Database Users

[Q] Newbie question for best Android coding practices

Hi,
A year ago I developed an app as part of a group project at uni. Due to the limitations set by the project rules the app isn't properly designed for Android. The app is a tour guide, in 2 parts. The guide itself is an XML file which has all the content on it. The other part is the player, which is an Android app. The player parses the XML and forms Java Classes to store the data and then play it. The content is saved in the form of Slides in a Slideshow (part of the requirements of the project, not our choice). So for instance 1 slide will be the main menu, then clicking a button will take you to another slide which will be a sub menu and so on.
Now a year later I've come to update this app, originally I was just intending to change the AbsoluteLayouts we used to Relative/Linear/List/whatever works best for that particular slide and also to put the layouts into XML rather keep them in the Java. However I was wondering what would be the best Android practice for an app such as this?
The advantage of using XML for the guide is that say if we had a guide to a different city we could just upload that new XML to a server (the player can download remotely) and then download it to get a new tour guide. However would it be best for me to strip away all of this and start afresh, with Android in mind? I.E. by removing the need to parse an XML file at the start and just have a new app for each city.
I've been thinking about a complete overhaul as changing AbsoluteLayout will be a pain. At the moment each component is given X and Y coordinates in the main XML file, so changing that to relative commands, changing the parser to read that will be hard. Also it's best practice to store the layouts in R.layout but it would be hard to convert the layout from the main Tour Guide XML to a layout XML... if that makes sense :/
If I were to remove the main XML, how would I handle each menu or content page? Would they be given their own activity?
Sorry for the long post, I just want to be clear on what the best way to update this app would be and am just learning how to properly design Android apps. I really appreciate any advice and for taking the time to read this post!

If I've put this in the wrong forum then let me know and I'll move it
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App

check out
http://www.appcelerator.com/
i created my first app using it
and its on the market with around 2k downloads
it has its issues and bugs but it was my first real coding experience.
its worth checking out
and its free

[Q] Stock Graphics and how to implement them

I'm building a few apps but wanted to see if there might be a way to grab existing graphics already in the OS. Like the plus sign in the Calendar or the microphone... I'd rather not have to include the same image in the system if it's already there, and the fact that a simple theme change would make the apps I'm working on change dynamically with the new look.
Thoughts?

if the files you want to use are defined in the resource directory and can be accessed via R.java from both xml and java then there is no way to get to the files.
if the files are defined as Assets then there is a possibility for you to access them.
you will need to know the exact file path to the file you want to access.
see
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/res/AssetManager.html
and
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5493396/how-to-reference-android-assets-across-packages

Exactly what I was looking for, but not what I was wanting to hear. Know of any stock graphics I can use for my res/drawables? I'm not exactly the best artist in the world and would like my apps to look somewhat like they belong.

removed

android.R.drawable is helpful but if you can't get it, just download the source. are you guys forgetting the android is completely open source? it might take you a while to find them, but they're all there.

I was sure there were some stock graphics available somewhere. Thanks SimonVT. Helped quite a bit with the ugly crayon jobs I created.

removed

SimonVT said:
That is also an option, but using native resources will ensure that it fits in with the overall OS theme.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
oh yeah, I guess you've got a point there. I wasn't thinking about people with sense, motoblur, etc. I've only ever had stock android phones. Well, I did have a nook color for a month or two, but I installed cyanogenmod the day I got it.

this might interest you aswell. its the android icon template pack.
http://developer.android.com/shareables/icon_templates-v2.3.zip
you can read more about icon and user interface guidlines here
http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/ui_guidelines/index.html

Yeah, that's some good information as well. Following the OS standard is what I would prefer over trying to make my own or grabbing from other installed apps. It makes for the apps/widgets to flow much better in overall design theory.

[REPO] The library thread

Hello everyone,
Based on the release of the new forums here, and the seemingly enthusiastic response, I have decided to create a repository of libraries that are useful to Android developers.
Libraries:
AChartEngine : This is a library that lets you make and display all kinds of charts, from line to bar to scatter charts. A very good solution, should you need charts.
Uses: Well... Charts!
Made by 4ViewSoft.
ActionBarSherlock: This library will help you in maintaining an easy-to-use and consistent UI across all version of Android above 2.1.
On Android 3.0+, it will use the native ActionBar, and below that, a backport of the 4.x native ActionBar has been used. Note that this is not needed if you want to target APIs that support the AB natively.
Made by Jake Wharton.
aFileChooser: The basic version of Android File Chooser, it features somewhat less graphical hints about, for example, your current folder, but does provide a somewhat cleaner UI.
Uses include a simple file chooser for opening a file from a specific folder.
Made by Paul Burke.
android-hybridchoice: A ListView that lets users open a single list item, while also letting you select one or more other items. This way, you can (for example) view a mail while selecting others to throw away, instead of having to do that separately.
Uses: Making any app with items that have detailed info in a ListView that can be changed.
Made by Kiran Rao.
android-lockpattern: A library for you to include a lock pattern in your app. It was adapted straight from Android source code, and is very useful for keeping data secure.
Uses: Root apps, apps with sensitive data or other apps that could hurt one's phone.
Made by Hai Bison.
Android FileChooser: Helps you in letting the user select a file. A visual GUI is made available to you and the user, through which the user can navigate to select a folder.
Use cases: A file explorer, a downloading action, moving/copying files, etc.
Made by Hai Bison.
Android Maps Extensions: A library that extends a number of Google Maps API v2 features. It features things like marker grouping, where it won't display individual markers when there's a lot of them together.
Can be used in an application with a Maps View, to make it clearer and easier to understand.
Made by Maciek G
Android Proxy Library: This lets you provide an easy and better (than Google's) solution to the Android Issue 1273 (OF DOOOOOOOM!). It allows you to easily get the proxy settings of an Android device.
Uses: You know, getting the proxy settings.
Made by Marco Pagliari.
BetterPickers: A cool library that implements the Android 4.2 Clock time picker for you to use in your own apps as you please. It is a very nice way to keep your app Holo-themed, and it continues the push for a consistent UI in Android.
Among others, uses include clock and calendar apps.
Made by Derek Brameyer.
Build.prop Tools: A library to get access to the properties in a device's build.prop, which include its codename, Android version, CPU name and others.
Uses: Having to edit or otherwise get access to certain build.prop entries in your app, for example to display system info.
Made by Jonathan Haylett.
Cieo: A library that lets you animate text. It is currently in very early Alpha stages of development, but does work.
Uses: Word games, for example Hangman, where you can add a little extra to make it more dynamic.
Made by Igor <LastNameUnknownException>.
DroidParts: This library helps you add the most used parts of Android apps without problems. It can help you add a number of more complicated parts that have been modded to be simpler, like an ImageFetcher and an improved ASyncTask.
Uses: Just about every app can do this. Easier everything!
Made by Alex Yanchenko.
droidText: A PDF creator library. Should you need to create a PDF easily, this is the library you want!
Uses include parsing user input and saving it to a PDF file for later use, or to send (i.e. via email).
Made by Markus Neubrand.
EventBus: This helps you tie together Activities, Fragments and background threads. It eliminates the need for overly complex listeners and interfaces, to make your life a lot easier.
Uses: Apps with background threads, Activities and/or Fragments working together.
Made by Markus Junginger.
FlipView: A FlipBoard-like animation to use for scrolling. Give your app a little extra eye candy, when you have multiple pages to scroll through.
Uses: News readers and other apps that separate content into clear "pages".
Made by Emil Sjölander.
GAST (Great Android Sensing Toolkit): A library to help you use an Android phone's internal sensors. It will help you control many sensor, including NFC, the camera and the accelerometer.
Uses: A diagnosing app, or one that uses certain sensors for controlling an app feature.
Made by Greg Milette and Adam Stroud.
GoogleDateTimePickers: TimePickers done right. A beautiful replacement for Google's standard DatePickers and TimePickers, It is designed with the Holo style in mind, and makes it much, much easier to select the date and time of your liking.
Uses: Letting the user pick a date or time, e.g. when setting an alarm.
Made by Mirko Dimartino.
Hansel And Gretel: This allows you to visually display the Fragment Stack. When you open a new Fragment, it is added to a 'tower' of Fragments, from which you can also pop (remove) the top one. This library allows you to visually represent that Stack in your app.
Uses: If, for example, you travel through multiple Fragments within one Activity, you can show which Fragments the user has gone through.
Made by Jake Wharton.
HoloEverywhere: A library that backports the Holo UI design to earlier Android versions (like ActionBarSherlock does for the ActionBar). It uses the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean assets and makes them usable on Android versions 2.1 Eclair and up.
Uses: An application that needs Holo on all platforms it runs on. Be aware that it might disrupt the UI consistency for the user, so think about that before including this in your app.
Made by Sergey Shatunov and Waza_Be.
Inscription: For displaying information about your app to the user. It contains a ChangeLogDialog and a WhatsNewDialog, where the former displays more detailed information (version numbers, etc.) than the latter.
Useful for showing a dialog after the user updated your app, without having to write too much code.
Made by Martin van Zuilekom.
JacksonInFiveMinutes: A library to help in parsing and processing JSON, offering different ways to do so: A streaming API, a tree model and data binding.
Of course, you can use this anywhere to parse JSON data (Twitter apps, for example).
Made by Tatu Saloranta (?).
JazzyViewPager: Makes it easy to add a nice effect when changing pages with a ViewPager. Easily done: just add it, change some references and pick an animation!
Uses: Spicing up your app's animation portfolio, when using a ViewPager.
Made by Jeremy Feinstein.
ListViewAnimations: An easy way of animating your ListView items easily and nicely, to give your app that little bit extra.
Uses: To spice up any ListView that needs more fancies.
Made by Niek Haarman.
NumericPageIndicator: A ViewPagerIndicator 'plug-in' that lets you easily display which page you're looking at. For example, show "page 2 of 20" at the bottom of the page.
Uses: Letting the user know which page they are on.
Made by Manuel Peinado.
OrmLite: A library that simplifies database interaction in Android apps. It is designed to work with multiple database systems, including SQLite and MySQL.
Uses: Database creation, management in Android. Various DB systems supported.
Made by Gray Watson.
osmdroid: An almost full, free replacement of Google's MapView. It includes numerous functionalities, like a number of on- and offline tile sources.
Uses: To add a map to your app, and easily use functionalities surrounding it.
Made by a number of non-disclosed awesome people!
PDFViewer SDK: A free PDF viewer library that works well. However, it does have a watermark on the screen, and you'll have to pay to remove it.
Uses are obvious: Building all kinds of PDF viewers!
Made by GEAR.it.
PlayView: This helps you in creating a Google Play-like style in your UI, by extending the CardsUI library (which can be found in the PlayView thread).
Good to use in an application where you want a nice smooth UI, with a modular and changeable look and feel.
Made by Androguide.fr and GadgetCheck, among others.
ProgressButton: A nice library that shows you the progress of a download in the same button that you press to start the download. See Google Music for a working example.
Comes in handy when there's a list of items to download, and you want to facilitate easy downloading and keeping tracks of those downloads.
Made by Prateek Srivastava, based off of Roman Nurik's examples.
PullToRefresh: Expand a Listview (multiple versions are supported) with the ability to refresh its content upon pulling down at the top.
Uses include social media clients, lists of other network-based updated items (orders, for example).
Made by Chris Banes.
Remote Metadata Provider: Get system information about, for example, which music is playing on your phone. This could help you implement lockscreen music controls for your app.
Uses: Lockscreen music controls, for example.
Made by XDA member Dr.Alexander_Breen.
RoboSpice: A library that makes long-running asynchronous tasks easy. For example, it offers caching (very useful for orientation changes).
Uses: Any app that implements an ASyncTask, especially when it is a bigger and longer-running one.
Made by Octo Technology.
RootTools: This library will make it very easy for you to gain superuser access and execute commands based on that. This way, you can, for example, move and replace files anywhere on the system.
This is especially handy when you are making a sort of backup app, or when you need the ability to do things that aren't possible without root access.
Made by Stericson.
ShowcaseView: This is a library that lets you highlight certain areas of the screen. Just like the Android launcher on first launch (or YouTube), it will allow you to tell the user how to interact with what, and what it does.
Uses: Clarifying certain UI elements and their purpose to the user.
Made by Alex Curran.
SlidingMenu: This lets you include a menu that slides into your app from the side, like the YouTube app has it. There, you can add a whole hosts of options and actions that don't fit or belong in the ActionBar. SlidingMenu also lets you customise the menu. The new Android supportv4 library version, revision 13, also has a basic version of this.
Uses: Menus with additional items, like channels in the YouTube app, shortcuts to your app's settings, etc.
Made by Jeremy Feinstein.
Spring For Android: A library that helps you integrate some features easily. For example, it can simplify using REST in your app.
Uses: Whenever your app needs REST of auth support.
Made by GoPivotal.
StandOut: A library that enables you to make your apps float! Basically, you can make any app you want float. Look in the thread for numerous examples!
Useful when you are making an app that is also used parallel to other apps, like a calculator or note taking app.
Made by Mark Wei.
StickyListHeaders: This is a great way to help you order alphabetised lists in a clear and very recognisable way. The current letter which you are scrolling through will be shown at the top of the screen, for as long as the first letter of the top item on the screen starts with that letter.
Use cases are, for example, scrolling through songs, email addresses, names and articles.
Made by Emil Sjölander.
Sugar ORM: An easy way to use SQLite libraries in your app. It takes away some of the more complex and annoying tasks of database management.
Uses: Managing and querying SQLite databases in your app.
Made by Satya Narayan.
UpdateChecker: This library is a quick and easy way of making sure that users know about updates to your app. It will show a Dialog every 5 times (by default) the app is launched, informing of an app update being available in the Play Store.
Uses: Making sure people update your app. It is handy in just about every app.
Made by Pietro Rampini.
ViewPagerIndicator: This library emulates the multiple ways of showing tab locations without using the ActionBar. This can be used to replicate the Play Store, older Google+ versions, launcher-like indicators and more!
This library is always handy when using tabs, but without wanting to, for example, sacrifice too much screen real estate to use the ActionBar.
Made by Jake Wharton.
Sites, etc. collecting libraries:
Android Libraries provides a big list of libraries for all sorts of tasks, including graphics engines.
Android Snippets is a collection of little snippets of code to help you in navigating some commonly (and less commonly) seen challenges in Android development.
Android UI Patterns for all kinds of UI libraries, with a nice app to go with it.
AndroidKickstartR is a web-based tool for quickly starting an Android app, including a number of (library) options to help ease some of the pain of adding extras. Fair warning: this seems to include older versions of some things, double check the generated project.
AndroidViews for multiple nice UI-based libraries that help make your app look and work awesome!
DevAppsDirect is an app with examples of libraries. Test without setting up a whole new project!
ramdroid77's Google+ community for GitHub-based libraries.
Libraries for developers: A nice little app that has a collection of libraries available to developers.
Also make sure to spread the word about and contribute to this repo!
Have fun,
bassie1995

very helpful thread! thanks mate

roottools is also a very helpful library: http://code.google.com/p/roottools/

nikwen said:
roottools is also a very helpful library: http://code.google.com/p/roottools/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Forgot that one as a big one. Shame, since I used it . Will add in a sec.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD

I used this library to include a file-chooser in my App:
https://code.google.com/p/android-filechooser/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
and forked this, that acts basically the same:
https://github.com/dentex/aFileChooser
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

xda_dentex said:
I used this library to include a file-chooser in my App:
and forked this, that acts basically the same:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I shall be including this later today. Thanks for contributing!

bassie1995 said:
I shall be including this later today. Thanks for contributing!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're welcome!
Also the other project seems valid. If you want, point to the original repository.
The main difference is that it stays on the standard sdcard only, by default.
I also found a really good site with cool libraries: http://www.androidviews.net/
I'm sure I will want to include some of them.

xda_dentex said:
You're welcome!
Also the other project seems valid. If you want, point to the original repository.
The main difference is that it stays on the standard sdcard only, by default.
I also found a really good site with cool libraries: http://www.androidviews.net/
I'm sure I will want to include some of them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep, I'm including both. Also, AndroidViews is already mentioned at the bottom of the OP .
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD

bassie1995 said:
...AndroidViews is already mentioned at the bottom of the OP
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oops... Sorry.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda app-developers app

I'm running a community on G+ about Android libraries hosted on github. Tons of stuff in there:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/100609058582053363304

ramdroid77 said:
I'm running a community on G+ about Android libraries hosted on github. Tons of stuff in there:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/100609058582053363304
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice, will include the link in OP.

I was going to mention androidviews too; a very handy site. There's also a handy little app out on the Play store called Android UI Patterns (free), which is basically an app with quite a few libraries built in, so you can see what they look like in action on an actual device.
And I'm not sure if I should post this, or if it should have it's own thread (paid libraries or something), but I would argue that as there are quite a few professional developers here, a compilation of good, paid, non viral licensed libraries would be a good resource. On the other hand, XDA is all about the homebrew, open, sharing community.
Anyway, whatever the mod-gods decide, I was looking for a good, cheap, non-gpl3 licenced PDF framework for the company I work for. Many frameworks were RIDICULOUSLY expensive and many open source ones were SLOW or not functional enough. In the end I found a good alternative at androidpdf.mobi . It's fully functional, affordable and they have good support. I know this may sound like an add, but I spent some time researching this, we now use it in production and figure I might save someone some time.

MacDegger said:
I was going to mention androidviews too; a very handy site. There's also a handy little app out on the Play store called Android UI Patterns (free), which is basically an app with quite a few libraries built in, so you can see what they look like in action on an actual device.
And I'm not sure if I should post this, or if it should have it's own thread (paid libraries or something), but I would argue that as there are quite a few professional developers here, a compilation of good, paid, non viral licensed libraries would be a good resource. On the other hand, XDA is all about the homebrew, open, sharing community.
Anyway, whatever the mod-gods decide, I was looking for a good, cheap, non-gpl3 licenced PDF framework for the company I work for. Many frameworks were RIDICULOUSLY expensive and many open source ones were SLOW or not functional enough. In the end I found a good alternative at androidpdf.mobi . It's fully functional, affordable and they have good support. I know this may sound like an add, but I spent some time researching this, we now use it in production and figure I might save someone some time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have seen and used Android UI Patterns, forgot to include it.
About the licensed libraries/technologies, maybe that's a good divide for this thread. Not between UI and functional libraries, but between paid and free? Don't think there are many paid libraries for daily use, though?
If you can link me to the PDF parsing library you used, I will be including that.
Also, everyone, updates are a little slow due to school work. Hardest exam that's yet to come is on Monday, will update it probably that afternoon (my time zone ).
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD

The pdf library is found at androidpdf.mobi.
You can d/l the sdk and use it for free; you pay to get rid of the watermark on each page (the fee is per application, though).
I have come across some paid UI widget libraries (coverflow type things etc). It took me a while to adapt existing OS code to achieve the same kind of effect, so sometimes, if it's the right price, it's more effective to buy these kinds of things...

AChartEngine is a good one for charts and graphs http://www.achartengine.org/

MacDegger said:
The pdf library is found at androidpdf.mobi.
You can d/l the sdk and use it for free; you pay to get rid of the watermark on each page (the fee is per application, though).
I have come across some paid UI widget libraries (coverflow type things etc). It took me a while to adapt existing OS code to achieve the same kind of effect, so sometimes, if it's the right price, it's more effective to buy these kinds of things...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
tmka said:
AChartEngine is a good one for charts and graphs http://www.achartengine.org/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you both. I hope to be updating the OP tomorrow.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD

StandOut is a great library to create floating app :good:

Hello everyone,
I'd suggest also DroidText, for creating PDF files
Tiwiz

ciao99 said:
StandOut is a great library to create floating app :good:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That looks awesome, I think I'll try it myself
tiwiz said:
Hello everyone,
I'd suggest also DroidText, for creating PDF files
Tiwiz
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice, a PDF creator! I'll take a look and add it.
To everyone: Sorry for not updating, exams are busting my nuts right now . I'll try and get some more in there today or tomorrow .
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

With the exams over and spare time at 1:44 AM, I'll update this again with all the suggestions from this thread. I'll add more "external" ones later.
EDIT: Done!

Android: Unlock application's additional features with Facebook share or tweet

I have a free application published on Google Play. I want to add some new features and ask users to 'pay' for them with Facebook shares or tweets.
Scenario:
1. User updates application
2. New features are available in settings but they are not active
3. To activate feature user has to share information about my application on FB or on Tweeter
4. Only if sharing was successful feature will be available to the user.
For me it seems like a good idea to spread information about application in social media... however I can't find any 'out of the box' solution (library or code). Is there any?
Has anybody tried this approach and was it successful?
Also I'm trying to find out if this method is compliant with Google Play policy. I've read play.google.com/about/developer-content-policy.html with great care but I didn't find any clues. Has anyone got any policy violations emails from Google after implementing this method?

Maybe you can find something in the Facebook API.

have ebinks
What do you use to code? There's tons of assets for Unity that'd do what you're trying to do.

Clem_Superhippo said:
What do you use to code? There's tons of assets for Unity that'd do what you're trying to do.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not using Unity but develop my app in 'pure' Android SDK.
Just found this library: http://www.codeproject.com/Tips/457153/How-to-integrate-Facebook-Twitter-Linkedin-in-Andr
It looks promising so I'll give it a try.

You mean reward users for posting on Facebook or any social share, sure I dont think its that hard,
just everytime a user presses on the Share button add some coins to him ingame, you can also make
alot of money if you reward useres for watching a video ad in your game like a Vungle ad.

Watchface complications

Hello All,
I am developing a watchface in Android studio in java targeting Android 12.
I need to add complications data on my watchface. I want that complication should be set to a default system complication without requiring user to configure it.
I also found it challenging to handle double click/touch gesture on the complications in wear os.
Is there any good and complete tutorial/guide/sample for adding complications on wear os watchfaces in java?
I found one sample on the android developer website but it is not sufficient.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks all.

Teste

salwan.hemant said:
I want that complication should be set to a default system complication without requiring user to configure it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not sure that is even possible? The whole complication system gets data from the system. Your watch face only gets to receive the data the user has allowed via the system dialog your app invokes.
salwan.hemant said:
I also found it challenging to handle double click/touch gesture on the complications in wear os.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I made a watch face, but ended up not using the system's support for drawing complications, rather I grabbed the data and did the drawing myself. That also made it trivial to handle clicking, since there isn't anything else to capture events.
The example I link to below suggests you can just not pass tap events to the drawable (if it's not doing what you want). I'm going to guess the standard thing is just to invoke the pending intent, which you can do yourself.
salwan.hemant said:
Is there any good and complete tutorial/guide/sample for adding complications on wear os watchfaces in java?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I found this project to be useful...
GitHub - android/wear-os-samples: Multiple samples showing best practices in app and watch face development on Wear OS.
Multiple samples showing best practices in app and watch face development on Wear OS. - GitHub - android/wear-os-samples: Multiple samples showing best practices in app and watch face development o...
github.com
But since I was targeting an older watch (stuck on Android 8) and using Java, I had to go back to a much older version of the code.
git checkout 5c2e340