE installation. It's not ideal as debugging would be a nightmare. I mostly made it as reference for myself, but check it out anyway...
http://johncmolyneux.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/how-to-build-android-apps-online.html
Sorry for the late reply. Can I know where is the APK file is stored?
ali20142014 said:
Sorry for the late reply. Can I know where is the APK file is stored?
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/data/app/packagename-1.apk
You tube is your friend
Just do a youtube search with these key words "html5 webview android" and you should be able to find everything you need to know on how to build your html5 powered app
Google offers a "ProGuard" solution on how to mask your code by obfuscation. Good luck!
You can also use phonegap build to build your web apps without using eclipse.
You can't make an app using HTML and all these web developing languages but you can simply make a responsive website (I hope you know that) and then integrate that website into the android app. You may also add something like that once a user opens app once his app will connect to your website and then download the files offline for future offline use.
You can make fully functional games and apps with HTML + Javascript. Once you learn a the basic's you can use the framework I posted here to make a quiz game. As you learn more you can make small puzzle games and action games but that takes time to learn. Start by using this framework to build a game.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2785378
And if you dont know how to use eclipse then use phonegap build it will build the game for you and the 1st game is free with their service.
Sorry, just saw this now... i could have saved you a bit of hassle
If you really dont want to make a deep dive and stay with your current skills theres a really great way to do so (no, im not involed in the project and wanna advertise it i just use it and love it).
Theres really great tool from Intel, named Intel XDK. This thingy lets you easyly use either the Intel based framework (thats really fast and depending on how you "build" the app at the end you get native code, not just an simple AKP that displays content in a webview.).
The above mentioned Cordova is also a build option, so if you already learned about that, you can still use it in here. You can also make the userinterface of your app in a drag&drop IDE that saves you TONS of time.
Check here for some easy examples:
http://app-framework-software.intel.com/components.php
The very best comes at the end, you dont have to care ONE BIT about installing anything on your machine, all build stuff is done on Intel servers. You code the app, decide on a way to build it (Cordova, Android, iOS or whatever) and you get an APK out of it. Whats more, you can test/debug directly on device, in browser or any other possible way.
If you dont want to learn the appfraework (whats is basically just like jquery, you dont really have to "learn" it if your familiar with javascript) or use other known frameworks like jQuery mobile. Best is, you can still use the IDE-Designer even with jQuery. So you can for example choose jquerymobile framework and but in a nvigation layout just with drag&drop. Of course you als have a standard Code-View with autocompletion and all if you want.
Take alook, its awesome...
The reason why i post this here that tere is one flaw (in my opinion), the documentation is not the best (its there of course, full API guides and all) and the Intel foum is not really active, since noone really knows about it it seems. If more ppl use it the community could be great and starters have a really easy tool at hand to get into the world of mobile-development.
Hi,
You can create an Android app using the HTML, CSS, JavaScript by PhoneGap. PhoneGap is a free and open source framework that allows you to create mobile apps using standardized web APIs for the platforms you care about. You can learn it at: phonegap.com
Good luck!
Website 2 APK Builder
The all new Website 2 APK Builder for Windows is now available at sourceforge.
as i'm new and can't post external links,
so i'm unable to provide a link of it,
try searching "Website 2 APK Builder" on Google.
Just Launched Yesterday,
that's all.
Easy to use,
Generates ad-free apps.
and available for offline use.
Give it a try.
Oboy
oboy
If you're planning on making a update thingy like that basically use github for that where you have a text file and test for the version every time the app launches with window.onload in JS
ali20142014 said:
Hello, I have a question on Android development. Personally, I know web development but I do not know JAVA programming because I am not into software development.
I want to develop an android app by using HTML5, CSS3 and JQuery Mobile. The app will be simple, it will be just an app on poetry where users will click some categories and read poems, and also search. That's all. It will be free, no registration, no ads and no server side. I want to use JQuery Mobile for this or even pure HTML5 and CSS3. In fact, HTML and CSS will be used of course.
Bear in ind that I am NOT converting an existing website into an app, but rather creating an app through HTML, CSS and JavaScript. So, the Web View tool is not appropriate here.
My questions are:
1/ Can we really create an APK with obly HTML, CSS or JavaScript?
2/ If we can create, what software (which is free) can I use to create the APK by compiling/converting my web pages?
Thank!
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I'm not sure if it's still a question for you but maybe try to search some helpful articles on this subject? They are usually easy to read and you'll an understanding of what you need to do.
we can create an APK with only HTML, CSS or JavaScript through new frameworks
CODENAME ONE
This cross platform framework enables in growing industry-based totally applications. The level underpins fast application development. The designer can compose code in Java and the software may be attempted and showed with Codename One’s test system devices and check mechanization devices. The system bolsters well known IDEs like NetBeans, Eclipse, and IntelliJ idea. The maximum captivating detail about its collect server is that the designer can fabricate local iOS applications simply as nearby windows packages with out a Mac gadget or windows pc. The degree is usually recommended for creating iOS applications.
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Designing an app

I am pretty new to using Android Studio and app development, but I have to design an app for a project I am working on. Do any of you have any tips about designing just the app without having to work with all of the coding? I don't need the app to work right now, just a design.
if all your doing is designing it then you could just use paper layout how each screen looks and make flow charts to show how button and other things work and link to other places, thats kind of how we do it but in our heads usualy and then we just write the code to show it.
Bethany55 said:
I am pretty new to using Android Studio and app development, but I have to design an app for a project I am working on. Do any of you have any tips about designing just the app without having to work with all of the coding? I don't need the app to work right now, just a design.
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Hello,
I have just worked in Android for more 4 years and with my opinion and experience, I think one of the most important thing is the simplicity, (but its also be hard ), I think you will work in some months to feel it. But have another way to get nice design fast, of course this way is temporally. You can refer to the same kinds of your app in store to compare it to yours, or even other apps not same kind of yours, color or design. And connect your mind to another object. Remember that the simplicity is one of the most important. Hope you will success soon.
Follow the Material Design guidelines Google has posted. It's the easiest way to make a good looking app.
Design is more about what the app does. Without know more detail, my best advice is to keep it simple. Try to find the 1 or 2 real things your app does well and makes those very easy to understand and do. Show the app to strangers and without explanation see if they can use it.

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