The challenge is now over. See our wrap-up blog. Welcome to the SAP Build Apps Community Challenge, a set of small challenges to help you get to know SAP Build Apps a little better, whether you’re a beginner or experienced user. The challenges so far: Task 0: Set Up SAP Build Apps (this post) Task 1: OData Task 2: Formulas Task 3: Theming, Styling and Layout Design Task 4: Mobile device capabilities If you do all the challenges – each taking the time of your lunch hour (but don’t skip eating lunch 🍜) – you will learn a lot: How to set up SAP Build Apps on your trial account How to import projects How to manage the layout of your app How to create a custom menu, and position it anywhere on the screen How to play sounds in your app How to determine if your app is running on the web or on a device How to call APIs How to filter, sort, and paginate your OData calls to SAP backends How to open an external browser How to embed web pages inside your app How to create a full-page background How to open the phone’s camera from your app (and select back or front camera) How to take pictures with your phone and use them in your app How to store pictures in your app How to create transparency, rounded corners and other visual effects … and a lot more. For every one of the challenges, you will be asked to provide: A hashed GUID from the correct answer (Optional) A screenshot of your app, showing modifications we’ll ask you to make. For these challenges, we will use the hashing service introduced by @qmacro (DJ Adams) for his API challenge back in August. The service lets you take a text string, hash it to a GUID so that we can tell if you were correct but prevent others from seeing the correct answer. GOOD NEWS: In the skeleton app we will give you, we have taken care of the connection to the service, providing an easy way for you to provide your answer. Let’s get started. 👉Your Task Part I – Set Up SAP Build Apps Create a SAP BTP trial account on the US EAST (VA) – AWS region, if you haven’t already. For instructions on setting up an account, see Get a Free Account on SAP BTP Trial. Set up SAP Build Apps on your trial account. Follow this simple 2-minute video: At the end, make sure you can open the SAP Build lobby. Install the SAP Build Apps preview app on your mobile phone/device. iOS App Android App Installing the app is simple – just search for SAP Build Apps Preview. But for more help watch this 2-minute video: Make sure to give this app permission to use your device's camera. REMINDER: With the trial, you will be on the US10 landscape and must log in on the preview app using Other login options. Part II Next, you will have some fun and make sure everything is connected, and get a little preview of some of the capabilities of SAP Build Apps. If you want to review the basics of building apps with SAP Build Apps works, feel free to watch the SAP Build Apps playlist (new videos all the time). Download our fun little app. You will use this app for the next 3 challenges. Upload the project to SAP Build Apps and open it (you can import projects in the lobby). Inside the project, go to the app variables and set the initial value for the CommunityID to your community ID. This ID enables you to hash your text answers so the GUID you submit is unique to you, and allows us to check that you got it right. Go to the Launch tab: If you have an iOS device, run the app in the SAP Build Apps Preview App on your device – not on your laptop. If you have an Android device, run the the app on the web preview. Using the app, take a picture (iOS) or upload a picture (Android). Either way, click Add My Picture. Take a screenshot (showing your picture and community ID). Find on the app a place to tap so that a hidden message is revealed. Use the force to find it. This is the secret message you will need to hash and will automatically be saved for you once you find it. Go to the Submit page by clicking the hash icon. Here, the secret phrase and your community ID were already entered (though you can always enter them manually). Click Hash. Reply to this discussion thread and post the hash you received, followed by the screenshot. To make things simpler, we've provided a button to open this post in the app (though you can make the reply via a browser). The post with a screenshot should look something like this: Bonus Tasks If you're looking for more to do and learn: Bonus #1: We have embedded a secret piece of music on the home page. You do not have to post anything about it – just enjoy. (Tap again to stop the music.) Open the project to see how we did this. Bonus #2: Make any improvement you want to the app, for example: You could add a toggle which will change whether the app opens the front or back camera (for this, check the properties for the flow function that opens the camera). Notice how when you stop the music, and then restart it, the music starts from the beginning. You could instead pause the music and make it start exactly where it left off, but how? [HINT: Read about the audio flow functions.] Share your innovation. Feel free to look inside the app to see how we put it all together – how we made it so it will store your community ID, how you could have entered your community ID in the app instead of hard-coding it, how we created a circle with your image, how we played music, how we ran the hashing function – all without coding.
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