blockly-app/README.md

# Blockly for senseBox app

Blockly for senseBox is a visual programming editor for the senseBox:edu on mobile.
It is based on Google's [Blockly](https://developers.google.com/blockly/) and Carlos Pereira Atencio's [Ardublockly](https://github.com/carlosperate/ardublockly), which has been forked.

## Features
- generate Arduino code with visual drag-and-drop blocks, with blocks for the senseBox platform.
- online compiler for senseBox MCU
- over the air programming via WiFi for senseBox MCU
- Android 7+ & Web-browser support. iOS support is upcoming!

## Development

This is an Ionic 2 / Angular 5 application using Cordova Plugins for mobile-native functionality.

### dev env setup
For a basic web version, only Node.js 8+ is required.
For Android & iOS builds the respective platform tooling is required.

To install npm dependencies run `npm install` once.

Then run `npm start` to start a hot-reloading development view in the browser on <http://localhost:8100>.

Ionic & cordova provide CLIs for plugin installation & code generation. You might want to install them with `npm install -g ionic cordova`.

#### android specific
First install the Android toolchain on your system.

Make sure you have the correct environment variables set.
On linux you could add this to your `~/.bashrc`:
```
export ANDROID_SDK=$HOME/Android/Sdk
export ANDROID_HOME=$ANDROID_SDK
export PATH=$PATH:$ANDROID_SDK/emulator:$ANDROID_SDK/tools:$ANDROID_SDK/tools/bin:$ANDROID_SDK/platform-tools:$ANDROID_SDK/build-tools/28.0.3
```

To create a signed release build, add a file `platform/android/release-signing.prorperties` following this template. following file. You need a keystore with a valid signing key!

```
storeFile=../../reedu-android.keystore
storeType=jks
keyAlias=reedu-android
keyPassword=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
storePassword=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
```

To build & deploy on an emulator or device use the `android:*` build commands defined in `package.json` (some only work on linux), for example:
```bash
npm run android:dev # build debug build & deploy to connected device & restart app
```

## License
The source code in this repository is GPL-2 licensed.
Submodules such as Blockly may be licensed differently, please check their respective repositories.