Hello everyone,
Google has announced the accepted projects for this year’s Summer of Code. In my role as lead software engineer, I just wanted to take a moment to highlight the projects that were selected. This year we had a record number of submissions and the finalists we narrowed the field down to were of very high quality. This year’s GSOC projects are:
- Android App Bundles (@Diego): Diego will be extending the App Inventor build system to support Android App Bundles. Besides making those pesky warnings in Google Play go away, app bundles allow your app to be made smaller during publishing by only sending relevant resources to devices.
- Designer Theme Preview (@Himani): Preview your app design on different versions of Android and iOS when the “Device Default” theme is selected.
- Enumeration Blocks (@BeksOmega): Rather than having to use integer values for certain properties, Beka will provide users new blocks that represent magic constants that can also be internationalized, making apps easier to understand across languages.
- Menus (@sara_singhal): Sara plans to implement support for menus, such as context menus and the floating action button, into App Inventor.
- Tab Arrangement (@jsuyash1514): Suyash will be working on implementing a tab arrangement to give a more modern user experience.
- Visual Component Extensions (@pavi2410): Pavitra will be working on an implementation of visual component extensions.
I also want to take a moment to especially thank @Franklyn_A_Turbak, @Mark_Friedman, and @elatoskinas for offering their time to mentor projects this year. Their expertise augments the capabilities of our core team to move the App Inventor platform forward and we are grateful for their generosity.
For more details on the projects for this year, see the Google Summer of Code site.
Cheers,
Evan W. Patton, Ph.D.
Lead Software Engineer, MIT App Inventor
