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Showing posts with the label Sketchware

Create a forum or wall for your social media app

 In this tutorial we will cover how to create a forum or wall for our social media app. This will be slightly more complex than what we have covered so far. This will be your main activity feed and thus it is important to think deeply about what you want your users to see or experience. Building your layout I have created the following layout for the forum.  I started by dragging a linear H onto my layout Inside the linear h, I placed the following: I.) Imageview- this will hold the profile picture of the user II.) A linear V-  this will just be a place holder III.) imageview- this will reveal the options to add a new post IV.) Imageview- this will be our search button V. Edittext- this is where the user will type a search query VI. Imageview- this will clear and hide the search field Adding a Customview We will need to add a customview to determine how our wall posts will be displayed.  I have created my customview and given it the name "custom". It looks as shown below: Now

How to easily set Firebase Rules for your app

When building apps or websites, you might want to add a database where information is stored online so that users can easily access if from multiple locations. Google's Firebase platform allows you to do just that. It comes with a number of useful functions such as enabling user authentication, providing online storage, databases and even cloud messaging.  You can read this email to find out more on how you can connect your mobile app to firebase. Once you've set up your app and connected it to Firebase, you will need to control who or which of your users have access to specific parts of your database. This article will help you set rules and also highlight common mistakes which you should avoid. To set your Firebase rules, navigate to your Firebase Database Console and click the tabs section. This is shown in the images below: Navigate to the Firebase Realtime Database section. Navigate to Rules and select Edit rules By default you will find the following rule: { "rules&q

How to create a spinner list in Sketchware

As you create your app, you might want to present specific data in a spinner. This could be something like a choice of countries or currency options. This tutorial will show you how to: 1. Create a String list 2. Display data in a spinner Step 1. Create a new project and add a spinner widget. Simply drag it onto your project screen. If you have nothing on your screen it will look like it does in the picture below Once you have added the Spinner widget navigate to the onCreate event to set your spinner data. In your onCreate event create a String list. Simply follow the arrows. Some new blocks will appear. Place your blocks like I have done in the image below. You can replace the text with your own custom text. Simply click that white space and type your own list characters. Remember: If you're having trouble finding your blocks, simply use the colours to guide you. Place a setSpinnerData below your add blocks. Choose your spinner... in this case its spinner1 and our list string is

Building game apps in Sketchware

Last week I gave a tutorial on how to create a quiz app using Sketchware. Maybe you want to create a more complex game and that is possible using Sketchware. Today we will be looking at creating more complex games such as an endless runner, car racing or any animated game. You could even create a 3D game but that is of you can create the graphics.      The first step is deciding what kind of game you want to create. This starts with the objective of the game, how the user will earn points, the various levels as well as customizations and upgrades. Once you have the concept you can then start building your app. This tutorial will show you how to create a game app like the one in the video below. Still needs work but I hope you get the idea. What you will need For a simple game app, you will need the following:  1. A sprite sheet These are images of your various characters e.g. it can be a happy face, sad face, angry face and so on. If it's a runner, you can have them at rest and th