New Release of MIT App Inventor Expected on Thursday

May 22, 2017 jeff's Blog

On Thursday evening (Eastern United States Time) we will be deploying a new release of MIT App Inventor (version nb156).

This is a non-component release, which means that there is no new version of the MIT AI2 Companion to download or update. The major change is a significant upgrade of our Blocks Editor.

You are welcome to test the new blocks editor on our test system. To learn more about testing Read this Blog post.

Updates

1. Added the ability to zoom the workspace in/out. Zooming gestures include:
   • Click the +/- buttons in the lower left corner above the trashcan.
   • Ctrl+Mouse wheel on a mouse.
   • Multi-touch trackpad users with Chrome, zooming can also be done with the pinch/expand gesture.
2. Added the ability to pan the workspace. Panning gestures include:
   • Mouse wheel up/down will pan the view vertical.
   • Wheels with 2-dimensional scrolling can also pan left/right.
   • Multi-touch trackpad users can pan in two dimensions using two-finger scrolling.
3. Added Reset to center button will set the zoom back to 1:1 and move to the center of the blocks workspace.
4. Added workspace grid. Right-clicking (Ctrl+Click on Mac) on the workspace brings up a context menu with "Enable Workspace Grid" option. This option is a user setting and will persist across workspaces and across App Inventor sessions.
5. Added workspace snapping. If the grid is enabled, another menu option "Enable Snap to Grid" will be available. Enabling this option will make the top-left corner of blocks snap to the nearest grid point. This option is a user setting and will persist across workspaces and across App Inventor sessions.