Chapter 6. Paris Map Tour

In this chapter, you’ll build an app that lets you
create your own custom guide for a dream trip to Paris. And since a few
of your friends can’t join you, we’ll create a companion app that lets
them take a virtual tour of Paris as well. Creating a fully functioning
map app might seem really complicated, but App Inventor lets you use
the ActivityStarter
component to launch Google Maps for each virtual location.
First, you’ll build an app that launches maps for the Eiffel Tower, the
Louvre, and Notre Dame Cathedral with a single click. Then you’ll modify
the app to create a virtual tour of satellite maps that are also
available from Google Maps.
What You’ll Learn
This chapter introduces the following App Inventor components and concepts:
The
Activity Startercomponent for launching other Android apps from your app. You’ll use this component here to launch Google Maps with various parameters.The
ListPickercomponent for allowing the user to choose from a list of locations.
Designing the Components
Create a new project in App Inventor and call it “ParisMapTour”.
The user interface for the app has an Image component with a picture of Paris, a
Label component with some text, a
ListPicker component that comes
with an associated button, and an ActivityStarter (non-visible) component. You
can design the components using the snapshot in Figure 6-1.
Figure 6-1. TheParis Map ...