Run your MIT App Inventor projects on (nearly) any operating system!
This tool is in an early development phase, see the disclaimer below.
xaif.mp4
You will only need to have Flutter installed (https://docs.flutter.dev/get-started/install).
Flutter is an open-source cross-platform app development framework. This tool is built with Flutter, but more importantly this tool will transpile your app into an (intermediate) Flutter app, that can then be compiled for different operating systems.
Important: you will not need to actually write any Flutter code yourself, you just need to have Flutter installed so xaif can use it under the hood.
Also important: you only need to install Flutter (and possibly other dependencies) on your development machine. Any executables you build can be installed/run on other devices without installing additional dependencies. (Just like you can distribute your apk).
Basic Flutter setup: Please follow Flutter's installation guide (
depending on your computer's operating system). You will need to complete the "Get the Flutter SDK" step
Advanced, platform-specific Flutter setup: Flutter's setup guides will include additional setup steps (e.g. "Android
setup", "Web setup"). You only need to complete these steps if you want to later compile your app for the respective
platforms.
(For example, if you want to compile your app into a web app, you need to complete the "Web setup" step).
After installing Flutter Make sure that Flutter is correctly set up by running flutter doctor in a shell.
Please note that xaif has only undergone (limited) testing on Windows and Linux (Ubuntu). It should in theory also work on macOS, but this hasn't been tested, yet.
To get xaif, you have two recommended options (plus one other fallback option).
Choose one:
- Either clone this repository with git or download it as a zip-file from GitHub (green button titled "Code")
and unzip it to any location.
- Then open a shell in the location where you cloned/unzipped the repository and run
flutter run -d windows(if your computer is running Windows)
orflutter run -d linux(if your computer is running Linux)
orflutter run -d macos(if your computer is running macOS).
(This first approach will require you to have followed not only the "Basic Flutter setup", but also the additional setup steps for your computer's operating system in the Flutter installation guide. So if you want to run xaif with this approach, you need to also follow the
"Windows setup" step in the Flutter Windows installation guide if your computer is running Windows,
or the "Linux setup" step in the Flutter Linux installation guide if your computer is running Linux,
or the "macOS setup" step in the Flutter Linux installation guide if your computer is running macOS.)
Alternatively, you can download and run prebuilt binaries of xaif from the CI. They are available from
the releases page (as Assets) or
from any successful CI Workflow run
(as artifacts).
For this approach you only need to complete the basic Flutter installation!
This has serious limitations, and it is recommended that you use one of the first two approaches, if
possible
You can go to https://m0nac0.github.io/xaif and test a web demo of xaif. This should only be used as a quick demo.
It does not require you to install anything.
- Export your project from App Inventor as an AIA file.
- After starting xaif, select a location for the new project directory and your AIA-file.
- xaif will now create a new project folder in your chosen location. Then it transpiles the code (and assets) from the
AIA-file to Flutter code and writes them to the new project directory.
- Afterwards you are presented with multiple different options to review the generated Flutter code, run your app on different devices or build executables for different platforms (operating systems).
The run options are a good choice to quickly test your app on different "devices" (somewhat similar to App Inventor's Companion), while building your app results in an executable file (or directory of multiple files), like an APK for Android.
While your app is running, you can also update the project by selecting a new AIA file (new version of your app). Any running instances of your app should update nearly instantly (for web apps, you'll need to reload the page).
After you have built an executable you can also launch it (or manually copy it from the project directory to store it).
(Under the hood, this uses Flutter's functionality for compiling and running apps.)
-
Please note that your operating system may at any time delete temporary files, including the project directories created by xaif if you choose your system's temporary files directory as the location of the project directory. If you want to back up the project directory, simply copy it to another location (you can see the location of the project directory in xaif).
-
Every time you launch xaif, a new project directory is created. If you want to use xaif for different projects, it is recommended to close and reopen xaif to actually create a new project directory (otherwise the files from the old project are overwritten).
-
xaif does not delete its project directory, unless you explicitly tell it to. If you want to save storage space you should delete project directories that you don't need any longer.
Depending on your computer's operating system, the choice of target platforms (= the operating systems for which you can compile your project) will vary. For example, if you are on a Windows computer, you won't be able to compile your app for iOS.
If you want to build your app for windows (build an exe-file) you may need to
a) Turn on developer mode on your Windows machine (recommended by the Flutter team)
b) OR go to the project directory once (path is displayed in the tool), open a command prompt as admin and run
flutter build windows
The reason is that this tool uses Flutter plugins for many components, and Flutter cannot (at this time) build windows executables with plugins if developer mode is not turned on (or the build has not been run as admin).
It is (as always) your responsibility to review the code generated by this tool and decide if you are comfortable building it in an admin shell!
- Only single-screen apps supported
- Some special Screen1-properties not supported
- e.g. only Material Theme is supported
- Control: complete, except blocks related to dictionaries and multi-screen
- Logic: (mostly) complete
- Math: (mostly) complete
- Text: (mostly) complete
- Lists: complete, except lists_to_csv_table,lists_from_csv_table, lists_lookup_in_pairs
- Dictionaries: (mostly) complete, except advanced methods
- Color: (mostly) complete
- Variables: complete
- Procedures: complete
- UI: complete except WebViewer & possibly some attributes on some components.
- Layout: complete (Change: TableArrangement is scrollable)
- Media: only Camera, Camcorder, ImagePicker, Player, VideoPlayer
- Completed event does not fire for Player, VideoPlayer
- VideoPlayer only supported on Android/iOS/web and only supports network files (http:// or https:// URLs)
- Drawing/Animation: none
- Maps: none
- Sensors: only Clock (Timer never fires while app is in the background)
- Social: Sharing, Texting and PhoneCall (but no direct messages/calls; no intercepting of messages/calls)
- Storage: complete, except CloudDB
- File does not have functionality for Delete, Append, LegacyMode
- NB TinyWebDB may not work correctly in web browsers, if the used web service does not run on https (like the default one)
- Connectivity: only Web (no sending/saving files, no cookies, no header/timeout control, no decoding with dictionaries)
- Mindstorms: none (will not implement due to lack of Mindstorms equipment)
- Experimental: none
- Extensions: not yet supported
Depending on which components your app uses, (the code generated by) xaif may use different Flutter plugins. You should make sure that you obey all licenses of these plugins and of Flutter. To help with that, this tool will add an "About" entry to the AppBar's overflow menu ("three dot menu"), that opens an about dialog. That dialog contains information about this tool, about your app and the option to open a licenses page with some information about all plugins and their licenses (generated automatically by Flutter).
If you have any feedback, or encounter any issues running your project, please let me know by opening an issue or discussion!
This tool is in an early development phase and not exhaustively tested.
It is your responsibility to check the code generated by this tool and use this tool with caution.
Please check the LICENSE file, and especially note the following parts of the LICENSE:
- Disclaimer of Warranty.
THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
- Limitation of Liability.
IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MODIFIES AND/OR CONVEYS THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
(Where possible) it is always advisable to review code you are running, which includes code generated by this tool.
In addition to all the above, you should only use this tool with AIA-files that you trust. I cannot exclude with certainty that it may in some cases be possible for an attacker to insert malicious Dart code into the generated Dart code, if you use a malicious AIA-file from an attacker.
A huge thank you to the team at MIT App Inventor, for creating, maintaining and continuously improving the App Inventor, which I consider one of the greatest tools to teach programming and app development!
And similarly thank you to the Flutter team for creating their great cross-platform app development framework!