nb149 Release Announcement

Announcing Release nb149

On Wednesday, June 15, 2016 we will be releasing MIT App Inventor version nb149. This is a significant component release. With this release comes a new AI2 Companion App. However you will not have to upgrade immediately to this new Companion App. The current Companion will continue to work (Note: We are aware of a problem with the old Companion if you use an “Any Component” Block). However the new features of this new release will require a Companion Update.

Release Disruption

We are planning to perform the release at 2016-06-16T03:00:00 which is 11PM on the 15th on the East Coast of the US. When we perform the actual release you will see a dialog box instructing you to reload your browser. Once you perform this reload, you will be running the new release. There may also be a short period of time when the “buildservers” will be updating. During this time you may get errors if you attempt to build an app. We expect this period of time to be no longer than 10 minutes.

Release Notes

Update to Firebase: Add New Blocks:

• AppendValue: Takes a “tag” and a “value.” If tag points to a list, it will append the value onto the end of the list. If two devices attempt this at the same time, both will be added (instead of one being lost).
• RemoveFirst: This function instructs Firebase to remove the first element of the list pointed to by “tag”. It is returned in the new Event “FirstRemoved.”
• GetTagList: Useful when debugging. It gets a list of the known tags in your application. The list itself is returned as an argument to the “TagList” Event.
• ClearTag: This function takes a “tag” as argument and removes it from the Firebase system. It is analogous to TinyDB’s ClearTag function.
• Persist: New Designer only property. When set to “true” Firebase will keep track of changes when there is no internet connection, even when the App exists. Upon next invocation, if there is an Internet connection variable changes will be uploaded.

Firebase remains an experimental feature.

App Inventor Extensions

This is the first public release of MIT App Inventor that supports “extension” components written by users in Java. Extensions are built using the App Inventor sources and are packaged into “.aix” files. “.aix” files can then be added to projects to add functionality.

Limitations

Currently only non-visible components may be added. Apps with extensions loaded may not be uploaded to the App Inventor Gallery

New Components

BluetoothLE

New BluetoothLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) Component: This component is actually our first official release of an MIT App Inventor supported extension. It is available for download from the following site. MIT App Inventor Extensions.

This extension supports a new protocol similar to classic Bluetooth except that it is designed to consume less power while maintaining comparable functionality. For this reason, Bluetooth LE is the preferred choice of communication with IoT (Internet of Things) devices that have limited power resources. We are currently in the process of creating a new page on our website that will provide documention, tutorials and other materials to help use and understand the new possibilities that this new component. A draft of this page can be found here: BluetoothLE Documentation and Resources

(This component was in part made possible by a grant given by the University Program Office at Intel Corporation.)

Pedometer

New Pedometer Component: This component uses the accelerometer to determine the number of steps taken while walking with a device.

LEGO Mindstorms® EV3

A new set of components that allow users to now work with the new EV3 based LEGO Mindstorm® kits.

Other

• The system is now based on Android SDK 5.1.1: However we still support devices back to Android 2.2 (though not all features of App Inventor will work with all versions of Android)
• Listview Update: Font size scales properly in “Responsive” mode.
• Labels can now contain a limited subset of HTML as well as text. Check the “HTMLFormat” designer property to enable this feature.
• Bugfixes and Documentation fixes