i have an idea for a construction drawing app. - Android Software Development

I am a plumber, and I often use isometric paper to draw out piping systems to illustrate my scope of work. My idea (I've looked in the play store) is to have a drawing surface with zoomable isometric dots that can be snapped to to make ISO drawings. I also want to be able to tap on a line and either add a dimension or specify how long that line should be. And of course save drawings to PDF. How hard would a project like this be? I gave alot of friends who would be very interested

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[Q] [APP IDEA] Converting a Monitor into a Touch Screen using android camera

Hey, I'm a Graphic Designer, and I always have weird and unique ideas. So far I haven't been able to get one developer interested in my ideas.
But this time it could be different. or not
This is probably just a novelty thing... i don't see it actually having a purpose, maybe if someone can expand on this idea... anyways
Here is my Concept!!
Firstly, on our PC/MAC MONITOR we stick a colourful (or QRCode-ish) sticker on each corner, with a server app running of some sort
Second, we grab our android camera and point to it... the viewfinder should translate the stickers to identify our touch-monitor area
Finally, by touching the viewfinder it should translate into "mouse click" at that location....
Why??? you may ask...
1)Its augmented reality... it comes with alot of brag rights..
2)If you're not arms length for some reason (like me when i'm lying down and watching tv shows on my monitor)...you can simply download ur next tv show without having to get up. I am trying to think of more reason, but I hope you guys can think of some.
In anycase, if you are interested in developing this app, please let me know I would love to help out with the GUI if you need me to.

Custom Navigator app questions

Here's a quick background on my situation. I'm a college student and
for my thesis project I've decided to develop a "campus navigator" app
to assist incoming students in getting acquainted with the campus.
This is a year long project so at this point I'm partially
troubleshooting and partially trying to find out if my ideas are going
to run me into walls later down the road.
So as not to have an overwhelmingly long post, I'll just ask about my
current issues for now. The app opens up and allows the user to select
"Map" or "Navigate". I started working with map first because it
should be significantly simpler.
Current State:
The following currently works: hitting the map button displays a .png
of my campus's map (located at (couldn't post the link, so go to brockport.edu and search "campus map" for an image of the map)).
I've cropped the picture to only show the numbered buildings (i.e. the
oval track at the bottom, erie canal along the top, and blank spaces
on left/right near streets are all removed). The resulting image is
923x630.
Using the multi-touch pan/zoom code from Hello, Android! (3rd Edition)
(source code folder Touchv2 available at book's website), the map
display page allows the user to pinch zoom and pan the image. Here's
my first issue. With this implementation, the user is able to pan the
picture out of the screen or zoom out until it only takes up a pixel
or two. Is there any better implementation that will not allow the
user to pan beyond the borders of the image or zoom out past the image
size?
This feeds into my next issue, the "Where I want to be" part. Ideally,
I'd like the map display to use a location manager, and upon location
change, draw a circle where the user is standing. As far as projecting
latitude/longitude to pixel coordinates on the campus.png, that's just
math and I can figure that part out. My question is, since I'm using
an ImageView to put the png in, how can I draw on this? I've been
searching around all day and it appears that Canvas would be the ideal
way, since you can call drawCircle(x, y, radius, paint). However, I
was unable to find a way to correlate an ImageView to a Canvas and
back. On top of this, I need it to base these draws solely on
the .png's pixel coordinates, not the current display (since the image
may be panned or zoomed somewhere that would affect this).
I know it would be simple to just use Google Maps to implement this,
but if possible I'd strongly prefer to use the campus map, as it
clearly depicts all the walkways and buildings on the campus.
Any suggestions/help would be greatly appreciated. I just wanted to
ask early on so I don't make a fatal mistake and have to redesign it a
month before it's due. If you want to see any of my code, just let me
know.
-Mikey
anyone have any ideas? My thesis director is breathing down my neck to make steady progress, but I'm not confident in which direction to continue.

[Q] Local retailer (US) that stocks Lenovo Thinkpad tablet?

I am considering buying one of these but would like to try it out in a store before I buy it. Does anyone know of a US retailer that stocks them?
I am mostly curious about the following things:
1) How good is it for taking notes in college/university classes? Can you rest your palm on the screen while using the stylus?
2) Is there a way to view the notes taken on pdf on a computer?
3) Is it pretty solid feel wise? Or does it feel like it will fall apart after a couple years?
4) How much bloatware comes on it and is it hard to remove via rooting?
5) Does the screen go dark enough for comfortable reading in dimly lit rooms?
Thanks for the info.
the notes are great, I use Quill, as it works nearly perfect, in the app i have turned on pen input only and jot tons and tons of notes all day long.
You can export the notes to various files, while im not sure about PDF there is certainly a format that can be read on your desktop
Like all lenovo products i've had its built to last like an enterprise system should be. as long as you take care of it it will last a long time past EOL
Bloatware isnt too bad, theres still some stuff lenovo managed to get into the system pretty deep (like the status bar wheel widget thing.) but its never bothered me that much as it only comes up at the home screen.
screen brightness works great in dim rooms, i tend to read books by a small lamp in bed most of the time with minimal strain.
I purchased mine from lenovo direct so I dont know about any local retailers.
Thanks for the info. However when I asked about notes on PDFs I should have clarified a bit. I was asking about their PDF viewer that lets you take notes on the PDF document and weather that can be exported to something useful.
Also I thought of one more thing: If I have my notes backed up with something like spideroak, can the notes be converted on a computer? I ask because I am worried about taking a semesters worth of notes on it then having it die and there being no way to read them without getting a new tablet.
FearTheCron said:
Thanks for the info. However when I asked about notes on PDFs I should have clarified a bit. I was asking about their PDF viewer that lets you take notes on the PDF document and weather that can be exported to something useful.
Also I thought of one more thing: If I have my notes backed up with something like spideroak, can the notes be converted on a computer? I ask because I am worried about taking a semesters worth of notes on it then having it die and there being no way to read them without getting a new tablet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ezPDF allows you to fill out pdf forms, underline, strikeout, and add freehand drawings as well as circles/squares/etc. It should do what you're looking for.
https://market.android.com/details?id=udk.android.reader&feature=search_result
and if you have the file saved as a pdf on your sd card you should be able to open it with any pdf reader (pc or otherwise).
The quill note taking app he mentioned allows you to export your notes to sdcard pdfs
Thanks for the info.
One last thing: has anyone used connect bot or another ssh client on this? I am curious if the keys on the keyboard folio such as escape quotes tild and whatnot all send the proper characters. I had a bluetooth keyboard for my N1 a while back that sent some weird unicode characters for the quotes making terminal usage very difficult.
https://market.android.com/details?id=berserker.android.apps.sshdroid&hl=en
I have used SSH droid with WINSCP worked like a charm, I'm by no means an experienced user with SSH, i just used it to dig around the file system.
SSH droid is a server for the android device, I am asking about using a client on the android device.
My bad, I left my brain at home today... I will test it for you this evening and let you know if the client works with the keymapping
Cool thanks, I look forward to hearing your results.
Update: I just ordered one, so if its too much of a bother don't worry about testing the connect bot thing. My shiny object syndrome overwhelmed my frugal side. Can't wait to get my hands on it.
It works like a charm tested with Moba SSH home 1.22 and connect bot, all the keys from the folio map properly and I haven't seen anything odd at this point, also SSH'd into a couple of Access points over my VPN at work with the TPT to test as well.
Congrats on the TPT! you're gonna love it!
Unfortunately the keys do not map properly, escape is still connected to "back" in the android os and ctrl is connected to "menu". Does anyone know if there is some way to map these to their proper functions?
Thanks
S

Favorite font for reading books?

As stated, what is the font that you like most for reading books?
Does your reader app allow (and work correctly) with system fonts (i.e. /system/fonts/Roboto.ttf) or fonts on /sdcard?
Do you even use the stock B&N reader at all and do you find the font choice limiting?
My preference has been Caecilia for a long time.
I find Georgia too light and flourishy.
Yes, I have used Caecilia exclusively on CoolReader for years. Customization of CoolReader was a nightmare but, eventually, I achieved results as good as the stock B&N reader. CoolReader provides 13 fonts and I haven't seen the need to add fonts, like Roboto, to /system/fonts/.
I would never consider using the stock B&N reader because the AORD dictionaries integration with CoolReader is invaluable. I use AORD dozens of times whenever I read. Wiktionary's foreign words, Collaborative Dictionaries quotations, and Wikipedia are also wonderful. It's a shame I can no longer update the AORD dictionaries because we're stuck forever on Android 2.1.
The Glow3 is a reasonable, but not great replacement for the NST.
They both have physical buttons.
The bezel on the G3 is larger than the NST, a step backwards.
The G3 has 4.4.2 vs. NST's 2.1
Still, even for an ereader, KitKat (4.4) is getting pretty old.
I'm just disliked the bezel on both the NST and G3 as they cast shadows and are great for collecting dust.
They both use the same zForce IR touch sensor which is insensitive to screen marks but very sensitive to dust on the bezel edges.
The NST zForce driver for the NST made internal state available so that you could use my Touch.apk to visualize where the stubborn dust/misalignment problem was.
The G3 zForce driver doesn't have that enabled.
Dictionaries can be handy, but selecting text with your finger can be pretty annoying, especially if there are footnote links too.
Renate NST said:
I'm just disliked the bezel on both the NST and G3 as they cast shadows and are great for collecting dust...
Dictionaries can be handy, but selecting text with your finger can be pretty annoying, especially if there are footnote links too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For years, I've eaten mixed nuts as I read without the least problem with the bezel edges of my NST.
Selecting text improves with years of practice, and I select first-up correctly about 80% of the time.
Incidentally, when I read books with foreign language sentences, as I currently am, I copy the text and paste into the desktop version of Google Translate within Opera Mobile. It is reliable and takes about 10 seconds all up. Not bad at all.
Mmm, well that's one point of view. Another point of view is that the reader is there for the words and that the publisher's idea of presentation is immaterial, especially when the publisher is not the author.
I usually go along with the formatting (but not the font) that the publisher has chosen unless it is so intrusive that I need to strip the CSS from the Epub.
Have you found a better font in the last 4 years? I was wondering the same thing. It would also be a pretty cool feature for a reader to incorporate partial word highlight for speed-reading.
I'm still using Caecilia. I can't say that I think about font at all.
You'd need a fairly low-level mod to a reader to make it selectively bold parts of words.
Would that be done at the word level or the sentence level?
I don't speed read. I usually slow read with lapses as my mind goes off into tangents

FBReader cover images

Can anyone tell me where this app keeps cover images? It must store them somewhere. I've been searching through databases and other potential candidates but can't find a thing. It's hard to imagine it generates them on the fly when you first open a book.
I'm trying to get at a way to automatically supply the cover image to the screensaver folder like AI Reader and Cool Reader. After finally solving some display issues with FBReader (who knew that chapter titles would be images?) I've decided I prefer it over the others, especially as the library can be accessed independently (via a small app) unlike the others. But there is this one nagging thing. Where are those cover images????????

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