Creating Your Own TinyWeb Database Ball State University - CS116 - Ashley Swartz
1. First you will need to download Python 2.6. You can get that at this address http://python.org/download/ . You will
select which version for your OS that you will need. I will be using the following version for images. Python 2.6.4
Windows installer (Windows binary -- does not include source)
Select the appropriate link and save it to your desktop.
2. Double click the icon and tell it to run.
3. Install for all users.
4. By default it will just create its own directory for files, so let that be.
5. Click next again.
6. Python will now install.
7. Click finish.
Installing App Engine
8. Go to this page and download the App Engine SDK for your OS.
http://code.google.com/appengine/downloads.html
Save it to your desktop.
9. Double click the icon on your desktop and tell it to run.
10. Click next.
11. Accept the agreement and click next.
12. Oh look, click next again.
13. Click install and you should see the following screen.
14. Click finish.
Getting the WebDB files.
15. Now you will go to this page http://sites.google.com/site/appinventorhelp/tutorials/tinywebdb-demo and scroll
all the way to the bottom. Here you will find a file called TinyWebDBsupport.zip . Download this file to your desktop.
16. Go to your desktop, right mouse click, and select Extract all.
17. Click extract.
18. You should now see this folder on your desktop. Make a new folder wherever you would like on your computer
and name it after your app. You are now ready to get into the App Engine.
App Engine
21. Open up the Google App Engine.
22.Go to file -> Create New Application
23. Name the application after your app. In the parent directory browse for the folder you created for your app, select
only the main folder, and click ok. (Ignore the fact that there is an images folder already in the App folder.)
24. Your screen should now look like this. Click create.
25. Now you will need to have your app selected and you will click dashboard. This should bring up your web browser
where you will login to your gmail.
26. You will now be at this page where you will select create.
27. To create an app page, it wants to verify by SMS so enter your information and have it send a verification code to
your phone.
28. Type in the code.
29. You will now need to name your application. The application identifier is going to be the web address of your
database. Choose wisely, it's permanent. The application title can just be whatever your app on the phone is called
plus maybe some numbers if you find that name to already be taken. Fill everything out, accept the terms, and save.
30. Write down your application identifier. You will need this for the code portion of the database.
To Your App Folder
31. Open up the TinyWebDB folder and open the next folder you see inside. Then open the appinvtinywebdb folder.
32. You should now be to this screen.
When you selected the parent directory for your app, by default it created another folder inside with your app name.
Open that folder up and you will see a few basic files. Copy the files from the appinvtinywebdb folder into the folder
with the few basic files. It will more than likely pop up and ask you if you want to overwrite the files, so tell it to copy
and replace. The end point being make sure that the files in your folder are from the appinvtinywebdb folder and not
the files App Engine created.
Back to App Engine
33. Open App engine again, select your app, and click edit. This will open up one of the files in your app folder in
WordPad or Notepad or whatever text program you have. If you cannot open it, download TextPad or a similar
program
What needs to be changed in this file is the application name. It needs to say what you selected as your application
identifier.
Once you have typed that in, save the file and close the file.
34. You should now still have the Google App Engine open. Select your app so it's highlighted and click deploy. It will
ask you to login with your full gmail address and your password.
35. It will run a command line looking thing and you should have something that looks like this.
36. Exit the command type screen. You should now have your own database located at the app site your created. So
in your browser go yourapplicationindentifier.appspot.com and you will see the database.
37. To put this into your App, have the TinyWeb component selected inside of App Inventor. Copy and paste the
address for your database into the ServiceURL box underneath your properties.
38. Now you will have an identical database to the test one used that will hold 100 entries.