Something great is brewing in the App Inventor Lab.
Absolute arrangement:
Adds a new arrangement that allows for positioning visible components anywhere on the screen, like the Canvas allows for sprites. Each component gains X, Y, and Z coordinates, which can be adjusted in both the designer and the blocks. Positioning can be done using absolute pixels or percentages.
It is still in the testing fase but i can show you a little what you can do with it.
What do you think? Will it help you design your screen like you want? Is it better then Horizontal and Vertical arrangements?
Not trying to be the contrarian on everything, but…
I think this will make people without a basic knowledge of UI design who doesn’t realize the Android world is an ocean of different screen sizes, to build even uglier apps, because the components will be all over the screen without some proper aligning and… yes. It will be a mess if you don’t use some calculations to position the components right.
The current system seems restrictive in the beginning, but with time and experience you realize it’s the best way to create screens that will work on ANY device, no matter its screen size.
This new arrangement will be great for some designs or special cases but I don’t really see any practical application that will give any advantage over the old way
Can you please explain why this will help you better than the old way of placing components?
Honest question here, I want to know some examples for when we need to recommend this method instead of the old one.
I understand what you mean. Let’s see what the future brings. What you could do inside this arrangement is for instance switch components from position, let a button flow from left to right and back. Things you could only do on a canvas can now be done in this arrangement.
I see it as a great way to stack layouts over each other.
You can have two horizontal arrangements which fill the parent’s dimensions and place them both at (0, 0).
That’ll let users make different layers in their apps while not radically changing how UI elements are placed.
Ok, it’s another option, and options are always good. But I still think it will be a little misused by people who is starting in app development because they find the regular placement very restrictive and hard to grasp in the beginning. The cases you are mentioning will be mostly used by more advanced users.
I still remember when I started, I felt the same way and wanting to place the button exactly where I wanted it! I’m very thankful we didn’t have this arrangement back then, otherwise I wouldn’t probably got acquainted with it enough to understand how good it is.
Now I can see this would be the best way to create overlays, by placing first a “master” absolute arrangement in the back, then a regular arrangement in it filling it whole, and if I need an overlay, like a custom notification, a pop up window, etc, then I just have to calculate the coordinates and boom! There it is in front of everything! That is cool actually!
I was just thinking if it would be possible to slide an arrangement into view. You can use an absolute arrangement with a width of for instance 2000 pixels slide an horizontal arrangement in using these blocks.
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