{"id":11310,"date":"2014-05-07T12:50:23","date_gmt":"2014-05-07T16:50:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webmakerblog.wpengine.com\/?p=11310"},"modified":"2019-02-26T12:42:08","modified_gmt":"2019-02-26T20:42:08","slug":"conquering-the-empty-canvas-in-appmaker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/foundation-archive\/mozilla-learning\/conquering-the-empty-canvas-in-appmaker\/","title":{"rendered":"Conquering the Empty Canvas in Appmaker"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week in San Francisco, mozillians from around the globe gathered for the Mozilla Foundation All-hands meeting. We sat in circles, discussed, agreed, disagreed, agreed to disagree and just plain got stuff done. It was an awesome experience and I talked to a lot of great folks about how to introduce new users to Appmaker<\/a>.
\nWhen building a new app, the Appmaker designer<\/a> presents us with a blank app and a poorly sorted list of components. It\u2019s like staring at an empty canvas and not even knowing how a paint brush works!
\nWe had some great ideas, and I want to share five of them with you…<\/p>\n

1. Remixable Starter Apps<\/h4>\n

Starting the app making process by remixing a simple starter app would immediately expose you to a set of connected components working to achieve a familiar task. Just by using the app within the designer, you would see the relationships between the different components that made up the app and learn how they communicate.
\nThe learning process could start by changing some of those interactions, or by introducing a new component to the mix. Even with a few small changes, you could publish the app and feel like you\u2019ve made something unique and personal to you.<\/p>\n

2. Themed Appmaker<\/h4>\n

A related idea would be to launch Appmaker in a mode that is themed around a particular kind of app: an app for drawing, an app for doing math or a music app. This would limit the available components to a set that worked well together. This would encourage learning by making it less likely to run into scenarios where components you\u2019re using have no useful way of working with each other.
\nA potential list of components in a Music theme:<\/p>\n