So guys, an idea striked my mind today. As far as I know the structure of mit appinventor, after we drag components and do our code in blocks, it creates files needed for compilation of the app like android manifest, java files, XML files, assets files. So, I thought if there was a third option in appinventor to export project as Android studio project zip file. So @ewpatton sir please tell me if this is possible.
Note : I tried appinventor java bridge but it was buggy, couldn't give javas of some projects sometimes probably because of errors and also only javas were there, no XML or other files
This can be Implemented and Components source code will be visible and the source code(Screen's code) will not be readable. As all the blocks run in Screens but your app can still be compiled as a APK in Android Studio Also, If the users uses any extension then, the extension will also decompiled and Extension Developers may not allow. And important thing that there is no builder who can make their component's source code visible except Appinventor(as Appinventor is already a Open Source Builder). And I don't think that you are making apps in Appinventor.
At all , There is very less chances to implemented this
Hard to provide an answer to a question you don't understand. Best way to figure it out would be look at the source code if you can., otherwise kind of reminds me of a blackbox problem.
That said, Trends seem to strongly indicate that "Visual Programming" will overtake traditional coding for many areas in the not distant future.
So if it isn't possible, why not? I'd wager that this wasn't a design goal for app Inventor team. Code Generation with App Inventor COULD be a really cool new paradigm. Students and learners could see how their objects convert to actual code.
Here is some idle speculation re: APKs generated by App Inventor, Whether there is something like "middleware" that is attached to an app inventor "code/instructions" to make an APK is your 800lbs gorilla in the corner. If this is truly Java under the covers, then perhaps it would be possible to extract code. My guess is something else that more easily translates the blocks and shapes and such to code, and is understood and easily compiled (C/C++", Python, ????)
If the intermediary code is something else than standard code (again not sure but likely) that could make it problematic to translate outside of that context. APP Inventor native code with a launcher merged into an APK may be as straightforward as the process of running Python code by an interpreter. In fact the IDE would already have that capability. Probably existed before the IDE was constructed anyway in the prototype stages. All that would be needed is use it.
The intermediate code generation is in a language called YAIL, which is a Scheme with additional macros that provide a clean interface for the blocks to translate into. In the companion, this code is interpreted but in APKs it is compiled directly to Java bytecode before running through the normal Android build process.
The point of the Java bridge research project was to produce a version of App Inventor that could generate Java code rather than Scheme. However, I don't believe the results of that project were ever open sourced.
maybe you have to create separate buildserver for it.