Update 5/26/10The screen on my winmo phone broke about 2 weeks ago, and since then also one of the buttons on the front came off. I wasn't sure I wanted to continue with Windows Mobile considering their lack of support for older versions in Windows 7 phone, so I got an Android phone, a used G1. I'm not sure I'll continue to develop for Winmo.
So far I'm very impressed with what I see from the G1, but of course there are some apps missing, so my first priority will probably be to get some of my Winmo programs ported to Android. Sorry
HomeScreen++ Configuration Application
Version 0.30 Jan 9, 2009
In addition to some bug fixes, the following has been implemented:
-Creating a new file.
-Adding new elements and attributes: Items can only be chosen that are allowed according to the schema file. (However items can still be edited on the main page without validation.)
-Clicking the help button gives shows help for the chosen attribute.
-Application paths can be chosen from a filedialog box.
-Today plugins can be chosen from your registry.
-Comments can be saved as nodes with a # infront.
There are still the occassional crash of the program when saving the file, but
I have been unable to figure out the causes of the crashes. Please let me know if anyone figure out a pattern to the crashes.
Version 0.20 Dec. 18, 2008
This version includes the schema file, and will list the possible attributes and values for the different elements.
I have also included Attributes.xml, a file that in xml format describes all the elements, attributes and values.
My ultimate goal is to make the editing based on the schema file directly, and not via a text box.
However, programming has been slow due to computer breakdown and Christmas preparations. Maybe next year!
But if someone has any ideas/wishes how to proceed further, please let me know.
I'm still working on having comments included, and as far as I know, the program will read a file with
comments, but will crash if trying to save, so be careful.
Version 0.10 11/24/08
I got tired of editing the xml settings file for Homescreen++ (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=270751) on my phone, so I decided to make a program to simplify the process. It's possible it can be used as a general editor for xml files that only has elements and attributes (this has NOT been tested).
This is a very early version, but I thought I might post it here, to get some feedback before continuing the development.
What it does:
The app wil load a Homescreen++ settings file (.xml) into a treeview.
Items can be edited, added, copied, deleted and moved around.
Installation:
The attached file can be unzipped to any folder of your choice.
Limitations:
Make sure that the attributes are listed before the elements for the respective nodes.
Danger:
Since this is such an early version, when the program asks you to save, ALWAYS save to a new file. I also suggest saving it frequently, so you don't loose any changes, should the program crash.
I don't take any responsibility for the problems this program might cause on your device, but it seems to work for me on a smartphone running Microsoft Mobile 6.
Saying that, I've already found it to be quite time saving when changing where I want elements, heigths, widths etc.
I hope it can be useful for others too.
Future improvements:
Edit: using same screen as for adding new items
validate file against schema before saving.
??
thanx mate, i love HomeScreen++
good idea, I will give it a try
cool excellent idea
looks good, gonna keep an eye on this. thanks in advance.
What a superb idea !
I've give up further versions of "Battery Status" because of the complexity of skins coding (XML and syntax...)
If your tool will be able to interface settings, and why not, present them in a more friendly way, this will be a killer tool...
Congrats !
wow, it may be useful tool.
this what I was thinking of !!!
HS++ users deserve this programe.
Its a useful prog , & will lead 4 more simplisity of using it.
of course,its a long way to acheave the goal ; but; keep the hard wourk & progressing,& be sure that every HS++ lover will support your work in this idea.
good luck , & may GOD bless you.
Great App!!!
A big Thaaaaanx....!!! for this great tool.I've tested this app with not only 'HS++ xmls' but also with the 'Manila2D xmls'.And everything is working fine upto now.Once again Thank You very much...
great app! but hs++ does not work with manila2d,so...
mecal said:
great app! but hs++ does not work with manila2d,so...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
..so JUST LOL @ manila htc social club nightmare..
New version
Updated with a few more features. See first post.
HomeScreen++ Configuration Application Version 0.3
New version in first post.
Version 0.30 Jan 9, 2009
In addition to some bug fixes, the following has been implemented:
-Creating a new file.
-Adding new elements and attributes: Items can only be chosen that are allowed according to the schema file. (However items can still be edited on the main page without validation.)
-Clicking the help button gives shows help for the chosen attribute.
-Application paths can be chosen from a filedialog box.
-Today plugins can be chosen from your registry.
-Comments can be saved as nodes with a # infront.
There are still the occassional crash of the program when saving the file, but
I have been unable to figure out the causes of the crashes. Please let me know if anyone figure out a pattern to the crashes.
Thank you.
Great idea.
I'll try it when possible.
Cheers
great job, I hope many good skins will come out with the help of this tool, thanks.
thankyou
very good app.
Very nice app
Bug
Thanks for the nice words!
Since there weren't many comments, I wasn't sure anyone was using it, so I stopped development on it (even though it has a lot of downloads!)
I'm also surprised noone has said anything about a bug for the tplug. I don't know if I'm the only one experiencing it, but it seems that the name of another today plugin disappears when the file is opened. If I see that people are actually using it (?), I should fix it.
mecal said:
great app! but hs++ does not work with manila2d,so...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So good,thanks
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 am developing my first android app, I have been studying javascript for a few months, and have manged to get it down pretty well, along with creating some fair applications with it.
This is my first android application, and please take into account that i started it less then 5 hours ago. Ill post on this thread whenever I run into problems to hopefully get some help.
Here is my aplication currently:
(attached)
nothing actually "does anything" right now, except the button its just a XML screen and a splash screen really.
Here is a project i did in JDK which i am trying to "Mimick":
The first problem i am having right now is that the background that i am trying to put on to my application is not showing up in the XML properties "Background" under drawable. The Background is saved in all 3 of the draw able folders under rec. Whenever i try to add the background manually with code i get this error.
Failed to convert @drawable/background3 into a drawable
Couldn't resolve resource @drawable/background3
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Secondly I am trying to figure out how to send the numbers entered into the "editText" objects to the main java method. I used actionListeners in java but i don;t know here. No need to explain it i would be very appreciative if someone could just point me in the right direction.
Hello everyone,
I'm new to Android development. I've written my first little "get my feet wet" ap and am looking to expand on it. One thing I would like to do it give the user more options of things they can configure and I'm wondering about the best way to store that information.
At what point does it become worthwhile to start using mySQL vs just using string data in the prefrences? Or is there another option I've missed (maybe an xml file, but I'm not sure where that would be stored?).
In my case, I'm thinking I have fewer than 100 instances of an object (or objects) that would have 3 or 4 properties associated with them.
Thanks!
Use the SharedPreferences class, is the easiest way to achieve your goal (BTW, SharedPreferences generate a xml file to storing your preferences).
SharedPrefrences is what I used for my basic version, but my understanding is that it allows for name-value pairs right? That works well when you have a predetermined set of prefrences, but what if it's more fluid?
Say I want to allow the user to configure his widgits, and each widget has a number of properties - say "color", "number", and "size". Maybe one user will configure 3 widgets and another user might configure 25.
I can think of a couple of different ways to parse this out into name-value pairs, but is that the best way?
Yep... for me that is the best way. For each user you can put the values using someting like this:
UserName+WidgetID+"PreferenceName"
And thats all... the preferences will be unique for each case, without parsing and 0 errors
Ok, cool. That's one of the options I had considered but didn't know if that would be the most efficient. Of course I'd also have to have a list of all the "Widget ID's" stored in a preference to loop through as well.
I assume the maximum amount of data that can be stored in one prefrence is just whatever the Java max string length is...is that correct?
Yes, you're right
Hi!
As you all know the Android virtual keyboard can offer suggestíons on the fly, when typing your text. However, these suggestions may be limited in lack of a good dictionary. So, people usually start to add new words to their custom glossary. This process could be made quicker by importing a glossary, but one has to know the exact format requirements and the folder where this dictionary must be placed. Please share any tips&ideas on this!