How do I create an asc file?

karl_thomas · November 28, 2021, 11:37pm

Hello,
how is it possible to make an asc file from an aia to directly import a project in app inventor ?
when i click on this link :
http://appinventor.mit.edu/yrtoolkit/yr/aiaFiles/PICaboo/PICaboo_Starter.asc
it automatically import the file in app inventor.
i'm teacher and i would like to give some link like this to directly import the file in app inventor for my students.
Thanks a lot

ABG · November 28, 2021, 11:50pm

To make your project available to your students, store your Project in the Gallery, and send your students the Gallery link.

For example, here is a Gallery link to one of my demo projects ...
http://ai2.appinventor.mit.edu/?galleryId=5597402344980480

karl_thomas · November 29, 2021, 12:10am

Thanks a lot for you're reply.
you're methode is very good and easy to use.
during that time i've found this methode :
https://github.com/mit-cml/yrtoolkit
but this one is more technique.

ABG · November 29, 2021, 2:38pm

Thanks for the yrtoolkit link.
I haven't seen any references to it on this board.

It looks like it needs MIT authorization to work, and as you said, it is a heavy investment to get running.

The Gallery is easy, and combined with a Google Doc file for a project or a github Readme file with Downloaded Blocks Images for version control, is faster to learn.

The Gallery also has facilities to restrict content access to students, though I haven't used those yet.

SRIKAR_B.S.S · December 2, 2021, 12:46pm

Hi

May I know what is this repo. for?

And how is it useful for anyone?

TIMAI2 · December 2, 2021, 1:30pm

Most of us read the documentation....

github.com

mit-cml/yrtoolkit/blob/master/README.md

# MIT App Inventor Sidebar Tutorials

This toolkit was developed as part of the Youth Radio "Youth Mobile Power" grant. As such, much of this documentation refers to the toolkit as the "yrtoolkit" - however, this can (and is used) in many non-Youth Radio App Inventor implementations. Depending on your implementation, some of the commands may have slightly different names.

## Setup

Need:

* git 2.11 or later
* ruby 2.6
* bundler 2.0.1

1. Clone the repository:

        git clone git@github.com:mit-cml/yrtoolkit.git
        cd yrtoolkit

2. Install dependencies:

        bundle install --path vendor/bundle

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SRIKAR_B.S.S · December 2, 2021, 1:33pm

I am one of you too because I too read but I didn't understand:
For what that "toolkit" was used for

TIMAI2 · December 2, 2021, 1:41pm

If you load up one of the yr tutorials you will see how it works.

SteveJG · December 2, 2021, 1:47pm

The documentation for the yrtoolkit is difficult to read and understand for me too. It took a careful readying to understand what it is about.

The yrtookit is a method to add tutorials to a Project.

A developer supposedly can make a Project that includes a tutorial in the aia; something like the Awesome Dancing with AI Tutorial tutorial. The link downloads the Project to your Designer.

Does this explanation help Srikar?

TIMAI2 · December 2, 2021, 1:51pm

Also, it can only be used if all the materials are hosted on MIT pages/servers, something we cannot do.

SRIKAR_B.S.S · December 2, 2021, 1:56pm

Yes, Thanks @SteveJG

ABG · December 2, 2021, 3:34pm

These links might help:

Using App Inventor Templates and Creating App Inventor Template Repositories

from the Documentation section of
http://appinventor.mit.edu/explore/library

We can finally learn what an asc file is.

karl_thomas · December 9, 2021, 8:02pm

with yrtoolkit you could also make this :
with the python script in this folder :https://github.com/mit-cml/yrtoolkit/tree/master/yr/aiaFiles
you can convert an .aia in .asc
like this you could put the asc file on a website and make a link like this : http://ai2.appinventor.mit.edu/?locale=fr&repo=http://appinventor.mit.edu/yrtoolkit/yr/aiaFiles/PICaboo/PICaboo_Starter.asc
who import directly the file in app inventor.

ewpatton · December 9, 2021, 8:59pm

There are two things that seem to be conflated here but are independent features.

The first is the ability to import a project into App Inventor via the repo parameter. The repo parameter must be a URL-encoded URL to a base64 encoded AIA file with the filename ending in .asc. The server hosting the file must provide CORS headers that allow ai2.appinventor.mit.edu and code.appinventor.mit.edu to retrieve the file. Pages served using GitHub Pages do this, which is one reason why we host the .asc files in the yrtoolkit repository. However, can certainly set up your own GitHub repository and use the same technique. Even easier, you can put your AIA files in GitHub pages and provide links to the AIAs. You can drag and drop the link into the App Inventor project list to open it (this feature also works with AIAs hosted on this community site, for example).

The second feature here is the embedding of tutorials, which yrtoolkit projects use to give step by step guidance to students. For security reasons, tutorials are only loaded from an allowed list of sites controlled by MIT. The tutorial framework includes some capabilities such as opening an image in an App Inventor dialog from the nested tutorial page, but otherwise they are HTML pages with some extra Javascript to provide pagination of the tutorials.