I've been working on this for the past few days and have tried different codes, but none of them have worked so far. I'm trying to make an activity that takes the user's current location and displays nearby hospitals to them. I'm doing this for a uni project, and none of my teammates are helping me, so I'm really desperate to find an answer. I've been working on the maps feature for about 3 weeks.
Here's the code I'm using (it's the 1 I found online that doesn't crash android studio):
activity_hospitals.java (The draw() function is where I place markers): https://pastebin.com/rWXSVSS3
DownloadURL.java: https://pastebin.com/vqhVWsnj
FetchData.java: https://pastebin.com/dRj0qMtS
I've also tried a different way using PlacesSearchResponse request = new PlacesSearchResponse(); that I found in a stackoverflow post. It also didn't crash the application, but it didn't work.
Related
MS released a new version of live search mobile a week or two ago. I hadn't seen any discussion here about it yet.
They included a few new features, including one that I had discussed with their development team.
In navigation mode, it will now beep as you come upon a new direction. So if you have roughly .1 mile before a turn, you'll hear a beep. You'll get another alert as you reach the instruction, and one after it has completed successfully.
I would also like the mention that the wls mobile team is very responsive about feedback. They must be operating rouge at Microsoft because they actually hear, respond to, and implement user feedback.
Like I said, I discussed the navigation alerts with them and they implemented and released a new version within something like two weeks.
To get the new version point your mobile browser to:
wls.live.com/
Unfortunately they seem somewhat quiet when new versions come out. You kind of have to find the features on your own. I think they share a msdn blog with the windows live search team, which is a shame they don't have their own.
http://blogs.msdn.com/livesearch/default.aspx
New Live Search beats Google Maps
I much prefer Live Search Mobile over Google Maps for driving around town. I couldn't figure out how to get Google Maps to auto scroll--Live Search has the option to Center on GPS, so your arrow stays in the center of the screen and it magically moves the maps. Also like how it caches maps so its not always sucking down data--I was getting a bunch of connection errors with GoogMaps on my Sprint Mogul.
Good tip with the audible notification about an upcoming turn. Maybe have a config option to choose the sound? I want something louder and more annoying, or maybe I just need to turn down my radio.
One feature I'd like to see is the ability to not have to store my Current GPS position when using the Directions--just use wherever I am and get on with it instead of asking me to save, then asking me to overwrite existing. Its a few extra steps I may not want to do while driving...err, when I stop at a red light.
Newest Version #?
I have always prefered WLS over Google Maps mobile. I would say that WLS really is a huge part of what makes WM rock.
Does anyone know the version # of the most recent release.
My Version Shows:
2.5.2908.31943
pretty sure that is the newest, but just wanted to confirm.
Just wanted to know what your opinions are on goggles as a business card reading tool. I have read some great reviews about it yet i have tried at least 6-7 different cards and not once has it picked up all of the contact details on it. Has anyone got any advice or tips that might help with the accuracy?
Also, does anyone know how to add a contact field to someone for their personal website address? All i can do so far is put it in the notes section
Thanks in advance guys
For your second question, it looks like you have to do it from a computer. I've added contacts' home pages, and for those I have the option to edit it. For contacts with no website, there is no option using the phone to add or edit one. Looks like you have to do it when logged in to Gmail on your desktop.
Your first question surprised me. Every day I learn something new that I can do with the phone, and that's another one. I knew that I could scan stuff with Goggles, but it never occurred to me to scan a business card. Cool. I use QR codes on the back of mine to make it easier. They work perfectly, but most people I meet don't have them or know what they are. There are a bunch of (paid) business card readers in the market but I bet they do no better than the free Goggles app. All I can suggest is get good lighting for the picture, and if that fails snap a photo to enter it in manually later. OCR still has a long way to go.
that makes complete sense and thanks for taking the time to produce such a comprehensive answer.
Well, I ran several (~30) read tests with the Goggles. I use business card reading quite frequently, both using an OCR program on my PC and using BCR on WinMo phone. Both these solutions do infinitely better than Goggles. Google's product would frequently fail in the OCR process (which can be due to the phone's camera or the business card quality) but it really pisses you off when it recognizes all the words correctly including weird names (I work in the far east sometimes and there are names you can't read in my phonebook) but has no idea that email:[email protected] should go in the "mail" field, and it misses most if not all of the fields in all the cards I used it on. bottom line: useless.
Google Googles vs specialized card scanner
I can't speak on behalf of Google but I believe their intention with Goggles is not necessarily to invest heavily in deep functionality around business cards but rather to provide broad, generally useful analysis of images and as they often do, leave it to others in the ecosystem to provide more elaborate apps.
We are the authors of one such scanning app - scanbizcards - and I can attest that there is a ton of code besides just recognize the characters, to correct OCR mistakes using the business context. Don't forget that a great business card scanner should do more than just scan & add to the address book. We certainly try to do that, providing 27 different features ...
Our app runs only on the iPhone right now, sorry - BUT we have started its port to Android so stay tuned ...
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.
I want to use my device for offline maps, i think it would be the perfect device for that considering readability outdoors. I've had no success with google maps as they appear to only offer offline functionality for android 2.2 and up in version 6.9+, nor can i find a newish version that would run on the nook anyways. I was hoping someone else has found a solution for this be it with google maps or an alternative. Preferably with an ability to accept lat/long coordinates to find places.
Thanks a lot, i appreciate your time to read this and any input you may give the thread.
This would be a source of USGS topographical maps in PDF form: https://store.usgs.gov/
Unfortunately, the website seems borked.
There was a thread on GPS and Nooks.
Best bet is to interface it directly at 3.3V to ttyS1 (UART2).
You'd still need an app to deal with this all.
There's OruxMaps, it works with both online and offline maps.
to access the go-to-point feature, you need to to customize the interface:
Setting->user interface->buttons->buttons bar-> now you scroll that thing in the middle until you find an icon that looks like a marker over a line of dots and you put it in one of the side menus, now you have a go-to button.
on the same occasion you can get rid of all the GPS related buttons.
ME and my friend want to make a app that finds people who want to work out or exercise together at the gym. basically what i am trying to do is similar to what yik yak does to group users. i want to be able to have people see each other on the app within a 10 mile radius.
or a find close by feature that a users sees all the users in the 10 mile radius and be able to send out messages to other users. i have never messed around with GPS or location services and do not know where to start or how to utilize gps to accomplish this. i have googled this lol, and the only thing people show is, how to do is how to use gps to find you location. if some one can post a guide on how to use GPS to do different things that would be helpful.