Database Users

[Q] Review for my game/app

I´v published my first app on the Android Market. However I have little people in my direct suroundings who have Android Phones so hopefully there are a few people here who can help me by telling my what my application misses.
e.g. I think my app uses little battery power. So maybe anyone can confirm this to me?
becouse i am new to the forum (or .. well not new, but little posts) I can not put the link to my app here. Search on Triton Bubble Breaker on Appbrain or Market to download.
It is a bubble breaker game. Why I developed it when there are other alternatives on the market already? Because I missed the feeling I got when playing it on a old phone for the first time. Wanted to make it faster, simpler, free and maybe add some extra features (that should not be disturbing the simplicity of the game)
(when you are a coder.. I have (maybe a simple) question. When the game is finished I like to save the Score. However I can not do this from a DrawView? only from the main activity, so that i have to use menu buttons to call saving the score... is there a way to save data from view/drawview? )
Thanks in advance, and i wander what you think of my first attempt building a android app.

Good work! Very impressive for a first app!
for saving stuff, use these commands:
(put this at the begining of your class)
public static final String PREFERENCE_FILENAME = "AppGamePrefs";
(put this where you need it, usually located where you are doing the saving)
SharedPreferences gameSettings = getSharedPreferences("MyGamePreferences", MODE_PRIVATE);
SharedPreferences.Editor prefEditor = gameSettings.edit();
(get saved data like this)
score=gameSettings.getInt("score", 0); //"score" is the saved variables name, 0 is the default value incase the variable "score" has not been saved yet
(save like this)
prefEditor.putInt("score", points); // saves to variable "score" with value of variable points (you can change the putInt to putString, putBoolean, etc.)
(this finalizes the save VERY IMPORTANT)
prefEditor.commit();
Hope that helps, keep up the good work!

thanx for the reply. Starting writing in Java (?) was getting used to. I did had some experience with coding in Matlab (if that can be labled programming )
I have tried your advice, I have come across the same code on other fora and samples from google. Only problem is that it doesn't work in the class I am programming in, the drawview class.
In essence my program is setup like this:
public class activity extends Activity
...
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
...
setContentView(drawView);
...
}
.. some other functions for the menu (from which i can do the code for storing data!)
then it goes into the drawView.
Here my program just draws and draws, until there is a touch on the screen, then it will calculate the new situation. But at a given moment, the game is finished. Then i will draw the finish screen (in the same drawview). I can not get out of this drawview. So i can not do setContentView(results_layout) or something like that. And i can not call the code for saving data because that can not be defined in that class (according to Eclipse).
public class DrawView extends View implements OnTouchListener {
...
@Override protected void onDraw(Canvas canvas) {
Draw everything
...
if game_end = true then {
drawResults
save-code here gives error
}
...
}
public boolean onTouch(View view, MotionEvent event) {
calculate everyting
...
game_end = check_game_end(); //return true or false
}
this is my code in essence. Ofcourse it not all, but this i hope you get my idea/problem.
Thanx for the response again

Problems with using multiple widgets in a single app

I have multiple widgets provided by one app, and thus multiple classes that extend AppWidgetProvider. The idea is that every widget contains a Button, which starts a Service when pressed. This Service runs a bit of code and then stops. Now for the problem: for example, I have a Widget1a and a Widget1u. These widgets look like each other, but each widget does a slightly different thing. If I place a Widget1a on the homescreen and press it, a Service is started and the code that this Service should run is run, as it should be. Now I place a Widget1u on the homescreen, and suddenly Widget1a stops working and doesn't do anything when I press it. If I place a second Widget1a on the homescreen both Widget1as work again, but now Widget1u is disabled and doesn't respond when I press it. In short: it seems that at any particular time only one type's code works when it is pressed (and if there are multiple instances of the same type on the homescreen all of these instances will work, but no instances of any other widget of my app will do anything when pressed).
The code in the AppWidgetProvider of each widget is pretty basic. It merely contains an overrided onUpdate-method. It creates an Intent to start a Service that I previously created, this is then used to create a PendingIntent which is used by setOnClickPendingIntent to make sure it can be activated by a Button in the widget. Each widget makes, when its Button is pressed, a slightly different Intent so that a certain Service is executed slightly differently. So this only works for the instances of 1 widgettype at a time, namely those of which an instance was added to the homescreen most recently.
Why do all my app's other widgets stop working when I add a widget of a different type to my homescreen? Does anyone know more about widgets or how I can make sure that each widget keeps doing its job when I add a new one from the same app to the homescreen?
Here is the onUpdate method of one of my AppWidgetProviders for one of my widgets. All widgets operate similarly and I know I used a lot of copypasting which is a bad programming habit but it didn't seem to really want to work otherwise.
Code:
@Override
public void onUpdate(Context context, AppWidgetManager appWidgetManager,
int[] appWidgetIds) {
// Create an intent to launch the service
Intent serviceIntent = new Intent(context, SendService.class);
//I just put some extra data here to be used by the Service which wil eventually get this Intent and thus the data inside
serviceIntent.setData(Uri.parse("uri::somethingrandomandunique"));
serviceIntent.putExtra("Lamp", "1a");
// PendingIntent is required for the onClickPendingIntent that actually
// starts the service from a button click
PendingIntent pendingServiceIntent =
PendingIntent.getService(context, 0, serviceIntent, Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
// Get the layout for the App Widget and attach a click listener to the
// button
RemoteViews views = new RemoteViews(context.getPackageName(), R.layout.widget1a);
views.setOnClickPendingIntent(R.id.button1a, pendingServiceIntent);
// super.onUpdate(context, appWidgetManager, appWidgetIds);
ComponentName componentName = new ComponentName(context.getPackageName(), Widget1a.class.getName());
appWidgetManager.updateAppWidget(componentName, views);
}
So what am I doing wrong?

[Q] Where is the best place to check for license?

I wrote an app that most (98%) of the work is done by service.
Where is the best place to do a license check?

In your Main activity, the first time it is launched and where the service is initiated. I wouldn't do it too often so don't put the check into the service.

You could also check periodically, let's say, every 15 minutes.
But don't use Timer for that, as it creates a new thread (well, you could use it, but you could do it in a better way). It's better to use a Handler:
Code:
// Fifteen minutes
int checkFrequency = 15 * 60 * 1000;
Handlerhandler = new Handler();
Runnable runnable = new Runnable() {
[user=439709]@override[/user]
public void run() {
if (!checkLicense()) {
// no license, do whatever you need to do
}
handler.postDelayed(this, checkFrequency);
}
};
handler.postDelayed(runnable, checkFrequency);

So I will check every time he open the main window but the main window is a setup window so it won't be opned so ofen.

you can set preference and check weather user has accepted licence or not and if accepted then no need to display it again .

wasim memon said:
you can set preference and check weather user has accepted licence or not and if accepted then no need to display it again .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We've been talking about the Play Store licensing, not about an End User License Agreement.
He wanted to check whether the user has bought his app.
Otherwise your solution would be right though.

11alex11 said:
I wrote an app that most (98%) of the work is done by service.
Where is the best place to do a license check?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i would (this is how i do that) check it when the app starts (SplashActivity) and write "encrypted" how often the app got started.
Then everytime when (pseudocode)
if (read_and_decrypt(cntAppStart) % 10) == 0) { checklicense(); }
in the splashactivity.

[Q] Need Help with a problem

I am using one edit text view and one OK button to input a large amount of user data during a setup function but can't figure out how to pause the thread execution unit the OK button is pressed. I don't want to have to register and use a ton of different buttons and listeners to call individual functions for each user input and so far I've found out the hard way that a while look will lock the UI thread and running the loop in a separate thread will not make the program wait. Any Ideas?
public class SetupMenuActivity extends Activity
{
private TextView setupPrompt;
boolean okButtonPressed = false;
@override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState)
{
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.setup_menu);
setup();
}
private OnClickListener okButtonListener = new OnClickListener()
{
@override
public void onClick(View v)
{
okButtonPressed = true;
}
};
private void setup()
{
Button okButton = (Button) findViewById(R.id.okButton);
okButton.setOnClickListener(okButtonListener);
setupPrompt = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.setupPrompt);
setupPrompt.setText("Please Enter Your Name");
// Make program wait for ok button clicked
setupPrompt.setText("Please Enter a Name for your Account");
}
}

What else could the user click/etc that you want to prevent from happening? If you want to block another button, then you can either do button.setClickable(false) or even button.setVisibility(View.GONE) until the ok button is clicked. Instead blocking the whole thread doesn't make much sense

The only two things the user can interact with is the button and the edit text box. I want to prevent the changing of the setupPrompt text view until the Ok button is pressed. The easy way to do it would be to put it into the onClickListener but there is a whole series of the prompts and waiting for user input so I'm trying to avoid creating a ton of different button listeners for each piece of user input.

TShipman1981 said:
The only two things the user can interact with is the button and the edit text box. I want to prevent the changing of the setupPrompt text view until the Ok button is pressed. The easy way to do it would be to put it into the onClickListener but there is a whole series of the prompts and waiting for user input so I'm trying to avoid creating a ton of different button listeners for each piece of user input.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The way you think this would work is not right, you have to think through it again, sorry . In Android, you can almost never wait for user events (because they might not happen). Instead, you have to do what you can during setup and everything that can only happen after a certain event has to be in the onEvent method (for instance onClick). What you can do to make it less complex is one method which is called only from the onClickListener. The method keeps track of how many times it has been called with an int step instance variable. That method has to execute what should happen at each step.

SimplicityApks said:
The way you think this would work is not right, you have to think through it again, sorry . In Android, you can almost never wait for user events (because they might not happen). Instead, you have to do what you can during setup and everything that can only happen after a certain event has to be in the onEvent method (for instance onClick). What you can do to make it less complex is one method which is called only from the onClickListener. The method keeps track of how many times it has been called with an int step instance variable. That method has to execute what should happen at each step.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah Agreed with Simp. I would honestly make one method with all the info you need then get all the info and call it only when the button is clicked. If I knew a bit more of what your trying to accomplish I might be able to help you code it more efficiently.

MotionEvent.ACTION_CANCEL is blocking subsequent ACTION_UP on my button

Hey guys,
I am not getting any response on Stack Overflow so I thought I would try here.
At this point I am suspicious that it is a Samsung device specific problem. A very basic app with just a single button produces the same issue on my S4 development device.
Here is me SO question:
I have a button on one of my fragments, that sits inside a relative layout.
It's a rather large button, and when I fat finger it I get a ACTION_CANCEL motion event rather than ACTION_DOWN (it works perfectly fine with finger tips). This prevents it from registering the subsequent ACTION_UP (I assume the view's parent is taking over). I tried using the requestDisallowInterceptTouchEvent() method on the parent, to no avail.
Here is my onTouch implementation:
Code:
@Override
public boolean onTouch(View view, MotionEvent event) {
//debugging
Log.v("TOUCH EVENT", event.toString());
int action = event.getAction();
if (action == MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN) {
mButton.getParent().requestDisallowInterceptTouchEvent(true);
//Do stuff...
return true;
} else if (action == MotionEvent.ACTION_UP) {
//Do other stuff...
return true;
} else if (action == MotionEvent.ACTION_CANCEL){
return false;
//Toast.makeText(context, "Your thumb is too fat.", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
}
return false;
}
Note that the button also uses custom background resources. I start an AsyncTask when the button is pressed and the background changes based on the progress of that task. I'm not sure if that has anything to do with the problem or not.
EDIT: I walked all the way up the View hierarchy to ViewRootImpl, and still no luck in calling requestDisallowInterceptTouchEvent() on it. Weird thing is this shows in the log when my button sticks:
Code:
08-26 11:06:15.287: D/ViewRootImpl(5428): [ViewRootImpl] action cancel - 1, s:31 s(atmel):-1.0 eccen:1.3333334
So obviously it seems that the action is either being cancelled before it even gets inside the ViewRootImpl or right after. How is this even possible?
Update: Still no progress on this... anyone?

masterjeff said:
Hey guys,
I am not getting any response on Stack Overflow so I thought I would try here.
At this point I am suspicious that it is a Samsung device specific problem. A very basic app with just a single button produces the same issue on my S4 development device.
Here is me SO question:
I have a button on one of my fragments, that sits inside a relative layout.
It's a rather large button, and when I fat finger it I get a ACTION_CANCEL motion event rather than ACTION_DOWN (it works perfectly fine with finger tips). This prevents it from registering the subsequent ACTION_UP (I assume the view's parent is taking over). I tried using the requestDisallowInterceptTouchEvent() method on the parent, to no avail.
Here is my onTouch implementation:
Code:
@Override
public boolean onTouch(View view, MotionEvent event) {
//debugging
Log.v("TOUCH EVENT", event.toString());
int action = event.getAction();
if (action == MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN) {
mButton.getParent().requestDisallowInterceptTouchEvent(true);
//Do stuff...
return true;
} else if (action == MotionEvent.ACTION_UP) {
//Do other stuff...
return true;
} else if (action == MotionEvent.ACTION_CANCEL){
return false;
//Toast.makeText(context, "Your thumb is too fat.", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
}
return false;
}
Note that the button also uses custom background resources. I start an AsyncTask when the button is pressed and the background changes based on the progress of that task. I'm not sure if that has anything to do with the problem or not.
EDIT: I walked all the way up the View hierarchy to ViewRootImpl, and still no luck in calling requestDisallowInterceptTouchEvent() on it. Weird thing is this shows in the log when my button sticks:
Code:
08-26 11:06:15.287: D/ViewRootImpl(5428): [ViewRootImpl] action cancel - 1, s:31 s(atmel):-1.0 eccen:1.3333334
So obviously it seems that the action is either being cancelled before it even gets inside the ViewRootImpl or right after. How is this even possible?
Update: Still no progress on this... anyone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mmmh strange problem you've got there... Just an idea, maybe try to always return true in your onTouchEvent() method since you may be losing the event when an ACTION_MOVE event comes up and you return false. Other than that, could you show us your layout file? I doubt the change in background color has any effect on this, but it could be that some part of your layout is causing this.

SimplicityApks said:
Mmmh strange problem you've got there... Just an idea, maybe try to always return true in your onTouchEvent() method since you may be losing the event when an ACTION_MOVE event comes up and you return false. Other than that, could you show us your layout file? I doubt the change in background color has any effect on this, but it could be that some part of your layout is causing this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does anyone have a solution to this yet? More specifically, I think it's the Samsung's own implementation of ViewRootImpl that is causing this problem. I've been trying to figure out for a long time how to either pre-empt ViewRootImpl to intercept MotionEvents, or completely override ViewRootImpl. I found no success in either of these.
I also thought about reading from /dev/input/eventX directly, but this isn't feasible since it requires the phone to be rooted first. For myself it's ok, but if I'm writing an app for other devices that's not a solution.
Can someone from Samsung help?