New Release: Screen arrangements, resizable video, and more

Sep 13, 2012 shay's Blog

Announcing the newest App Inventor release! Version 129 is now live. In addition to a few bug fixes and minor User Interface improvements, here are the exciting new features:

1. Resize-able and Full Screen Video support. You can now resize an existing Video Player component from the blocks editor. In Android 2.0+ you can set a Video Player to use the entire phone's screen. The key will restore it to its original size. The VideoWall tutorial is a good place to start to check this out!
2. Horizontal and Vertical Arrangements can now align their contents. Arrangements and Screens can now align their contents along Left, Right, Center, Top and Bottom edges. NOTE: These settings have no effect if the arrangement size is set to automatic. The vertical setting has no effect if the screen is scrollable.
3. Canvas and Sprite Improvements. The new events "Flung", "TouchUP" and "TouchDown" have been added to Sprites and Canvases.
   • Flung: When a user touches a Sprite and then quickly swipes their finger in some direction, a "Flung" event is issued for the Sprite which gives the direction and speed of the swipe. This can be used to determine the direction and relative speed to move a Sprite. Canvases also receive a Flung event so a user can perform the swiping (Fling) motion anywhere on a Canvas and the MIT App Inventor programmer can decide how to handle it.
   • TouchDown/TouchUp: When a user places their finger on a Sprite, a TouchDown event is now triggered. When they lift their finger a TouchUP event is triggered. These events are in addition to the existing "Touched" event.
4. New screen orientation settings: (1) User (let's the app's user select portrait or landscape; and (2) Sensor (auto-rotates as the phone rotates)

Tutorials corresponding to these new features are coming soon so stay tuned. H*app*y Inventing!