Help test nb201

ewpatton · March 19, 2025, 4:17pm

Hello everyone,

We have been working on nb201 and the release candidate is now on ai2-test.appinventor.mit.edu for testing. Below is a list of new features and bug fixes. This is a components release and so new features will require an updated Android companion app (iOS app to follow). You can get the updated companion via the Help > Companion Information dialog.

New Features:

Implement better support for the ListView in the designer (@patryk84a)
Implement ability to move folders of projects to trash
Rename TextSize property to FontSize for consistency with other components (@patryk84a)
Add Custom URL option to use alternative tile servers in Map component (@petersmythe)
Add Absolute Arrangement component to allow arbitrary placement of view components (@ObadaAL)
Add property to control axis label color in Chart (@ghu999)
Add property to control label format in Chart (dates, times, decimals, integers) (@adirn26)
Add property to control data label color in ChartData2D (@ghu999)
Add methods to LocationSensor to asynchronously geocode/reverse geocode (@ghu999)
Add a @UsesXml annotation for extension developers (@patryk84a)

Bug fixes:

Prevent autoloading a project when showing the UI picker
Improve error handling in the Spreadsheet component
Detect and handle unavailable extensions in dragged PNGs (@d1vyanshu-kumar)
Fix copy and paste in the designer
Fix some sizing issues in CSS
Make Blockly controls high contrast
Fix expired service overlay not appearing in Neo UI
Fix an error in the Japanese translation that prevented the dictionary block drawer opening
Add error message about extensions when publishing to gallery (@arinmodi)
Fix element margins in ListView (@patryk84a)
Fix warning icon color in block editor (@patryk84a)
Fix an issue where entries could not be removed from pie charts
Fix an issue where a null message in an error could result in the app crashing (@XomaDev)
Fix an issue where mutator bubbles would stick around and become unusable
Fix an issue where procedures would always be called "procedure" in the backpack
Fix an issue where pressing the delete key in the mutator would result in the original block being deleted
Fix an issue where project settings were saved more frequently than needed

Internal Changes:

Improve sections of the README for new developers
Allow for binary projects in repo URLs
Fix Blockly 10 builds on Windows
Implement support for hosting App Inventor without backend services

As of April 1, the following changes are also live on ai2-test:

Fix an issue with the Texting component receiving notifications on Android 14 (@XomaDev)
Fix issues with the mock ListView in Neo interface (@patryk84a)
Fix an issue where the blocks workspace thought it was visible, preventing copy operations in the designer
Implement new features for Slider (@patryk84a) [Android only at the moment]
Fix an issue with adding Labels to AbsoluteArrangement
Fix an issue where the delete key in the mutator would delete the parent block rather than the a focused mutator block
Fix margins in the ListView (@patryk84a)
Improve logic for copy and paste in the TableArrangement
Fix an issue where projects.properties was saved on every project load even though nothing had changed
Neo is now the default UI, but new users or returning users from before the new UI rolled out will still be prompted to pick one

Cheers,
Evan W. Patton, Ph.D.
Lead Software Engineer, MIT App Inventor

Patryk_F · March 19, 2025, 7:30pm

ListView in the designer in UI Neo may display incorrectly because the latest fix for neo.css is not added here.

ewpatton · March 19, 2025, 7:40pm

Right, that was merged after we started building the release candidate. It will be included in the next update of ai2-test.

ewpatton · March 20, 2025, 12:31am

ai2-test has been updated again with the following bug fixes:

Fix css for MockListView in Neo UI (@patryk84a)
Fix an issue where components were not copyable after opening a project
Improve the logic for pasting components into a table arrangement (@AKandAK)

White_Tiger · March 20, 2025, 6:15am

Sometime adding more list items doesn't increase block list

Patryk_F · March 20, 2025, 6:38am

I managed to break the list block.

Kevinkun · March 20, 2025, 6:58am

got this error when trying to add second component in Absolute arrangement:

ABG · March 20, 2025, 2:49pm

The Unwanted Nudge is still there.

Switching from Designer to Blocks Editor in Classic view causes the window to nudge itself when the cursor crosses into the Blocks Workspace.
The Unwanted Nudge

ewpatton · March 20, 2025, 2:52pm

What are the dimensions of the browser window?

ewpatton · March 20, 2025, 2:57pm

Do you happen to recall what you did to get into that state?

SteveJG · March 20, 2025, 3:08pm

An example would be helpful to help test this new feature.

I assume this link of posted tile server urls to various tile sets will allow me to access

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Raster_tile_providers

links. Is that true? I hope to try this later today.

Otherwise I would have to create a tile set and access it on my own server or get a world map tile set (as described at https://openmaptiles.org/ for example) and load the tiles on my own server.

Or I could create the tile set using advice here Creating your own tiles - OpenStreetMap Wiki

ewpatton · March 20, 2025, 3:10pm

You should be able to use any tile server that accepts the x, y, and z coordinates based on WebMercator (like the OSM tile server). You provide {x}, {y} and {z} in the URL and the map component will substitute in the actual values.