The other day I was at a football game where I had to park on a golf course far from the stadium and ended up wandering around for 20 minutes trying to locate the car afterward.
I knew that the iPhone had an app called "Dude, Where's My Car?" which let someone use GPS to tag a specific location and then later use Google Maps to guide them back to the GPS mark, but when I did some searching I couldn't find a WinMo version. So I made one.
This version isn't as sexy as the iPhone app, but it's free, and you can store up to 3 different locations and even name them if you'd like. When you want to locate one, you just click the respective Find button and you will be provided an arrow or compass direction (N, NW, S, SW, E, SE, W, NE) and approximate distance to your destination which will change as you continue to move.
I did some testing and got rid of whatever bugs I could find and everything seems to work. Since I find it useful to have, I wanted to pass it on to the community in case they might be interested as well.
If you find any problems with it, let me know, otherwise enjoy.
UPDATE 3
I finally got around to adding arrow guidance to accompany compass directions for finding a destination. The arrows are a bit finicky, but its partially due to the quality of the gps fix and the amount of fluctuation in the coordinates it gets. I find that the best way to work with it is to travel in one direction for a short distance steadily until a steady arrow appears. Once that happens, turn in the direction of the arrow and keep walking in the direction it had indicated until it changes to reflect the direction you turned. I.e. if you are walking straight and right arrow appears, turn right and keep walking straight until the right arrow changes to an up arrow.
I also updated the source code package for anyone interested in modifying the code. As before, I just ask that you keep its open nature going (GNU style) and if you post a new version of the software with arrows, or a better GPS interface (that uses triangulation as an option), etc. that you link the new software back to this thread and you let me know about it so I can check it out
UPDATE 2
As requested, I have attached the source code for the project developed with Visual Studio 08. It's not super clean since I put it together kind of rapidly, but it is decently commented. Anyone is welcome to modify this code and use it for your own personal development. Enjoy and let me know if you have any questions.
UPDATE
Attached a screenshot from my visual studio emulator. It should look the same as on the phone but with longer decimal values for the GPS coords.
Also attached the .cab files for the .NET framework that people were having issues with. I don't know if those will resolve the problems or not, but I developed the phone using the 3.5 compact framework. If you have that, a GPS chip on your phone, and WinMo 6 it should work for you.
Downloading, will try it and give you some feedback.
I'll try this out later. The compass feature is nice, something that nuePark doesn't have.
Thanks for pointing me to nuePark. I wish I had located it when I first did my searching, but then I wouldn't have created this. It looks like I unintentionally covered some peoples' requests for naming and multiple locations. Good times.
theres also an app called wm mini gps, or something along those lines. it will let you set a point, then navigate back to it later.
just my 2 cents
you can also do this in google maps.
The WM Mini GPS looks pretty cool. Google maps is ok, but only if you save it as a favorite. Not very good for temp stuff, and I'm not sure you can add a mark based on your current location (vs an address, which I know you can). I guess this app fuses the functionality and adds flexibility with naming and multiple spots. Thanks for pointing out both options.
bug in progam
smrtdrmmr thanx for the program but the prob is
immediately upon install my lil scroll wheel thingy (dont laugh) stop functioning normally instead of scrolling while browsing it activated the call volume function just like I had tapped the lil speaker icon....
That's really strange. It definitely didn't do that for me and I had to install/uninstall several times during the testing process. The installer is a generic project type based on the directions I got from MSDN. You might have some conflicting settings or something. Anyone else experience this?
This nice little utility works great on my Tilt. I'm gonna move this thread to Development and Hacking so it can have greater exposure for other devices.
Thanks
Tried it yesterday and it worked great!
Any way to get an arrow / graphic that works similar to a compass would, or is it just easier to have the words: SW / S...etc.
Thanks again!
I got the following error message once I tried to run it:
GParkS.exe
Exception
at Microsoft.AGL.Common.MISC.HandleAr()
at System.Windows.Forms.TextBoxBase._SetInfo()
at _System.Windows.Forms.TextBoxBase.set_MaxLength()
at GParkS.GParkS.InitializeComponent()
at GParkS.GParkS..ctor()
at GParkS.Program.Main()
I am running a custom wm6.1 rom with netcf 3.5
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download and text
scotcha12345 said:
Tried it yesterday and it worked great!
Any way to get an arrow / graphic that works similar to a compass would, or is it just easier to have the words: SW / S...etc.
Thanks again!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I thought about using an arrow that rotates around, but because the phone's orientation can change relative to the compass direction I thought it might be kind of confusing (I.e. it points left so you turn left and start walking but it keeps pointing left because it wants you to travel West and you have rotated the phone).
It would be possible for me to track the direction that someone is traveling and adjust the arrow accordingly, but again, phone orientation could vary and it's just more complicated to deal with. The compass directions are fixed so it keeps things simple and generic no matter what way you are pointing your phone.
fredcatsmommy said:
I got the following error message once I tried to run it:
GParkS.exe
Exception
at Microsoft.AGL.Common.MISC.HandleAr()
at System.Windows.Forms.TextBoxBase._SetInfo()
at _System.Windows.Forms.TextBoxBase.set_MaxLength()
at GParkS.GParkS.InitializeComponent()
at GParkS.GParkS..ctor()
at GParkS.Program.Main()
I am running a custom wm6.1 rom with netcf 3.5
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't seen this before either so I did a little research and dug up this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/archive/index.php/t-405749.html which then links here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=2430410&postcount=390 I am not sure if this corresponds with my app or not, but you could check your registry setting and see if your problem matches the one described in the thread.
smrtdrmmr said:
I haven't seen this before either so I did a little research and dug up this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/archive/index.php/t-405749.html which then links here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=2430410&postcount=390 I am not sure if this corresponds with my app or not, but you could check your registry setting and see if your problem matches the one described in the thread.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
will do. thanks
fredcatsmommy said:
will do. thanks
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Click to collapse
that wasn't the problem; my registry was fine.
doesn`t work for me too. I have net fram 3.5 and i get a window with a german text, somthing like: there is a error that can`t be displayed because i have not installed "NETCFv35Messages.DE.wm.cab" ?
I press okay, the app started and i first tried to change for miles to kilometers, now the app crashes completly with a unexpected error (no luck today)
Hope this helps you finding the Bugs.
smrtdrmmr said:
The other day I was at a football game where I had to park on a golf course far from the stadium and ended up wandering around for 20 minutes trying to locate the car afterward.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Parking at the Rose Bowl sucks, huh. You get used to it after a few trips. Now I just need a phone with gps
Any hope of getting some screen shots of this?
Hi.
I was wondering how hard it would be to create a simple application that would connect to a server or website checking for updates. I plan on loading font .apk's on the server or website, and would like a application to periodically check for updates or manually check for updates, be able to preview the font, and then download the .apk if wanted. How hard would it be to create such an application?
Thanks.
Jzero88
jzero88 said:
Hi.
I was wondering how hard it would be to create a simple application that would connect to a server or website checking for updates. I plan on loading font .apk's on the server or website, and would like a application to periodically check for updates or manually check for updates, be able to preview the font, and then download the .apk if wanted. How hard would it be to create such an application?
Thanks.
Jzero88
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, this depends on how you approach it, but I think the easiest way to do this would be to create a feed using XML. So if you were doing your font updater, you would load a file like this:
<FontDetails>
<Font name = "Font1" example = "http://www.myfontsite.com/FontExamples/Font1.png" location = ""http://www.myfontsite.com/Fonts/Font1.apk"\>
<Font name = "Font2" example = "http://www.myfontsite.com/FontExamples/Font2.png" location = "http://www.myfontsite.com/Fonts/Font2.apk"\>
</FontDetails>
The problem with this is that you will have to maintain this XML file, making sure its always up-to-date(Easily manageable with some simple scripts).
If you aren't willing to do this, you could go down the road that is wrongly mislabeled as "The Easy Way" and hard-code the locations of all your APK's and all of your example images, but I would only do this if you were planning on dumping all the APK's and images in the same place(For example, if all your APK's were here: http://www.myfontsite.com/Fonts/). You would request the directory information from the server and parse that into your list of font APK's and correspond them with their example images(probably by naming them the same; i.e. Font1.apk and Font1.png).
If you decide to use the first option, you could do a bunch of cool things with the organization, like break things into categories and apply taggings and it would only require one request to the server per update. If you go with the second method, organization is guaranteed to be a mess if you try anything large scale, and adds a layer of complexity if you try to break things into folders and categories. This would require a ping per folder you have to check, which can have a high complexity factor if you have a lot of folders.
I just want to point out that even though this is directly related to development, this is a type of question that belongs in the General section(Questions ALWAYS belong in General). I'm sure a Mod will come around, scold you, then move the thread.
Anyway, I do hope this helps,
Good luck,
Tyler
Edit: Having a bit of problems getting the XML looking correct. Sorry if it looks ugly :S
Even easier would be to manage the updater as an RSS feed. Then it becomes quite trivial, as there are several examples of RSS readers online already.
Great! Thanks for the reply!
Yeah, the XML approach I think would be the better option as well, just because we could use this thread to hold everything I currently do no have any hosting at this time. Would you be up to making such a application? It seems you have the know abouts to so.... I would be the one to maintain everything and update it. I would monitor this thread and when new ones pop up, I wouldn't mind adding it to in the XML.
Also, how would the RSS feed work?
Thanks
jzero88 said:
Great! Thanks for the reply!
Yeah, the XML approach I think would be the better option as well, just because we could use this thread to hold everything I currently do no have any hosting at this time. Would you be up to making such a application? It seems you have the know abouts to so.... I would be the one to maintain everything and update it. I would monitor this thread and when new ones pop up, I wouldn't mind adding it to in the XML.
Also, how would the RSS feed work?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wish I could...I've got about 50 projects already on the back-burner and no time to finish them Tell ya what though...I've finished a mini project a couple weeks ago with some buddies at school for my friends website. Its an Open-Source RSS reader that was made to read in the latest articles of his site. With some slight tweaking, I'm sure you(or some other dev) could mod it to work in your favor...Here's the github address:
http://github.com/pencilo/Absolute-Android-RSS.git
I don't think this is the latest code, but all the working elements you need are in here.
I'm a .NET guy just starting out with Android development. A million years ago I studied Java in college so I'm sure it will all come back quick as far as language and syntax goes, but I'm going to have a lot of questions along the way.
My current project will be both a learning experiment and an app that I will actually use when done. I'll try to give a high level overview of what I need to accomplish and hopefully you guys can help.
In a nutshell, this app will display pictures. Think of it as a gallery viewer, but the images will be stored in a folder on a remote server instead of being stored on the device. When the app loads it should display thumbnails of all the images currently in the folder, with the newest ones first so that when a new image is uploaded to the folder it will be the first thumbnail in the list. Clicking a thumbnail should simply display the image in full size (or, not FULL size, but rather the image should be scaled to take up the whole screen).
I could do this very simply as a website but one of my main goals is to make this an "app" so that I can understand how the whole apk process works.
So step 1... where do I begin? :silly:
developer.android.com is an excellent place to start. Have you worked with the eclipse ide at all?
Sent from a Toasted Devil
Hey guys I'm pretty desperate here.. I tried asking this on SO but can't get anyone to help...
So when I try to view any of the xml's such as activity_main.xml, in the Design tab or the Text tab where it's supposed to render.. i get this message
"Rendering Problems
Failed to load platform rendering library"
Everything I google says to drop API levels to match the minimum level (by clicking the green Android button with the number next to it).. which I have done. I've tried making different projects with different minimum API/OS versions and I can't get past this error.
I've even downloaded EVERY API level in the SDK Manager.. from lvl 7 to 24.. and none work. I try to clean the build and then rebuild.. just nothing is working and I'm going insane. Someone please help =[
So I've noticed that flash seems to not be able to render some text fields. I'm not able to really find any consistency under the circumstances in which it happens, but it seems to be a problem with fonts, rather than text fields.
For those of you with flash installed, an example off the top of my mind would be the login screen of an online flash game called Adventure Quest.
I've tried copying over font files from my windows PC, but something tells me that it wasn't going to be that easy anyway.
Sorry if I've posted this in the wrong place or made a mistake, I'm really tired right now and just want to get this out of the way. Can you guys help me, or at least point me in the right direction?