November Newsletter
It’s been an action packed month for the Thunkable Team which means you have more updates and more sample projects than usual to take your cross-platform apps to the next level, including:
- Our new blocks editor
- Announcing Drag and Drop
- Community projects you can remix for free
- Special thanks
Drag and drop is here!
First up is a very popular request. For a long time now you’ve asked us for the ability to drag and drop UI components anywhere on your screens. We’ve listened and after a lot of planning and a ton of hard work we’re delighted to announce that Drag & Drop Components are here and ready for testing.
To test it out for yourself, head to https://x.thunkable.com/account/features and click the switch to enable it.
Please note: Thunkable projects can be “Drag and Drop” or “Snap to Position”. You can have a mix of both Drag and Drop projects and Snap to Position projects in your Thunkable account but you can not change an individual project from one to the other.
The new Drag and Drop designer allows you to:
- See multiple screens at once
- Pan and Zoom through the screens
- Use smart guides to accurately align components
- Specify the exact position (X and Y) of a UI element
- Layer components on top of one another
- Resize components directly on the screen
This is the most dramatic update we’ve ever made to the designer and, when used in conjunction with the new blocks editor, will dramatically reduce the time needed to create your next great app. As always, we love feedback so please try it out and let us know what you think.
Create a Drag and Drop Project Now
Have you tried the new blocks editor?
The next shiny new feature we’re bringing you this month is an enhanced Blocks Editor.
With this update you can work more effectively on the logic of your app in the blocks editor while focusing more intently on designing when you’re in the Design Tab
We’ve moved all the invisible components from the Design Tab into the Blocks Editor to make things quicker and easier to work with.
The blocks themselves have also been slimmed down so you can spend less time dragging and dropping and more time testing and sharing your app with users.
For less frequently used tasks, you can right click on blocks to see an advanced version. In some cases we’ve further streamlined components, for example the functionality of RealtimeDB is now available directly through cloud variables.
Right now this feature is still in testing so to try it out you need to go to your “Account Features” page and enable it manually — you can swap back and forth at any time you like within a single project.
Four Projects to remix with the new Blocks Editor
Phew! After those two massive feature updates, hopefully you’re excited to get Thunking as soon as possible. To help you out with that, we’re sharing 4 of our favourites that are completely free to remix and redistribute in whatever way you like.
Doughnut Shop
With food to the fore of many people’s minds this weekend, why not remix this delicious Doughnut making game by Power Thunker Sofía Galán.
Bonus App: Hotdog/Not Hotdog. Maybe you can create Turkey/Not Turkey….if there are any leftovers to test it out on! Remix this app yourself here.
Dice App
Holidays are the perfect time for board games. Someone forget to put the dice back in the box last year? There’s an app for that! In fact, one of Thunkable’s earliest users, Tyson Seable, has now racked up over 1.2 million downloads and earns passive income every month from his Dice app. As an hommage, Domhall has built this version — with sound effects, text to speech and banner ads already included — so you can publish and share your own interpretation with the world.
Tic Tac Toe
Perhaps you’re looking for something a bit more relaxed? How about a quiet game of Tic Tac Toe? It’s a super popular genre in the app stores and really easy to customise. Back in 2018 Jimmy created Tic Tac JoeBama to commemorate the friendship between Barack Obama and Joe Biden. How would you remix this app? Maybe Tic Tac Moe for the Simpsons fan in your life? Or how about an unwinnable Tic Tac Foe to send to your frenemies? Let us know what you come up with!
Birthday App!
In 2001 Michael, Xochi and Paul Birch created a highly successful website called BirthdayReminder.com before going on to found Bebo, the social network which they eventually sold for $850 million. Simran has created this awesome “Birthday App!” template to help get you started — we can’t guarantee you $850 million, but at least you’ll never miss another birthday again.
What we’ve been reading
Did we mention that it’s been a busy month? Here on Medium there are not one but two great new Thunkable articles. After reading both you should be able to create your own revenue-generating, virtual reality apps.
- Sofia writes about how she created this incredible VR app for Day of the Dead
- Jane tells us how to monetise a Thunkable project with AdMob
That’s it for this month — thank you all for your wonderful contributions to the Thunkable Community and see you all next month!
