Laboratory 5 (No Texting While Driving App)

Introduction:

This unit walks you through the creation of No Texting While Driving, a “text
answering machine” app that auto-responds to text messages you receive while you’re
driving (or in the office, etc.), speaks text messages aloud, and even sends location
information as part of the automated text reply. The app demonstrates how you can
control some of the great features of an Android phone, including SMS texting, text-to-
speech, persistent data, and GPS location sensing.

Lecture Note Outcomes:

The lecture note covers the following topics:

1. The Texting component for sending texts and processing received texts.
2. An input form for submitting the custom response message.
3. The TinyDB database component for saving the customized message even after
the app is closed.
4. The Screen.Initialize event for loading the custom response when the app
launches.
5. The TextToSpeech component for speaking texts aloud.
6. The LocationSensor component for reporting the driver’s current location.

Materials

• Mobile phone, tablet, PC, Laptop

• Browser
Procedures
1. Getting Stated
Open your browser to the App Inventor website and start a new project. Name it
“NoTextingWhileDriving” (remember, project names can’t have spaces) and set the
screen’s title to “No Texting While Driving”. Then, click Connect and set up live testing on
your device or the emulator.

2. Designing the Components

The user interface for the app is relatively simple: it has a label instructing the user
how the app works, a label that displays the text that is to be automatically sent in
response to incoming texts, a text box for changing the response, and a button for
submitting the change. You’ll also need to drag in a Texting component, a TinyDB
component, a TextToSpeech component, and a LocationSensor component, all of which
will appear in the “Non-visible components” area.

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 Component Type Palette Group What you’ll name it Purpose
Label User Interface PromptLabel Let user know the App
works
Label User Interface ResponseLabel The response that will
be sent back to the
sender
TextBox User Interface newResponseTextBox The user will enter the
custom response here
Button User Interface SubmitResponseButton The user clicks this
submit response
Texting Social Texting1 Process the texts
TinyDB Storage TinyDB1 Store the response in
the Database
TextToSpeech Media TextToSpeech1 Speak the text aloud
LocationSensor Sensor LocationSensor1 Sense where the
device is
All of the components for the No Texting App

Set the properties of the components in the following way:

1) Set the Text of PromptLabel to “The text below will be sent in response to all
SMS texts received while this app is running.”
2) Set the Text of ResponseLabel to “I’m driving right now, I’ll contact you shortly.”
Check its boldness property.
3) Set the Text of NewResponseTextbox to “ ”. (This leaves the text box blank for
the user’s input.)
4) Set the Hint of NewResponseTextbox to “Enter new response text”.
5) Set the Text of SubmitResponseButton to “Modify Response”.

3. Adding Behaviors to the Components

You’ll start by programming the autoresponse behavior in which a text reply is sent
to any incoming text. You’ll then add blocks so that the user can specify a custom
response and save that response persistently. Finally, you’ll add blocks that read the
incoming texts aloud and add location information to the auto-response texts.

1) Auto-response to a Text

For the auto-response behavior, you’ll use App Inventor’s Texting

component. You can think of this component as a little person inside your phone
who knows how to read and write texts. For reading texts, the component provides
a Texting.MessageReceived event block. You can drag this block out and place
blocks inside it to show what should happen when a text is received. In the case
of this app, we want to automatically send back a text in response. You can send
a text with three blocks. First, you set the phone number to which the text should

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 be sent, which is a property of the Texting1 component. Next, you set the message
to be sent, also a property of Texting1. Finally, you actually send the text with the
Texting1.SendMessage block.

The blocks for sending an auto-response

2) Entering Custom Response

Next, let’s add blocks so the user can enter her own custom response. In
the Component Designer, you added a TextBox component named
NewResponseTextbox; this is where the user will type the custom response. When
the user clicks on the SubmitResponseButton, you need to copy the entry
(NewResponseTextbox) into the ResponseLabel, which is used to respond to
texts.

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Blocks for displaying the custom response

4. Storing the Custom Response Persistently

Your user can now customize the auto-response, but there is one catch: if the user
enters a custom response and then closes the app and relaunches it, the custom
response will not appear (instead, the default response will). This behavior is not what
your users will expect; they’ll want to see the custom response they entered when they
restart the app. To make this happen, you need to store that custom response
persistently. Placing data in the ResponseLabel.Text property is technically storing it, but
the issue is that data stored in component properties is transient data. Transient data is
like your short-term memory; the phone “forgets” it as soon as an app close. If you want
your app to remember something persistently, you have to transfer it from short-term
memory (a component property or variable) to long-term memory. To store data
persistently in App Inventor, you use the TinyDB component, which stores data in a table
on the Android device. TinyDB provides two functions: StoreValue and GetValue. With

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the former, the app can store information in the device’s database, whereas with the latter,
the app can retrieve information that has already been stored.

For many apps, you’ll use the following scheme:

1) Store data to the database each time the user submits a new value.
2) When the app launches, load the data from the database into a variable or
property.

Blocks for Storing the custom response with TinyDB

5. Retrieving the Custom Response When the App Opens

The reason for storing the custom response in the database is so that it can be
loaded back into the app the next time the user opens it. App Inventor provides a special
event block that is triggered when the app opens: Screen1.Initialize. If you drag this event
block out and place blocks in it, those blocks will be executed immediately when the app
launches. For this app, your Screen1.Initialize event handler will load the custom
response from the database by using the TinyDB.GetValue function.

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Blocks for loading the date back in when the app is opened

6. Speaking the Incoming Texts Aloud

In this section, you’ll modify the app so that when you receive a text, the sender’s
phone number, along with the message, is spoken aloud. The idea here is that when
you’re driving and hear a text come in, you might be tempted to check the text even if you
know the app is sending an auto-response. With text-to-speech, you can hear the
incoming texts and keep your hands on the wheel. Android devices provide text-to-speech
capabilities, and App Inventor provides a component, TextToSpeech, that will speak any
text you give it. Note that the “Text” in TextToSpeech refers to a sequence of letters,
digits, and punctuation, not an SMS text. The TextToSpeech component is very simple

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to use. You just call its Speak function and plug in the text that you want spoken into its
message slot.

For the No Texting While Driving app, you’ll need to provide a more complicated
message to be spoken, one that includes both the text received and the phone number
of the person who sent it. Instead of plugging in a static text object such as the “Hello
World” text block, you’ll plug in a join block. A commonly used function, join, makes it
possible for you to combine separate pieces of text (or numbers and other characters)
into a single text object.

You’ll need to make the call to TextToSpeech.Speak within the

Texting.MessageReceived event handler you programmed earlier. The blocks you
programmed previously handle this event by setting the PhoneNumber and Message
properties of the Texting component appropriately and then sending the response text.

Blocks for Speaking the incoming text aloud

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 7. Adding Location Response

Check-In apps help people track one another’s location. There are major privacy
concerns with such apps, one reason being that location tracking kindles people’s fear of
a “Big Brother” apparatus that a totalitarian government might set up to track its citizens’
whereabouts. But apps that use location information can be quite useful. Think of a lost
child, or hikers who’ve gone on the trail in the woods. In the No Texting While Driving app,
you can use location tracking to convey a bit more information in the auto-response to
incoming texts. Instead of just “I’m driving,” the response message can be something like,
“I’m driving and I’m currently at 3413 Cherry Avenue.” For someone awaiting the arrival
of a friend or family member, this extra information can be helpful. App Inventor provides
the LocationSensor component for interfacing with the phone’s GPS (or Global
Positioning System). Besides latitude and longitude information, the LocationSensor can
also tap into Google Maps to provide the driver’s currrent street address. It’s important to
note that LocationSensor doesn’t always have a reading. For this reason, you need to
take care to use the component properly. Speci„ cally, your app should respond to the
LocationSensor.LocationChanged event handler. A Location.Changed event occurs
when the phone’s location sensor first gets a reading, and when the phone is moved to
generate a new reading.

Block Type Drawer Purpose

initialize global variable Variables Create a variable to hold
(“lastKnownLocation”) the last read address.
text (“unknown” Text Set the default value in
case the phone’s sensor is
not working.
LocationSensor1.Location LocationSensor1 This is triggered on the
Changed first location reading and
every location change.
set global Drag from initialize global Set this variable to be
lastKnownLocation block used later.
LocationSensor1.CurrentAd LocationSensor1 This is a street address
dress such as “2222 Willard
Street, Atlanta, Georgia.”
Blocks to set up the Location sensor

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 8. Sending the Location as Part of the Response

Using the variable lastKnownLocation, you can modify the

Texting1.MessageReceived event handler to add location information to the response.

Blocks to display location information in the auto-response

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Individual Activity

(Final answer must be saved in .PDF format)

Discuss the following:

1. What is the function of Texting component?

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2. What is the role of TinyDB in App Inventor?

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3. How to use a Location sensor in App Inventor?

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4. Why we always declare our location Global?

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Laboratory Activity

Create a project by using the following App Inventor Components:

• Texting
• TinyDB
• Location Sensor
• Text To Speech

Instructions:

1. Project name will follow a given Format (Lastname_Lab5), example Narte_Lab5

2. Design your own App based on a given components and sample Laboratory.
3. Apply your creativity on this Project.
4. Once done, submit/upload the following:
• The .apk and .aia files of the Project.

Instructor grading Criteria

• Used all the required Components - 40%

• Concepts and Designs - 30%
• Functionality and Usability - 30%

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