I'm new to software engineering and android development. I'm curious what I should do in terms of what is done is done in industry. I could either make one generic large utility file, or I could make a bunch of separate utility files with some overlapping functionality. These utility files are for reading and writing json files.
Thanks!
Since you're new - I'd say just go with what seems easiest to wrap your head around. I think it would be best having many smaller files.
Having one large file can get complex when developing; as it's structure gets larger, it becomes harder to wrap your mind around it.
Having many smaller files allows for easier debugging as well, because if you have 10 files, you can say: "Oh, its messing up when reading from file x, so I know file y is good", whereas if you have one large file, you don't know where you've gone wrong. Make sense?
As for best practices in the industry - there's really so many different opinions.
For one, you can use databases instead of files, like SQLite (which is built into android). SQLite is like its own multi-file system (kind of, its actually a "relational database"). Or sometimes you will have a single config file, and then a large data file. Other times you will have hundreds of small files.
In industry, you see all sorts of things as "best practice". You'll learn that "best practice" is an opinion. For now, focus on creating software that works, and worry about weather or not the nitty gritty like this is "best practice" when you're more experienced.
-Brian
Related
I am hoping to create a simple program for my pocket PC - basically just a searchable database of marinas and anchourages around the UK. I already have the information stored on my PC as an excel file.
There are about 200 entries, but ideally I want an easy interface working a bit like the PPC contacts. i.e. Tabs for letters (A to Z). Tab A would show areas beggining with (A) such as Aberdeen, Arbroath etc etc. When you click on the area it takes you to a page with detailed notes for that area.
Is there any tools out there that are easy to use rather than using microsoft development tool?
The program will be distributed to sailing friends etc.
Something drag and drop would be lovely!
useful!
well lockarm - this sounds like a really useful little program
actually the microsoft development tool is about as easy as it gets.
The problem with the simpler tools is that the final program ends up being a bit crappy to use - the development environment doesn't give one enough flexability to do any thing really useful.
To answer your question however - here is a program.
http://www.syware.com/prodlib/win_ce/vce/vce.htm
Actually I'm looking for a small project to do some practice development with....would you be interested in sending me a copy of the excel file?
I just noticed, i was looking through the windows folder and i found the filed i wanted to rename to force it to fail loading for a test,
using resco i cleared the readonly flag.
i renamed the file
within 2 seconds the screen refreshed and the original file was there again aswell as the renamed one.
this is similar to xp's prefetch where you can delete system specific files and it will replace them itself, in theory delete the windows folder and it will rebuild itself back to a working system, i went through it on a W2003 Advanced Server course aswell.
if this repairing action could be halted, it would open the devices modding capabilities somewhat.
This is NOT prefetch.
Prefetch is when windows loads some programs into ram ready to run them at boot time. This means its quicker to run word etc when you choose it, so booting takes longer and running word is quicker.
and in theory, if you delete the windows folder, it will be deleted and windows will quickly crash, and not boot again.
It does NOT have the power to re-create copies of deleted files from nowhere!
This magical self generation of windows files is not taught on "W2003 Advanced Server course" or any other, I suggest you ask for your money back.
cool
Pyrofer, thanx for the well needed humour, u made me laugh with your comments.
You are thinking about the System File Checker thingy. On Windows (not on WM5) there is a directory with a copy of all the system files. If you replace or delete a system file then windows picks up on it and restores the file. As Pyrofer said, its not magical and its not prefetch
Paul
Pyrofer, I think you should get some facts straight before typing,
as a test for me, check you got system restore running, go into your windows installation folder and MOVE notepad.exe to somewhere else, low and behold notepad.exe reappears in the windows installation folder.
http://www.theeldergeek.com/system_volume_information_folder1.htm
That link may educate you a little more
or this one
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309531
have you been on any computer courses, maybe you should, as its obvious you know very little about modern operating systems, I may have got the prefetch incorrectly named and should have been clearly explained to the now obvious non technical network engineer, but atleast i know what the systems are capable of.
If WM5 is using the extended_rom as the system restore like and this can be stopped, alot of tidying up from the windows folder will make more ram avaliable
This magical self generation of windows files is not taught on "W2003 Advanced Server course" or any other, I suggest you ask for your money back.
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Click to collapse
Have you done the course? maybe you should and you'll find out yourself that windows is more capable than you think.
GET YOUR FACTS RIGHT BEFORE SHOOTING PEOPLE DOWN IN FLAMES TW4T
System Restore / System Volume Information has nothing to do with the system file protection feature you are describing. They are 2 entirely seperate things. The feature you are actually taking about is described here;
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=222193
WM5 does not have either of these features, the extended rom only contains OEM cab files and operator settings, WM5 has no advanced features like this at all.
There are a number of possible explanations, rom files cannot be deleted, but some can be masked by another file of the same name, you can then delete or rename the 2nd file exposing the 1st file in rom. I have seen this behaviour in WM2003.
Paul
thanks psneddon, thats the system i was trying to find the name of, if that can be stopped from happening.
Thanks for having a go at my knowledge, its always nice to see that you did exactly what you accused me of...
"System Restore / System Volume Information has nothing to do with the system file protection feature you are describing. They are 2 entirely seperate things"
And you agreed with this comment, ie, admitted that in your correction of your post, where you slagged me off, you still got it wrong.
So, in two posts you got them both wrong, in my post i stated a list of correct facts. I never said there was no feature to restore wnidows files, i said that it wasnt prefetch and it wasnt.
ALso, I wasnt "BEFORE SHOOTING PEOPLE DOWN IN FLAMES " and using all caps to shout, I was simply trying to point out your mistakes in a humerous way, obviously my humour went over your head.
I didnt flame you, or call you a twat.
Im sorry if I managed to offend you and understand that humour is a very subjective thing, at least one person here got the joke, so lets just end it here please.
I accept your apology, maybe some smileys around the humor parts would help me a little :lol: and maybe i did fly off the handle a little after nearlly getting killed on my way to work this morning. :roll:
WFP ( Windows File Protection ) does exist, ive now researched into it a little and its been around for a while, and you can delete the contents of the windows folder or system32 and it will replace it all (windows o/s related anyway).
What i was implying was that the universal could be using a similar system to this, ie, getting missing files from the rom and putting them back, and like WFP, this comes with an overhead on performance as it has to continually monitor specific folders for the changes.
I know replacing a file with a blank renamed file blocks this from happening but this can cause issues down the line, like replacing the imate today skins, yer renaming txt files and replacing them stops them from being recreated, but you can still choose them in the today skin manager.
Anyway i've had enough caffine now, lets get the Univeral up to the standards that the advertising led us to believe.
Here's my list of things they still need to add to S Notes to make it compete with a true note taking powerhouse like Echo Pen (this is a physical pen which takes notes on special paper, not a software but for me it is the chief competition to using S Notes all the time).
1) Have a way to record and embed a sound file anywhere within the page.
2) Make it so you can append audio notes to the end of an already recorded note page. As of now you can only delete the audio file and start over once it has been saved.
3) There is still the incredibly annoying zoom bug when writing at the bottom of the page if the user rests their palm on the screen.
4) They need to add a continuous scrolling feature to pages so that i can always be writing at the top half of the screen. Having to physically add a new page is annoying and unnecessary and forces the user to rest their palm on the bottom of the screen which causes problems.
5) Add a better highlighting feature to the pen for highlighting typed text other than choosing the highlighting marker. On typed text I prefer a nice clean straight highlighted line.
6) Please please please allow us to create our own templates? We are adults, we can handle the responsibility.
7) Allow us to add our own permanent background images. As of now you can add one and it disappears in the next session. Nonsensical.
8) Allow us to add our own text styles to the style sheet. If I choose Arial 16 point for the keyboard, stop changing me back to Roboto 22 every time I re-open S Notes. I LIKE Arial 16, got it?
9) Allow me to place the typing cursor anywhere I like by tapping the pen on the screen.
10) Since in their wisdom Samsung has decided to go with the truly obscure .snb standard (why?), please create a reader for us where we can view our S-Notes in Windows, Mac, etc environments. I have tried the various aftermarket .snb readers and so far nothing can decipher Samsung's proprietary flavor. C'mon guys, you are now competing against Windows 8, get it together.
There is so much about S-Notes that is done well and so much that seems like it would be easy to implement but they just didn't bother.
** And please no one suggest to me I try a different note-taking app. I like S-Notes, it just has some rough edges. I don't care for the way Lecture Notes interacts with the S-Pen.
Any other ideas? I plan on going to Samsung's lame Support Facebook Page and recommending these - lord I wish they had a real Forum like every other tech firm on the planet - oh well.
S Note is WIP may be some application developer work on it
samir_a said:
S Note is WIP may be some application developer work on it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hope so. However, of my experience with these sort of things is at all prophetic, they will end up adding features I don't care about and rarely use and not add the functionality I could use every day. The fact is none of these things I am suggesting would even be difficult as they exist in other competing products already. For some reason they simply choose not to implement. It's not that they can't they won't.
Try LectureNotes. It's far more superior.
Jonphinguyen7 said:
Try LectureNotes. It's far more superior.
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I don't like Lecture Notes. Hate the way the pen writes. I want to use S Notes because of the way it integrates with the entire ecosystem.
mitchellvii said:
Here's my list of things they still need to add to S Notes to make it compete with a true note taking powerhouse like Echo Pen (this is a physical pen which takes notes on special paper, not a software but for me it is the chief competition to using S Notes all the time).
...
10) Since in their wisdom Samsung has decided to go with the truly obscure .snb standard (why?), please create a reader for us where we can view our S-Notes in Windows, Mac, etc environments. I have tried the various aftermarket .snb readers and so far nothing can decipher Samsung's proprietary flavor. C'mon guys, you are now competing against Windows 8, get it together.
...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Probably you already know, but I recently discovered that the .snb files are just zipped compressed files. They can be unpacked with any unzip program.
Inside the archive there are many image files (.png), many .xml files, some mysterious .rels file and a .zdib file. See yourself if you feel like investigating more.
Just in case someone didn't know that...
sphere314 said:
Probably you already know, but I recently discovered that the .snb files are just zipped compressed files. They can be unpacked with any unzip program.
Inside the archive there are many image files (.png), many .xml files, some mysterious .rels file and a .zdib file. See yourself if you feel like investigating more.
Just in case someone didn't know that...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But is there a reader that can view them as created on a PC?
mitchellvii said:
But is there a reader that can view them as created on a PC?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know that but probably a programmer could work on it if the files archived in the .snb are not proprietary/encripted. I've some doubt about the .zdib files... I didn't find any reference on the net about this extension (apart from this other one)
mitchellvii said:
I don't like Lecture Notes. Hate the way the pen writes. I want to use S Notes because of the way it integrates with the entire ecosystem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Honest man... I like it!
I wish they would just add a 'zoom lock', which I think would take care of the palm zoom problem.
sphere314 said:
I don't know that but probably a programmer could work on it if the files archived in the .snb are not proprietary/encripted. I've some doubt about the .zdib files... I didn't find any reference on the net about this extension (apart from this other one)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are .snb readers. They just don't work with Samsungs brand of .snb.
Sent from my GT-N8013 using Tapatalk 2
I hope someone knows how to do this, I have looked everywhere and could find no reference since most of the files seem to be randomly generated names there is no extension, and I think they are similar to split archives for use by the unity engine in a game or apk. I think I got ONE open a while ago but don't know what i did, and none of the others i tried worked, I think adding the 7zip / winrar archive header to the beginning parts of the file in a hex editor is what I did on one random file, but nothing else and cant find what data that was (it was a random link i found)
0c45efac37cdc425b977292ced6a6507 is an idea of one of the file names and there are several dozen of them, ranging in 4-6 digit files sizes in the apk. which leads me to believe they are some sort of archive, or compressed or at least encrypted or obfuscated data. but nothing I search along those lines brings any results related.
I could be way off, i know. so I am looking to the pros here in the android development section to lend me hand.
there must be a tool out there that someone has made, or a method since I am sure I am not the first to try this, and my experience is limited, so hopefully I can be lead in the right direction
Thanks in advance.
Hi all,
Firstly many thanks to Smartwatch Ticks for those excellent tutorial videos detailing what's in the XML files behind the ClockSkin faces on the D5 / Lem5 etc.
This sparked an interest in using something I discovered last year called Leo Editor (www.leoeditor.com). It's open source and written in Python. It's basically an outline editor. It has a tree structure and each node can contain text. However, the trick to Leo is that you can generate external files from any node. Also each node can be cloned and used anywhere.
This means that you can have a tree node which just contains the definitions of all your image arrays. If you want to use them for a particular face just clone the node again and paste it into your watch face structure where it's required.
The advantage with these clones is that if there's an error, once you fix it in one place, they're all fixed!
When you save your outline it writes all your generated files, creating new files for new nodes as required.
It doesn’t just support xml. It can be used to work with any language to break up code into manageable structures.
It's documentation which generates the code for you.
A concept called "literate programming".
I think there is already a software for creating android based smartwatches such as the D5.
It's called ClockSkinMaker created by @rromeroa
Clockskin Maker
Hi yes, I've had a look at ClockSkinMaker. I didn't find it very intuitive and I have been toying with the idea of developing my own that will include being able to edit the images, but for now I think I'll use it to test my faces and create them using Leo Editor.
Most stuff doesn't change anyway, it's just a matter of creating the new images, plus it makes it very easy to create a group of faces that have slight differences. Cloned nodes containing the desired "drawables" can easily be added in.
This enables very easy creation of several versions of the same face, but each one with slightly different features.
If a GUI was always better, the good lord wouldn't have given us bash!
richardtwyning said:
Hi yes, I've had a look at ClockSkinMaker. I didn't find it very intuitive and I have been toying with the idea of developing my own that will include being able to edit the images, but for now I think I'll use it to test my faces and create them using Leo Editor.
Most stuff doesn't change anyway, it's just a matter of creating the new images, plus it makes it very easy to create a group of faces that have slight differences. Cloned nodes containing the desired "drawables" can easily be added in.
This enables very easy creation of several versions of the same face, but each one with slightly different features.
If a GUI was always better, the good lord wouldn't have given us bash!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ohh I see. Good luck then :good: