Database Users

Looking for a small App

Hi there, i'm asking if there is a dev out there who can write me a small app, it's nothing special if you're into android apps but i cant do that myself.
Its should be a simple SMS parser for seperated ringtones.
pseudocode would be:
Code:
if (SMS.from = 123456) {
if (SMS.text has "RD-"){
play Soundfile "Alert" until a checkbox is clicked
}
if (SMS.text has "KTR-" or "KTx-"){
play Soundfile "Transport" until a checkbox is clicked
}
else{
play Soundfile "special sms tone"
}
the sender's number should be exchangeable and if its too hard to make the soundfiles changeable, i could upload it, but exchangeable sound and text would be great
if the app works, i'm willing to donate 10 bucks to you on paypal, i think 10 bucks should be enough since i rate that problem as easy, but i cant do a android app myself (only c/c++ knowledge)

You could try your hand at using App inventor to create it yourself.
http://appinventor.googlelabs.com

i tried it, but i couldnt get it to act on an sms recieved -.-

So if I read this correctly, you need 3 different executables: a BroadcastReceiver (for the SMS events), an Activity (to configure settings) and a Service launched by the broadcast receiver to play the alert and launch a popup. Sounds doable, but not as easy as your pseudo-code above.

arthofer said:
i tried it, but i couldnt get it to act on an sms recieved -.-
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
App inventor can't generate service.
So your app need to be active to receive SMS

Store Item Finder / Item Locator

I'm trying to build an app for a school project that will locate items in a grocery store. For example, if I type in "orange juice" into the app, it will create a marker on a floorplan of the store. In this way I want to be able to populate a map with markers that correspond to items in a grocery list. Users can then walk around the store and swipe off markers as they pick up the items.
Does anyone know how I could do this? Are there any open source Android apps currently out there I could look at?
I feel like this would be a fairly simple project involving just uploading a .jpeg into an app and assigning coordinates to classes of items, like "juice" to {20,30} or something like that, but I have very little programming experience and am lost as to how to start.

bump

Well, people normally do not get an answer if they ask how to do the whole app.
So try to find the solution yourself and ask the community if you've got more specific questions/problems.

nikwen said:
Well, people normally do not get an answer if they ask how to do the whole app.
So try to find the solution yourself and ask the community if you've got more specific questions/problems.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I realize that I'm not going to get a step by step process... but I was just asking for general advice. Somebody suggested I use a .shp file and use an overlay with all the markers corresponding to the items, then create a pop up marker event for every time the user selects an item, which was helpful.
I'm looking for general ideas on implementation, that's all.

justinyeh said:
Yeah I realize that I'm not going to get a step by step process... but I was just asking for general advice. Somebody suggested I use a .shp file and use an overlay with all the markers corresponding to the items, then create a pop up marker event for every time the user selects an item, which was helpful.
I'm looking for general ideas on implementation, that's all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You could save the name and the coordinates to files using JSON which can easily be written manually.
Have a look at Google's gson library.

Practice App Ideas

I am new to Android App development. I need some simple application ideas to practice. please give me some ideas. I just made Rock, Paper, Scissor game. So easy games like this will be fine(I think )

Build a notepad app that lets you write and save notes. Build it steps where you increase the difficulty as you go on:
Make an app with a textbox that lets you enter text
Add a save button and learn how to execute code when the button is hit. Whenever you encounter any problems or don't know what to do, use Google! There are a lot of other running the same path as you and me who have encountered problems. The solution is almost always a search away!
Implement a save function that saves the content when the button is hit. When the user reopens the app load the text file and put the content in the textbox. Tip: Use SharedPreferences
Time to add support for multiple notes! Start off by learning how to move between activities (windows), in your notepad app add a button labeled "All notes" that sends you to another activity when clicked. Use Google to finds articles on how to do this.
Once you've figured out how to move between windows, it's time to create a list with all the notes. To display a list you use ListViews, before jumping in to showing the actual notes create a mock list containing your favorite cars, cats, Justin Bieber songs, whatever! Once you get a hang of it, move on to the next step
Learn how to store multiple strings instead of just one. Check out JSON, it's a simple data structure that lets you store.. data. Tip: store the notes in JSONObjects in a JSONArray. The final JSON-string can be stored in SharedPreferences.
Once you get a grip of JSON, add an add button, preferably in the ActionBar, that lets you add notes. Save the new note in the JSONArray.
Replace the cars or cats that are currently shown by the created lists.
Voilà, you have a fully functional notepad app and you've learned how to: move between activities, store data, ListViews, find solutions with Google etc. Good luck!

What are you aiming for, eventually ? Do you want to be a game developer, utility developer, are you aiming for a job developing apps ?
That might help you decide what kind of test apps to make.
If you go for a game you could spend a fair bit of time dealing with the graphical elements and gameplay without understanding the basics... so before you do that I'd suggest getting familiar with the building blocks (Activity, Intent, Service, Handler, Looper and so on) first.

jokernw said:
I am new to Android App development. I need some simple application ideas to practice. please give me some ideas. I just made Rock, Paper, Scissor game. So easy games like this will be fine(I think )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I started with memory game, you can go for it as well

Way to store Preferences

Hey Guys,
I am creating a app to rename other apps via xposed and the main code is written. Now I simply want to make a interface where you can define a app to rename and then enter a new name. For the beginning I thought about a Activity where you enter the Package Name and the desired name. Later on I want to use a list view to show all apps, from where you can choose one to rename(Like App Settings etc.). To show the renamed apps I want to use a ListView. Now I am stuck with a problem: My xposed code works with an array to check and rename. The list view can be used with an array or an arraylist, but I need a way to store the preferences(which are stored in a array).
Do you have a good idea or a sample how to realise this? And does somebody know a nice App List type of thing(I googled, but the project there aren't usable with my kind of approach.)

GalaxyInABox said:
Hey Guys,
I am creating a app to rename other apps via xposed and the main code is written. Now I simply want to make a interface where you can define a app to rename and then enter a new name. For the beginning I thought about a Activity where you enter the Package Name and the desired name. Later on I want to use a list view to show all apps, from where you can choose one to rename(Like App Settings etc.). To show the renamed apps I want to use a ListView. Now I am stuck with a problem: My xposed code works with an array to check and rename. The list view can be used with an array or an arraylist, but I need a way to store the preferences(which are stored in a array).
Do you have a good idea or a sample how to realise this? And does somebody know a nice App List type of thing(I googled, but the project there aren't usable with my kind of approach.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah the data storage problem... I think we all came across this at least once . I suppose you read this guide on the different options available? Well there are actually three options: SharedPreferences, text or csv file and SQL.
The first one would need some work around and is probably the slowest. You would save a separate string directly into the SharedPreferences (maybe in a new file to avoid collisions?) with the array name and its index somehow in the key. That's just two methods of coding but not the nicest way to do it.
The text or csv file however is the more common way, here you'd save your array in one line of the file, each item separated with a ; or some other char. Needs a bit more coding and also the WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission on preKitKat if I remember correctly.
The third one is the nicest and most modular one. Because it makes use of SQL it needs quite a bit of knowledge and some coding (but less than the text file).
I guess for simple things that you want to do it is better to stay away from SQL for now unless you know how to use it and use the SharedPreferences.
Edit: take a look at the answers to this question, they give you the code as well... And you can use StringSets in ICS and above if the order of your list doesn't matter !

I'd say go down the SQLite DB way, chances are that if you plan on expanding your coding knowledge and want to keep creating apps you'll be needing to learn this in the future anyway so why delay?
Google AndroidHive and look at their SQL tutorial - I used it when learning and found it very informative
Sent from my HTCSensation using Tapatalk

Thank you very much! As coming from windows, first of all I thought about SQL as well, but it seems oversized for the set of data i want to store. I also took a look at the stackoverflow thread you linked. It looks easy to implement, but the need to use an external class file made me look for another way. I found this one, which works pretty well for me, as I look forward to interchange the method of saving the data with a better one using the SharedPreferences(which actually should be really easy with my code).
Maybe you can tell me yet another thing: Is there a way of declaring an object(like the ArrayList) to make it accessible from every class except from giving every class(activity) it's own "load the preferences" and "save the preferences" code block or sending intents all over the place? This would make saving much easier and allow me to update the preferences during runtime and without a reboot
Edit: This was my answer to.SimplicityApks ^^ I'll take a closer look at SQL now, since you, Jonny, told me that it' nevertheless necessary.

GalaxyInABox said:
Thank you very much! As coming from windows, first of all I thought about SQL as well, but it seems oversized for the set of data i want to store. I also took a look at the stackoverflow thread you linked. It looks easy to implement, but the need to use an external class file made me look for another way. I found this one, which works pretty well for me, as I look forward to interchange the method of saving the data with a better one using the SharedPreferences(which actually should be really easy with my code).
Maybe you can tell me yet another thing: Is there a way of declaring an object(like the ArrayList) to make it accessible from every class except from giving every class(activity) it's own "load the preferences" and "save the preferences" code block or sending intents all over the place? This would make saving much easier and allow me to update the preferences during runtime and without a reboot
Edit: This was my answer to.SimplicityApks ^^ I'll take a closer look at SQL now, since you, Jonny, told me that it' nevertheless necessary.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Welcome
You mean you want to make your ArrayList, which is an instance variable in the activity, accessible to every other class within your package without having an instance of your activity at hands? Well the basic solution would be to make the ArrayList static. But that is not recommended because it won't be created and garbage collected at the same time as your activity and also it's not a nice way .
If you had an instance of the activity it would be just using a public getter for it, but without I'd put your ArrayList into a separate class following the Singleton pattern. That way you have only one global instance which contains the ArrayList.

Thanks again for your reply! I changed my mind about the ArrayList and created a method, where everything is stored in the SharedPreferences and the ArrayList's only purpose is the use with the ListView and Adapter. This way I don't have to write the ArrayList to the SharedPreferences and changes will be much easier to control. Although I had to implement another type of save/load method to interact with the class thats being loaded by xposed. That was needed because of the restriction that you can only load SharedPreferences with a context, which my class doesn't have. It's an inconvenient way, but it works

Intent filters

Ok so i used to be a very experienced actionscript user. But i recently wanted to get back into programming so im learning java now or rather trying to.
So im trying to understand the xml side of this so far and have some questions im hoping u guys can answer.
activities
So as i understand it an activity is a screen in an app. So for example the standard launcher on my phone has pages of apps on my main screens. Each one of those would be an activity? And then another activity for when i press the button to display all installed apps?
Have i understood that properly?
intent filters
This is where im getting confused. Ive googled it and read as much as i can find. As i read it, feel like someones explaining rocket science to a 5 year old.
The words component and instances is being thrown around enough that i got no clue whats even being said. What i have understood is it gives data to the activity.
So a best guess from my partwould be its telling it how the screens going to work or maybe like if theres going to be a button on it maybe. Or perhaps it means something different like just the properties sort of stuff like screen size or stuff of that nature.
As u guys can probably tell im confused beyond comprehension. I got no idea how good my grasp is of any of this. But if theres someone out there kind enough to dumb it down a bit so normal people can understand it. Id be very gratefull.

Bump

Bump

Hey,
unfortunately i cant answer your question. This is a part of android I don't understand too.
I think you should post your question again in the Question and Answer forum of XDA. http://forum.xda-developers.com/android/help maybe there is an developer who can help you.
Greetings

Thanks ill post there and see if it makes any difference

Android apps run in sandboxes. Consider a huge box partitioned into 'n' number of sections. Each partitions represent a place in android environment where app can reside. By sandboxing, app are given unique ID(UID) when they start a process. Only apps having same (UID) can access the app's resources so no malicious app can peek into the resources of other app.
If apps cannot see other resources, how could they communicate within apps? Thats where intent comes in. Intents are like post letters and android is the postman. You can either give:
1. Recipient address, here, the package name of the app for which the intent is to be sent and may include your data in the intent if there is any and the postman (android) delivers it to the right person (target app). This is also known as explicit intent because you know the target class to call
2. Intent filter - This is not as specific as the first one. Here, your app has to perform something using an external app but your app doesnt know of the other apps which could perform the action. So, this time it will go for a broadcast and say "Hey! I need to take a picture! All camera apps please come in" and the broadcast is sent by android which displays list of apps which respond to this broadcast. When the user chooses the app to perform the action, the app fires, performs the task for your app, return the data to your app in form of intent result.
To register an app to respond to this type of intent, the app specifies something called intent-filter in their manifest which says the android, in our example context "I can perform camera action". So next time intent for camera action is sent, the app is in the list of apps to perform action with. This type of intent in implicit intent as you let the android and user decide the app. You can also specify your own custom intent-filters apart from standard android ones.

vijai2011 said:
Android apps run in sandboxes. Consider a huge box partitioned into 'n' number of sections. Each partitions represent a place in android environment where app can reside. By sandboxing, app are given unique ID(UID) when they start a process. Only apps having same (UID) can access the app's resources so no malicious app can peek into the resources of other app.
If apps cannot see other resources, how could they communicate within apps? Thats where intent comes in. Intents are like post letters and android is the postman. You can either give:
1. Recipient address, here, the package name of the app for which the intent is to be sent and may include your data in the intent if there is any and the postman (android) delivers it to the right person (target app). This is also known as explicit intent because you know the target class to call
2. Intent filter - This is not as specific as the first one. Here, your app has to perform something using an external app but your app doesnt know of the other apps which could perform the action. So, this time it will go for a broadcast and say "Hey! I need to take a picture! All camera apps please come in" and the broadcast is sent by android which displays list of apps which respond to this broadcast. When the user chooses the app to perform the action, the app fires, performs the task for your app, return the data to your app in form of intent result.
To register an app to respond to this type of intent, the app specifies something called intent-filter in their manifest which says the android, in our example context "I can perform camera action". So next time intent for camera action is sent, the app is in the list of apps to perform action with. This type of intent in implicit intent as you let the android and user decide the app. You can also specify your own custom intent-filters apart from standard android ones.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Gave u a thanks fkr that very useful responce. Thank you. So if ive understood this right. If i want to take a picture for example the intent filter part basically calls out for an external app to perform the action. With intent filter so basically when an app asks u with that menu what app youd like to choose thats an intent filter? And implicent thats the same menu or android just chooses it for you? Im trying to picture it from the user-side
Recipient address seems straight forward. You know u need an app and what its called. So u dont even need the user to select anything.

scorpafied said:
Gave u a thanks fkr that very useful responce. Thank you. So if ive understood this right. If i want to take a picture for example the intent filter part basically calls out for an external app to perform the action. With intent filter so basically when an app asks u with that menu what app youd like to choose thats an intent filter? And implicent thats the same menu or android just chooses it for you? Im trying to picture it from the user-side
Recipient address seems straight forward. You know u need an app and what its called. So u dont even need the user to select anything.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your understanding on implicit intent is correct. To make it even more short an precise,
An intent is an abstract definition of the operation to be performed by the app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When the target action is known, say you invoke a second activity of you app. You know the target action (the class name), that is your implicit intent. You decide what action to perform without user intervention here. Explicit usually needs user input for inter-app communication to take place.
Examples of few implicit intents:
Starting an activity
Starting a service

vijai2011 said:
Your understanding on implicit intent is correct. To make it even more short an precise,
When the target action is known, say you invoke a second activity of you app. You know the target action (the class name), that is your implicit intent. You decide what action to perform without user intervention here. Explicit usually needs user input for inter-app communication to take place.
Examples of few implicit intents:
Starting an activity
Starting a service
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok cool. So recipient is when we choose the app. Intent is whwn they get a menu to choose it. And implicent is is when android chooses it for them.
Sounds simple enough. Thanks for all the help buddy
And would i be right in assuming that the actions we put in intent filters and the others in form it of stuff like when its triggered, how often and so forth?