Heads up: Upcoming INCOMPATIBLE change with multiple screen apps and activity starter

[Hal Abelson]

We'll be doing a new system release in the next day or two.   This will cause an  incompatible change for some multiple screen apps and for some apps that use the activity starter.

If you've been making apps with multiple screens or using the activity starter with the current system, you may need to edit your blocks when you load your project into the system after the  release.

Here are the details:

In the current system, multiple screen apps can open new screens with values and return values, but only for text values.
In the new system, you can open new screens and return values that are lists, and return lists as values.

As a result of this change, multiple screen apps that use get-startup-text should now use get-startup-value.   If you load an app that used  a get- startup-text block, App Inventor will mark that  block as an error -- the block will be outlined in red -- and you'll need to change it to get-startup- value in order to proceed.

Similarly, the close-screen-with-result block  will need to be replaced by close-screen-with-value.

There's an analogous change needed for some apps that use the activity starter to pass values among activities.  The block get startup-text should be replaced by get-start-plain-text and the block close-screen-with-result should be replaced by close-screen-with-plain-text.

So watch for the new system release, and be prepared to modify your blocks.

We're sorry for the trouble.

==Hal
h...@mit.edu

[David Ahern]

For those of us following along via the source code will drops of MIT
jars be followed by updates to the mercurial repository? Are the two
related in any way in terms of releases?

David

> h...@mit.edu <mailto:h...@mit.edu>
>
>

[Dan]

Hi Hal, Is it possible to change my default Screen1, it's looking like I'm going to have to create a whole new version of my app from scratch just to be able to use the phones back button without closing the app.

[Gary Frederick]

Howdy Dan,

I am not Hal.

but

I was all excited when I saw a post here,

however...

You can ask in the ai4a group App Inventor for All - Google Groups

I'm getting our servers to use the Android tools to make apps that include App Inventor code. What you are asking is on the list to look into sooner or later.

Gary

App Inventor 4 ALL

[Taifun]

you also can use Tony's tool to copy your Screen1 to another screen...
https://groups.google.com/d/topic/ai4a/woJWmssfU4U/discussion
Taifun