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My tips for developing with App Inventor

They also apply for other languages

DRY

Don’t Repeat Yourself. You’ll end up doing stuff multiple times. If you have the exact same blocks multiple times, move them into a procedure. Make use of the AnyComponent blocks

Planning is key

Think before you make your app. Some issues can be solved with planning

Make the app look nice

After you have developed the functionality, spend some time on the user interface. A simple app that has a beatiful, intuitive UI is much nicer than a complicated ugly one.

Documentation helps you

Write down what your functions are doing and how your data is structured

Debugging

Bugs happen at some point. Right click in the blocks editor and then “Do it” to inspect your app in companion mode. To solve problems when the app is installed, use the Log function of the Notifier component. You can log start and end of a function to see what has changed or you can output the values of important variables at meaningful states of the app.