Office Hours — Today, February 16

Tuesday, February 9

Feb 16
8:25 PM
Mark M.
has entered the room
Mark M.
turned on guest access
Tim H.
has entered the room
8:30 PM
Mark M.
Howdy, Tim!
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Tim H.
Hello
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Love your books... Great Job
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Mark M.
Thanks!
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Tim H.
Have you used Fiddler to debug your HTTP interaction?
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Mark M.
Never heard of it
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Do I have to be on the roof to use it? :-)
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Tim H.
:) Do you know if there is an issue with the Http proxy in the emulator?
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Mark M.
Oh, yeah.
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Proxies and Android are kinda finicky
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Tim H.
Question on your Sectioned ListView?
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Mark M.
Sure, go ahead
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Tim H.
I've seen some behavior I don't understand.
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I wanted to enable the header and not the detail, so I changes the isEnabled method.
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Mark M.
OK
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8:35 PM
Tim H.
The issue comes when the number of detail records exceed the number fitting on the screen.
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If you use the d pad to move the cursor, it seems to jump to a detail record and not the next header.
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If the number of detail is small, it scrolls properly from header to header.
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Mark M.
It's possible there's a bug in my implementation that is uncovered by your scenario
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You might consider switching over to my MergeAdapter
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Tim H.
ok
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Mark M.
I'll be discontinuing the SectionedAdapter in an upcoming edition of the book, switching to MergeAdapter
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Tim H.
I'll take a look.
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Mark M.
Partly, that's a licensing thing (SectionedAdapter needs to be GPL3)
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Partly, I'm just trying to consolidate duplicate codd
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er, code
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MergeAdapter will let you set up the equivalent of a SectionedAdapter, with a bit more flexibility
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Tim H.
Thinking about the Day Of Mobile in Chicago. Worth the time?
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Great, I'll take a look.
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Mark M.
I don't know if it's worth flying to, but if you're in the Greater Chicagoland Area, it should be a good lineup at a good price
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Tim H.
I'm in Chicago.
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Mark M.
The agenda should be released by the end of the week, as I understand it
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8:40 PM
Tim H.
On the MergeAdapter, can I control the background of the header? I hate the orange color for selection.
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Mark M.
Messing with the backgrounds is possible but tricky
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Also, unless it's part of an overall theme, don't change the color just because *you* don't like it
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Users may get confused if you change the colors without some rhyme or reason
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Tim H.
I want to be able to click on the header (It shows a date) and then go to an activity based on the date.
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I know, but that orange is really ugly with my color scheme.
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Prasanna P.
has entered the room
Mark M.
Howdy, Prasanna!
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Prasanna P.
Hello Mark!
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Mark M.
Tim: there's a section on messing with ListView selection bars in the same chapter in the Advanced Android book that talks about SectionedAdapter
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Also, more samples in the chapter on Drawables, including using a gradient background
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Tim H.
I was going to review that section.
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Is it true there is no PDF Viewer in Android?
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Mark M.
Not built in, no
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There are third-party viewers (e.g., DocumentsToGo)
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8:45 PM
Tim H.
Any reason why Goolge doesn't include one? The iPhone has one.
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Mark M.
You would have to ask Google
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Prasanna: did you have any questions?
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Prasanna P.
Here is my question. I have gone through your 3 books in their entirety. I wrote my first Android app. A basic tap counting application which I made available on the market for free. Now I am looking for an app idea for my second app. I want to complete it in about one to one and a half months working on it on a part time basis. I like to experiment with the maps api, bar code scanning and the radar view (I think I saw this in a google video). Any thoughts on how I can come up with a good idea for this app?
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Mark M.
I take a radically different approach towards app ideas: if I'm not going to use it, I don't write it
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Prasanna P.
OK
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Mark M.
the concept of creating an app based on a desired mix of technologies doesn't fit my style
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it's one of the reasons I'm having some difficulty figuring out what samples to write for _Android Beyond Java_
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Tim H.
Do you have any examples where a ListView contains an EditText in the row?
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Mark M.
Tim: In my code, no. The contacts edit activity in the Dialtacts in the Android source code uses that.
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8:50 PM
Tim H.
Is Dailtacts one of the samples?
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Mark M.
No, it is part of the Android source code
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to the operating system
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Dialtacts is the contacts/call log/dialer app
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Tim H.
Is the source available on Windows?
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Prasanna P.
OK Mark. Catch up with you later. : )
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Mark M.
See, ya, Prasanna!
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Tim H.
I just see Mac and Linux.
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Prasanna P.
has left the room
Mark M.
Tim: downloading the full source on Windows is difficult
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You can browse it online, or find it using Google Code Search
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Tim H.
Is ksoap2 the best SOAP web service package? Seems like folks have a lot of trouble with it.
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Mark M.
SOAP is an abomination
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8:55 PM
Mark M.
Hence, there are no Android-specific client libraries for it
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Tim H.
I've been sticking with HTTP GET/POST Rest, but I know someday I'll encounter a SOAP requirment
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I know, It's neither Simple,nor OO, nor an Access Protocol
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Mark M.
kSOAP2 is the only thing I've heard of related to Android, and it's based on abandonware
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Somebody could make a nice bit of money creating a commercial SOAP JAR for Android, with good docs and support.
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SOAP is mostly an enterprise thing, and they aren't afraid of shelling out money if the value is there
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Tim H.
I know this is sac-religous, but is there a good source on how to take an iPhone app and create an better Android version?
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Mark M.
If you're looking for "if you use X on iPhone, use Y on Android", I'm not aware of one
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You're the third person to ask me about that within a week or so
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9:00 PM
Mark M.
Somebody skilled in both platforms could do well writing a book on that
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I haven't developed for iPhone and have no current plans to
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Tim H.
I get the sense that folks/companies already have an iPhone app and now that Android is getting popular are looking to build a similar app.
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Mark M.
Yes, I've helped a couple of firms with "ports"
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Tim H.
I'm doing that with a "Time and Expense Entry" app.
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Mark M.
But I just worked from the iPhone app, not its source
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Tim H.
I agree about the iPhone, already crowded. Plus I didn't want to learn a new os, Objective C plus Cocoa. (Even though I'm an old Smalltalk programmer)
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Mark M.
Hah! I did Smalltalk for a couple of years, 1993-95.
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If I had one programming language to teach my parents, that'd be it
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Tim H.
What is your sense of how sucessful RIM and MS 7 mobile are going to be moving forward?
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Mark M.
I'm more comfortable with RIM than Windows Phone, only because I don't know what's happening with older WinMo apps
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Tim H.
I loved it too, wish it would have won the mindshare of more folks instead of Java.
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Mark M.
If Windows Phone requires everyone to rewrite everything, they'll lose a lot of apps
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9:05 PM
Tim H.
They have huge share +40%, but haven't been very sucessful with their smartphones.. Plus lots of cash.
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Anyway, I'll let you go.
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Bye
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Mark M.
See ya!
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Tim H.
has left the room
9:15 PM
Mark M.
turned off guest access

Tuesday, February 9

 

Office Hours

People in this transcript

  • Mark Murphy
  • Prasanna Perera
  • Tim Hilgenberg