Here’s a quick code snippet to determine if the GPS is on, and if it isn’t go to the Setting screen allowing the user to turn it on. Android does not allow a 3rd party app to automatically turn the GPS on/off as of 1.5, a “feature” discussed extensively on the Android Developers Forum.
I posted a new version of both MediaDroid and Message Drop to the Android Market this morning.
The new version of MediaDroid fixes the reboot bug. It’s not as elegant as a fix as I’d like but it does work. FYI to any developers, the SD Card isn’t necessarily mounted when the ACTION_BOOT_COMPLETED event is broadcast. I used a CountDownTimer to wait 30 seconds after my BroadcastReceiver is called, then I’m able to access the files on the SD Card.
I added a couple features to Message Drop and fixed a few bugs. The new features are spelled out on the Message Drop page and include a new Setting for assigning the “Blank Tag” and a mode helping you build bulleted item lists.
My plan is to switch back to MediaDroid and perform some much needed polishing, and I ran into a Force Close that I haven’t been able to track down yet. Always more to do!
This is my call to arms for all Android users…buy more apps and talk about them, show them to your friends family and co-workers, blog about them, tweet about them, post pictures, let’s talk this shit up! Everyone is comparing Android to the iPhone or Palm…you’re wasting your time, let’s spend those valuable keystrokes talking about how awesome the apps are on Android market and not trying to make comparisons to other platforms. The more marketing buzz we can create about Android apps and how hard the single developers or small dev shops are working to create these products the better it is for all of us. Not only do I want my apps to be successful but I’d love to hear about Phil Symonds making a million bucks on Abduction or how the college students who developed Heat paid their way through college developing Android apps.
So, show some love, and make sure to spend the buck or two for the app which that guy or gal spent many’a hours creating and testing…and let others know also. I hope all this doesn’t sound to much like self promotion, but I really believe that it behooves all of us to have a vibrant and profitable Android app market.
Using a Service and ACTION_SCREEN_OFF I’ve successfully added a new feature to MediaDroid which cycles the images in your photo album. Every time the screen is put to sleep, the next photo in the album is placed in the photo widget on the Home screen of your Android device. Here’s a code snippet…
public class ChangeImageService extends Service
{
private static final boolean LOGD = Constants.LOGD;
private BroadcastReceiver _receiver;
private static final String LOG_TAG = "ChangeImageService";
@Override
public void onCreate()
{
super.onCreate();
_receiver = new BroadcastReceiver()
{
public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent)
{
loadNextImage();
}
};
IntentFilter filter = new IntentFilter(Intent.ACTION_SCREEN_OFF);
registerReceiver(_receiver, filter);
}
....
}
A couple of gotchas you have to watch out for… The ACTION_SCREEN_OFF Intent does not get picked up from the AndroidManifest.xml file so you have to assign it in code as shown above. Also, I put the assignment in the onCreate method because the Service can get killed off. If the Service is killed off, Android will schedule it to restart, but in order to catch the Screen Off broadcasts the Service must sign up again in the onCreate method…at least, this is what worked for me and all seems to be going well. As always, the docs are a little sparse and I had to go through some trial and error to figure it out, but I’m pretty happy with the results.
The new feature (along with a bug fix) is available in both the Trial and Full version of MediaDroid in the Android market…check em out and let me know what you think!
I’m pretty excited about this…don’t remember how I found Nilvec, but thanks to a pair of blogs on their site I’ve been able to integrate dispatching of emails directly into Note To Me (this feature isn’t yet available for the version in the Android market) so the user doesn’t have to go through the Gmail client, very slick. Check out these posts…
Sending Email Without User Interaction In Android
They packaged the Apache classes very nicely and made it easy to get the email set up and running. Now for all the other features that are needed because I’m implementing my own email client…ie, making sure the emails are sent later if there is no wireless connection.
Just wanted to post a quick note that I’ve released a full version of MediaDroid to the Android Market. I’ve got lots more feature coming up and there’s a couple of bugs to iron out, but I think it’s feature complete enough for a first version.
Would love to get your feedback, good or bad! More information with screen shots at http://www.mgmblog.com/mediadroid.
Been awhile since I’ve posted any code and thought it was about time. The image gallery has definitely been one of the most challenging parts of the MediaDroid application so far. I even seem to have uncovered a bug in one of the earlier versions. But thanks to some advice from the Google I/O talk by Romain Guy I settled on an implementation using SoftReferences and the AsyncTask class. If you have more experience with threading then I do, I’d be interested in your opinion!
The task of the ImageCache is to load Bitmaps as they are requested. From the outside the Bitmaps are requested using the get method which takes the Uri of the Bitmap to load, and the ImageView which will eventually be updated with the Bitmap. A single thread waits for the requests or jobs as I call them to be added to a job list.
The ImageCache follows the Singleton pattern and is initiated using the follow call,
ImageCache.getInstance().executeLoadImagesTask( context );
This call initiates a thread which waits for jobs to be posted on the job list.
A Bitmap is retrieved from the ImageCache with the following call
Bitmap bm = ImageCache.getInstance().get( _thumbUri.toString(), _imgVw );
If the image isn’t initially in the cache, a default Bitmap is returned, then a job is added to the job list. This job contains the Uri to the Bitmap and and the ImageView to update when the Bitmap is done loading.
I also extended ImageView to contain a Uri for the image it displays. When the image is loaded into the UriImageView it is checked against the one that is currently assigned. Otherwise, the ImageView will cycle through all the images that are loaded, kind of a cool effect, but not the best result for the UI.
As always, sorry for the funky formatting, someday I’ll find and install a proper CSS for computer code. Be weary of cut-n-paste, I’m not sure if I caught all the formatting issues.
public class ImageCache
{
private static final String LOG_TAG = "ImageCache";
private static final boolean LOGD = true;
private static ImageCache _instance = null;
private final HashMap<String, SoftReference<Bitmap>> _cache;
private Context _ctx;
private static Bitmap defaultBitmap;
private Object _lock;
private ArrayList<ImageJob> jobs = new ArrayList<ImageJob>();
public static ImageCache getInstance()
{
if ( _instance == null )
{
_instance = new ImageCache();
}
return _instance;
}
private ImageCache()
{
_lock = new Object();
_cache = new HashMap<String, SoftReference<Bitmap>>();
}
public void executeLoadImagesTask( Context ctx )
{
_ctx = ctx;
defaultBitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeResource( _ctx.getResources(), R.drawable.camera_icon );
new LoadImagesTask().execute(null);
}
public void put( String key, Bitmap bitmap )
{
_cache.put( key, new SoftReference<Bitmap>(bitmap) );
}
public void clear()
{
_cache.clear();
}
public Bitmap get( String imguri, UriImageView viewToUpdate )
{
Bitmap bm = null;
SoftReference>Bitmap< reference = _cache.get(imguri);
if ( reference != null )
{
bm = reference.get();
}
if ( bm == null )
{
bm = defaultBitmap;
postJob( new ImageJob( imguri, viewToUpdate ) );
}
return bm;
}
/**
* Called after the bitmap has been retrieved bitmap from the
* sdcard
*
* @param jobs
*/
public void addImage( ImageJob... jobs )
{
ImageJob job = jobs[0];
final UriImageView view = job.getViewToUpdate();
final Bitmap bm = job.getBitmap();
final Uri imguri = job.getImageUri();
put( imguri.toString(), bm );
view.post( new Runnable() {
public void run()
{
view.setImage(imguri, bm);
}
});
}
private void dbg( String msg )
{
if (LOGD) Log.d( LOG_TAG, msg );
}
private void postJob( final ImageJob job )
{
dbg( "Thread: " + Thread.currentThread().getName() + " posting job " + job.getImageUri() );
synchronized(_lock)
{
jobs.add(job);
_lock.notify();
}
}
private class ImageJob
{
private Uri _imageUri;
private UriImageView _viewToUpdate;
private Bitmap _bm;
public ImageJob( Uri imageUri, UriImageView viewToUpdate )
{
_imageUri = imageUri;
_viewToUpdate = viewToUpdate;
}
public ImageJob( String imageUri, UriImageView viewToUpdate )
{
this( Uri.parse( imageUri ), viewToUpdate );
}
public Uri getImageUri()
{
return _imageUri;
}
public UriImageView getViewToUpdate()
{
return _viewToUpdate;
}
public void setBitmap( Bitmap bm )
{
_bm = bm;
}
public Bitmap getBitmap()
{
return _bm;
}
}
private class LoadImagesTask extends AsyncTask<Object, ImageJob, Integer>
{
@Override
protected Integer doInBackground(Object... params)
{
Thread.currentThread().setName( "LoadImagesTask" );
while( true )
{
int jobsize = 0;
synchronized( _lock )
{
jobsize = jobs.size();
}
if ( jobsize > 0 )
{
synchronized( _lock )
{
ImageJob job = jobs.remove(0);
dbg( "performing image job " + job.getImageUri() );
try
{
job.setBitmap( ImgUtils.buildBitmap(_ctx, job.getImageUri(), 4) );
onProgressUpdate( job );
}
catch (IOException e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
else
{
try
{
synchronized( _lock )
{
dbg( "Thread: " + Thread.currentThread().getName() + " waiting for jobs" );
_lock.wait();
dbg( "Thread: " + Thread.currentThread().getName() + " got a job" );
}
}
catch (InterruptedException e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
}
@Override
public void onProgressUpdate(ImageJob... job)
{
addImage( job );
}
@Override
public void onPostExecute(Integer imagesLoaded)
{
dbg( "loaded " + imagesLoaded + " images" );
}
}
}
Again, I’d love to hear any comments you may have about the implementation, one thing about bootstrapping and doing all the coding yourself is it’s much harder to find code reviewers!
After many long months of thinking, planning, and thinking some more. The flagship application of my grand scheme is out in the wild. MediaDroid is an Android Application Widget which allows the user to create albums and add photos to those albums. The selected photo is displayed on the home screen and can be changed at anytime by the user by selecting a different photo.
The current version of MediaDroid in the Android Market is just a trial version, and it certainly has some performance short comings. But I believe in release early and release often, so time permitting I will be getting updates out soon, and when I feel it’s up to snuff I’ll release a full version. The trial version limits the user to 2 albums with 5 photos in each. The full version won’t have these limitations and other features as well.
A full writeup coming soon, along with screen shots, for right now, it’s way to late and I must get to bed.
NoteToMe is a simple tool which helps me capture thoughts and ideas as they migrate through my brain and compete for attention.
I consider myself a pretty heavy Right Brain person, I try not to label any of my ideas are stupid or outrageous. It seems that the more ideas I entertain, no matter how crazy, the more ideas pop into my head. I’ve been working awhile on a system or workflow to improve the collection and storage of these thoughts so I can action on them at a later date.
The first problem is having a place to hold these ideas so they won’t be forgetten. Enter Gmail…I use my Gmail account for lots more then just recieving spam. I capture ideas, reminders, todos, and links just to name a few, it’s my catch all. I’m constantly emailing one liners to myself, because I know that I have a much better chance of revisiting the topic if it’s in my inbox. It’s certainly not a perfect workflow, but something I continue to improve.
So the next challenge is getting the thoughts from my head into my inbox. I started by having a shortcut to my email on my desktop.
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This kinda worked, but I still had to enter some marking or tag to help filter the clutter and a subject. The subject is moot in my book, it’s the meat of the message I want to get to and capture before I forget it, and move onto the next one which is bubbling to the top. Instead I’m screwing around trying to “think” of a subject as opposed to just letting the thoughts come streaming out.
These where some of the first requirements for NoteToMe. Quickly allow me to get thoughts out of my head, and allow me to quickly mark them with predefined tags.
So now I have a NoteToMe Application Shortcut on my main screen which brings up the app allowing me to instantly capture my todo/thought/next big thing and send it on its way.
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The current version still goes through the Gmail client so it could still be trimmed down a bit as far as number of button clicks, but it seems to be working into my workflow so far…but maybe that’ll change.
I know that NoteTeMe has lots of competition out there. Apps that are much more feature rich when it comes to note taking or todo lists, AK Notepad, Note Everything and OI Notepad are a couple that come to mind. But NoteToMe fills a little different niche in my opinion, kinda geared specifically to how my brain works. So if you’re brain kinda works the same way, I hope you give it a try and let me know how it goes…good or bad. Any type of comments at this stage are appreciated.
Click here to see more screen shots of NoteToMe…come back soon, I got lots more ideas!
And again, thanks for your support, all proceeds go towards my bootstrapping effort.
I’m pretty syched about this code. It took some figuring out and some hunting and asking questions on Google’s Android forum. But thanks to the following posts
File permissions for world read/write
SQLite3 sql command to show tables in database
I pieced together the beginnings of some code that will take an Android SQLite db and export it to XML data within a file on the SD Card. This has a couple potential uses,
Message Drop
Message Drop Trial
Jumpy
