BUILD
The materials here supplement the “Meet My Classmates” app in chapter 5 of Drag and Drop Code with Thunkable. The chapter refers to a Google sheet at bit.ly/ThunkClassRoster. You should make your own sheet, just be sure to have the same exact column headings as in the sample sheet.
In the following video series, Professor Wolber “appifies” a spreadsheet similar to the one in the “Meet my Classmates” app:
- Build an app from a spreadsheet, intro
- Connect an app to a spreadsheet
- Build an info screen to display the data for a particular spreadsheet row
- Event handlers, variables, and remixing the spreadsheet app
- Add an input form to your spreadsheet app, intro
- Add an input form to your spreadsheet
The following lessons go beyond chapter 5 and illustrate filtering and processing data in a spreadsheet:
Adding the numbers in a spreadsheet column (find the average rating)
- Add up the numbers in a column of a spreadsheet (e.g., user ratings)
- Find the average rating of a column of ratings
- Filter: find the average rating for a particular artist
Filter Data in a Spreadsheet: Foreign film Oscar Winner App
- Filter data in a spreadsheet, intro
- Code it: Show only Italian winners of foreign film oscars
- Show either all films or only Italian ones: user choice
- Show recent entries first
Storing data in a private Thunkable-based spreadsheet
CONCEPTUALIZE
1. Could you reuse “MeetMyClassmates” for a different course without modifying the code? Could you reuse the trivia app of Chapter 4 for a different quiz without modifying the code? Explain your answer, and explain the importance of separating code from data in general.
2. The spreadsheet used in this chapter had columns for name, description, and pic, but one could argue that the sheet has 4, not 3, columns. Explain.
3. Why doesn’t it make sense to add 1 to a row id from the spreadsheet?
CUSTOMIZE
1. Add a column, “website” to the spreadsheet and provide a profile or some other web page about each person. Modify the app so that this field is displayed on the “ProfileScreen”. You can also make it linkable by using the open link block in the “Control” folder, or show it in an in- app browser using the WebViewer component.
2. Modify the app so that the name doesn’t appear immediately on the ProfileScreen, giving users a chance to test themselves on knowing their classmates’ names. Add a Button or Timer so that the name appears eventually.
CREATE
1. Create a trivia app with the questions and answers in a spreadsheet. Recode the Trivia app from Chapter 4 using a spreadsheet instead of list variables to hold your questions and answers. First, just get a slideshow showing each question to work.
The more challenging part is for the multiple choice. For the answer choices, put all the choices for a question into a single cell, separating the choices with a delimiter like “%”. Then use blocks from the “Text” folder to separate those choices after accessing them from the spreadsheet.
2. Create an informational app for your school or organization. Create a spreadsheet of information, or find an interesting one on the web, and “appify” it.
Share your creative apps with your authors and other Drag and Drop coders:
- Use #DragAndDropCode and #MadeWithThunkable on your social media platforms.