First off, I'm brand new to Android development so please bear with me.
My only goal at this point is to add the ability to choose the notification LED color to the Android 2.2 stock mail app (on the Droid). I've searched all over the place and haven't found an existing solution for this yet.
It seems to me like it should be super easy to add this functionality to the stock mail app. I can already choose my sound and vibrate settings, why not the LED color? Toss in some notification.ledARGB = something (plus the few other lines of code to make it work), a list to choose the color and we're good to go.
My problem, though, is I have no idea where to begin to have access to the code of the stock mail app. I would guess it goes something like:
1. Download the apk
2. Somehow open the source
3. Make the changes I need
4. Turn it back into a useable apk
5. Swap out the existing apk with my new modified one on the phone
I really only care about making this work on my own phone, so I'm not worried about signing the apk with a public cert or anything. I'm rooted as well, so no worries there.
Anyone have any insight? If I basically have the right plan of attack, and advice on the specifics? If I'm totally wrong in my approach, any advice on what I should be doing would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance for any help!
I think this app is a part of AOSP, so you don't have to decompile an apk - grab sources and build them.
Well, that certainly makes sense. Just did some digging, and I found a pile of info about getting the source, git, repo, etc.
Naturally I'm a windows user, so it looks like I'll need to get some linux up and running to actually do anything with the source code. Ubuntu is installing as we speak....
Any tips on what to do next for a newbie like me?
Should I follow all the directions to get Eclipse ready to develop on the linux box?
Do I just need to download the Email.git to do what I want?
What do I do with the Email.git once I've gotten it?
Just gonna give this a little bump. I've got my linux box all set up and i've got the entire android source downloaded. I'm not really sure where to go from here, though.
How do I just modify and compile the email app into an apk? Thanks for any forthcoming handholding, guys.
Hi all!
I'm in my final year and we're supposed to do a project which is worth 200 marks overall. Most of us in our field have chosen to develop either android or iphone applications. My group and I have chosen adnroid.
Now, I'm in need of simple ideas for the apps. We have absolutely no idea on how to go about with the process. I've seen lots of people here develop stunning applications here! We're in need of ideas for developing simple apps.. which can be completed in a max of 2-3 months (considering the fact that we don't have any background knowledge on android development/programming. All we know is Java)
I'd initially suggested an automatic mobile credit recharge system, where in the app monitors you prepaid account balance from time to time and recharges the account once the credit falls below a user set value.
Although this seemed interesting at first, it can only be simulated with 2 databases (one for the mobile credit and another for the bank account)
After going through the type of apps here, I really want to develop something much better than this.
I'm open to all ideas, in fact, we don't mind developing an app that is already existing (for instance a profile manager or a data wallet etc) All we want is to have a fully complete app at the end of 2 months.
Please assist.
Thanks!
Secret Santa?
That's something that I thought up over winter break and whipped it up over a few days in the App Inventor. If you guys take your time, you can probably learn Android programming and design/code it in a month or so.
There are some "special" features that I added to make the app more useful but I'll leave that for you to think up.
I'll post back if I come up with anything else. I also need some app ideas, but just for recreational programming.
Thanks! I'm currently checking out appInventer.. I somehow find it hard to come up with ideas which is why I'm trying to find help from here :|
I think the credit recharger is a pretty cool idea, personally. But I understand that you might want something with more "impact"
I think part of the key to this would be figuring out what has not already been done to death. There are so many apps with 5, 6, 7, etc versions of the basically the same thing. I would try to find something to develop with less competition, even if it's more of a niche product. I'm trying to think of the things I've previously thought "I wish I had an app for ____" but I'm drawing a blank right now.
If I think of anything I'll be sure to post it back in here
DrDubzz said:
I think the credit recharger is a pretty cool idea, personally. But I understand that you might want something with more "impact"
I think part of the key to this would be figuring out what has not already been done to death. There are so many apps with 5, 6, 7, etc versions of the basically the same thing. I would try to find something to develop with less competition, even if it's more of a niche product. I'm trying to think of the things I've previously thought "I wish I had an app for ____" but I'm drawing a blank right now.
If I think of anything I'll be sure to post it back in here
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! I checked out google appInventer tutorials.. theres one which says "no text while driving" -- basically sends back an sms to the sender that ur driving.. It seems interesting so I'm gonna see how best i can use it and pack some more useful stuff along with it.. and see how it all works out.
The reason why I'm giving the auto recharge a back seat is because it can't be implemented in real time.. it can only be simulated in a virtual environment.
You might want to think about doing something that takes advantage of the maps api. It's easy to do but it looks impressive and might help you get high marks.
A great idea?!
Graphics artist here,
Something I just thought of and just started searching for (literally) when I came across your thread, would be: Using the phone as a touch sensitive.. control for editing software, ie photoshop or paint.net. Basically turn the phone into a touchpad control for a computer.
Just an idea!
mirrorhelix said:
Graphics artist here,
Something I just thought of and just started searching for (literally) when I came across your thread, would be: Using the phone as a touch sensitive.. control for editing software, ie photoshop or paint.net. Basically turn the phone into a touchpad control for a computer.
Just an idea!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This would be great! I'd definitely pay a couple/few dollars for something along these lines if it was user-friendly
Thats a really awesome idea!! Converting the touchscreen into a tablet input for PS or any other photo manipulation software.. But the problem is that I don't know where to begin! :|
This is a college project so the idea isn't to make a unique and sell-able application... it's to demonstrate that you can work as part of a team to make an application from design to completion.
I'd try and think of a fun app (i wouldnt care if it's been done 100 times before) that everyone on your team wants to contribute to. If it's unique, brilliant, if not nevermind you've got some good experience working as a team and making an android app.
I do like the sound of the phone touchpad app, it's been done on iPhone by Logitech but i've not seen something for android. If it helps, http://blog.logitech.com/2010/01/29...-touch-into-a-wireless-trackpad-and-keyboard/ .
There are a ton of them on the market: Gmote, MyRemote, UnifiedRemote, etc.
It might be a good idea to email this developers to get a better picture of what to do.
Problem is that all of those tools rely heavily on WiFi so you'll have to understand networking.
biggler said:
This is a college project so the idea isn't to make a unique and sell-able application... it's to demonstrate that you can work as part of a team to make an application from design to completion.
I'd try and think of a fun app (i wouldnt care if it's been done 100 times before) that everyone on your team wants to contribute to. If it's unique, brilliant, if not nevermind you've got some good experience working as a team and making an android app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bingo!! Which is exactly what my instructor said. I tried out the tutorials on appInventer.. I was toying with the idea of integrating more features into those itself. Is that a good idea? Although the concept is from Google, would it be ok to build on it? i'm particularly interested in "No texting while driving" and "Broadcast Hub" -- both these apps are awesome! Are there any notable features that I can add to make them better.
How about an app for the quick oil change places. It could show your last service and what was done. Show any upcoming maintenance and when your next oil change is due.
Maybe integrate Google Maps to show locations of service centers. Maybe offer a "e-coupon" if they use the app. Pretend they offer online scheduling and maybe show them "2 customers in bay, one waiting" - Estimated wait time 20 minutes" yada, yada
As an "older" programmer with 2 degrees, it's nice to see your college offering the mobile platform as a programming choice. Hell, all we got to write were COBOL and CICS mainframe applications and some semi-cool C++ projects.
Good Luck and Congratulations on getting your degree!!
What about a bluetooth hack to where u would be able to hack into someones phone and use their service for texting and calling. I heard of something like that when i was on my blackberry and was really into it. But it would be nice to get something like that on my Incredible
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App
I think it would be a good idea to make an app that uses an existing web api for a popular website, could be facebook, ebay(do they have an api?) etc etc.
It's a good way to learn a lot of aspects of android development, with a useful product as the outcome.
It doesn't matter if there is already an app for that site, think of a different way of using the site on the mobile, and go from there.
I would like to see a program that reads the weather API and reflects the current weather and location on the wallpaper. This app would require graphics design, code to parse the weather feed, writing to the OS. When I was on Windows Mobile there was a skin for Weather Panel that did this but with Android's live walpaper it could be really cool.
Thanks for the ideas you guys! I really appreciate it. Everything seems interesting.. but the problem is we don't know where to begin or how to go about it.
I did the broadcast hub tutorial present in the app inventer page. It turned out good. Is there any way I can add functionality to this itself?
blueren said:
Thanks for the ideas you guys! I really appreciate it. Everything seems interesting.. but the problem is we don't know where to begin or how to go about it.
I did the broadcast hub tutorial present in the app inventer page. It turned out good. Is there any way I can add functionality to this itself?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do all the tutorials and learn the blocks, you can create lots of stuff. There is a app in the market that adds more features to the app inventor, app inventor extender
XDA App
A couple of suggestions:
- A chess PGN editor
- A simple picture/document management app where you take a photo using the camera, add some tags or other info, and save all details in a database. You can also provide search functionality and a viewer to retrieve pictures using the index you've built.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
I did some homework on topics and came across this.. A multilingual speech translator.
Talk in a language, it converts the speech to text, translates that text to a target language, and reads the translated text aloud.
Is this feasible? What is the difficulty level?
Also, is it possible to develop a call blocker app? I looked around but wherever I search, I only find fully built apps but not pointers on how to go about creating one by yourself.
Please assist.
I could use some help with an app I'm working on. I need to know how to control the views and work with which things are in focus. I also want it to work even while in the background so using a handler or something else is knowledge I could use help with. I've been sifting through the javadoc and multiple other forums and am pretty much stuck. Anyone with decent knowledge that would be willing to help me out should message me. Thanks in advance.
First I would move this to the Android dev forum
Android uses Intents to display and run processes. Activities are Intents (views)that you can actually see on the screen and Services are Intents that can be run in the background.
Starting on the Android dev site is really the best place to find the answers to the problems.
That and using the Android examples that come with the SDK. Good luck and I hope you were talking about Android! XD
I was talking about android so here's what i'm trying to do. I want to take in trackball movements and pretty much make it so they don't affect my program or others. I'm not sure how to make it so that requestFocus() will take whatever view is currently on the screen, capture it, and pretty much revert right back to it if the trackball is used. I've tried a lot of different things, but I have been stuck on this forever. Anyone know how to accomplish this because for the most part I think that the trackball is not documented all that well. Any suggestions would be great!
I would look at the http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/ui-events.html , onTrackballEvent(MotionEvent) . You should be able to override that in your service, and just process the motion however you want and not call super.onTrackballEvent();
The problem is that although onTrackBall does captures events, it does not capture all of them. In the docs it says that the method will handle all events not already handled by a view. So I guess my question overall is how do you do just that? Take in every trackball movement no matter what view is reading it? Whether it be another app or anything else. How would I capture the remaining movements?
So after a bit more research here's what I've come up with for what I need to do. Either access the event queue or make it so any time the trackball is used, whether on the homescreen or something else, my application will be able to take these events and manipulate then as i need to. So anyone willing to help with this? I figure I need to make a thread, but how do I get it to read in other applications readings? Is this even possible?
I have a user of my app who is having a problem running it. My code launches another activity in the same app, and he is saying it is stopping before it should & returning to the previous activity, and he doesn't see any Force Close warnings.
I have run my code in the emulator & on my phone, I can't reproduce the error. We both run Android 2.2 on our phones, his is an HTC EVO & mine is a HTC Wildfire, as far as I can tell his specs are better than mine so shouldn't cause an issue - I deliberately chose a low spec for for my dev work so the code ought to run on anything.
As a bit of an Andoid dev noob (but been coding for years), is there any easy way I can make a special build of the app to send to him that would log any errors that happen ? I'd like to get a stack dump as well if possible, as I'm not sure exactly what routine in the activity its crashing out in. The activity that crashes is Gallery with 9 images in it, he can't flick through them or select one. I'm stumped as to whats causing it, any assistance would be gratefully received.
Thanks.
Why not point to your app and let others here try it on their phones? It could simply be other apps installed on his phone interfering with your app.
Long time programmer here too and when I get to where you're at (and I"m sure you've put some hours into this LOL), I go back to STEP 1.
I comment-out any and all code but the bare minimum; break it down to the Intent, startActivity and maybe a Toast message in the second activity. Even parse down your XML files to bare minimum.
See if that works. Then, ADD BACK ONE LINE OF CODE AT A TIME Run program and make sure it works. Yeah, it's painful, but in my 20 years of coding, I've learned to put my pride aside and to not "pretend" all the code I've written is correct.
Sometimes on bigger projects, I"ll change or add a couple of lines of code, run a back up and test. Rinse and repeat LOL. That way, I know I"m only a couple of lines of code from what "used" to work.
Good Luck!
Thanks both of you.
old_dude - Its a paid app. Only £0.99 but I don't think people would pay to help me. There is a free version of the same app (with less functionality) that this guy can get to work. If your really interested the 2 versions are -
Plink Log - Free Version
Plink Log Pro - Paid version
Rootstonian - agreed thats the approach I'd normally take if I was having problems on my dev phone or the emulator. The problem is that its OK on my HTC Wildfire/Android2.2 but on this guys HTC EVO/Android2.2 its having problems. I dont really want to keep sending him .apks with 1 or 2 lines extra enabled just to see if that fixes his specific issue. I was hoping there was something I could code to catch whatever crashes the activity & log it somewhere for me to analyse. When I do PC dev work, I have a global exception handler that catches anything I dont explicitly handle, and dumps the full call stack into a Log File I can read later.
I think I'll just have to take the existing app & put loads of debug code into it to save messages into a log file & see what bits of code are being called & what isn't & then get him to email me the results.
Thanks for the ideas guys, its always useful to get input from another perspective.
Dave
Hmmmm, just discovered setDefaultUncaughtExceptionHandler - might be able to use that with printStackTrace. Sounds interesting.
Here's the source code to a gridview that displays all installed apps. It's a very cut up version of the home sample that you find in the android sdk but it could help out if your trying to build an app launcher. If you look inside the startingpoint class you can see how I was gonna implement categories.
https://github.com/asadullahibnrob/TheButton
I just added a small update. I'm wondering if I could get some one to test it before I go on. I added a power button (it requires root) that should just power off the ouya. Also a button (the lock looking button) that should launch the discover apps section. Also the all apps button when clicked should only show the games that you have installed. You might think that it's strange but if everything works I'm gonna start on my new UI which will be alot different but has categories. I know this is kinda strange but I drew a print of how the ui will look when complete (it helps me put it together) if anyone wants to see I'll upload a pic.
Anyways new beta in first post.
I'll try to test this out for you today. It's nice seeing someone working on another launcher.
Alright so this is pretty much dead I was able to do some of the things I wanted but to be honest I would have to buy a new ouya and use the ouya odk to get the full size ouya icon. But what I'll do to help others is release the source code to a gridview that displays all installed apps. I think that will be the best thing to help others out.