DynamicComponents Schema Generator for AI2

A simple web tool to generate templates (aka. "schemas") to use with Dynamic Components extension from existing App Inventor project files. (also known as "AIA file")

How to use?

DynamicComponents extension has a "Schema" block allowing to create components in bulk programmatically which are defined in JSON. This page allows you to generate a JSON (schema) of the components from your existing project files, so you will need to have a project that will be used as a base template so to create multiple instances of it in another project.

Schema JSONs are not tied to any project by nature, so you can carry and re-use them in any project, including the same project that you generated the schema from it.

This page processes your project file without transmitting to the network, so you won't have to trust about the safety of your file. Files must follow the structure of App Inventor project, (AIA) or non-standard App Inventor Screen (AIS).

Download the extension (v2.3.0) 🡭 (mirror)

Step 1 - Pick a project

Both AIA and AIS projects are supported. Make sure that the project you select only contains the components you wish to create instances of them, and does not contain the containers you want to create these components in, otherwise you will end up recreating instances of these containers.

Step 2 - Select a screen

Pick the screen that your template was constructed in.

If you want to have a dynamically changing property that needs to be set later with blocks, use an arbitrary keyword enclosed with curly braces {}. For example, if your screen is containing a Label component that its content should vary in each created instance, you can set its text to {product_name} for example.

Choose a project file first.

Step 3 - Additional options

Optional settings before generating the schema.

Choose a project file first.

Author of the template. You can set this to any value you want. It will be included in the generated template, and doesn't have any functionality. Include extensions
Include non-visible extensions which added to screen in the schema, so instances of these extensions will also be created dynamically. You probably won't need this in many situations. DynamicComponents itself is always excluded from the template regardless of that option. Use RGBA instead of ARGB for colors
May fix the issues with colors between different App Inventor distributions. Only check if you are seeing invalid colors in created components. Allow re-using with index key (recommended)
As all generated components must have unique IDs, re-using the same schema will result in a error as component IDs doesn't change. To resolve that, you may want to add a "index key" which will be appended to the end of the all component names in the schema, so you can provide the index on yourself from the blocks.

Step 4 - Create template

Choose a project file first.

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Download blocks

To create a new template, pick a different project, or try with different template options and click "Create template" again.

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DynamicComponents Schema Generator for AI2

How to use?

Step 1 - Pick a project

Step 2 - Select a screen

Step 3 - Additional options

Step 4 - Create template