Office Hours — Today, April 14

Monday, April 11

Apr 14
3:55 PM
Mark M.
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Mark M.
turned on guest access
4:00 PM
Dimitri
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Dimitri
Hello Mark
Mark M.
howdy, Dimitri!
how can I help you today?
Dimitri
On Monday 11/4 we were discussing a problem hab loading 2*7 listview in a 2 TabHosts...
Ive manage to read up and use view instead of activities as you describe in your books and mentioned in our chat.
However i am not quite sure how to implement part of you suggestion...
View paste
"So, you would have one TripResults activity showing the departures
somewhere (e.g., action bar, options menu), you would have an option to view returns
that would start up another TripResults that views the returns"
4:05 PM
fitz
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Dimitri
Having an onClick Button to view return result would starts a TRipActivity each time... so when hitting back
scottt
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Dimitri
button , depending on the users clicks i will have to reload many times the same activity. To my knowledge hijacking the back button is not a good idea?
Mark M.
Dimitri: I fail to see the problem
(btw, howdy, fitz and scottt)
scottt
hello! I'm just lurking today
Mark M.
fitz: do you have a question?
Dimitri
Is there a way to 'load' the activity "only" twice i.e. once for oneway and once for return trips.
?
4:10 PM
Mark M.
Dimitri: you can play some games to make it behave that way (e.g., hijacking the BACK button, as you phrased it)
but, again, I fail to see the problem
fitz
sorry had to take a call
Mark M.
no problem
do you have a question?
scottt
on a side note: our new android developers group, with only 1 mtg so far, is up to 35 members and 13 that say they'll attend the next mtg. pretty encouraging.
fitz
page 158 or tutorials book - rss feeds - having fun getting the RSS to work - where or how do I get the org.mcsoxford.rss info to inport for eclipse
might be page 165 - in that area
Mark M.
See Step #6: Install the RSS Library, page 168
particularly the "you can download a JAR from this URL" phrase
4:15 PM
Mark M.
"this URL" is a link to the JAR for downloading
fitz
ok - will do I am just getting into it so thought I missed a step
cool
Mark M.
scottt: is your group a GTUG, or an Android group?
fitz
so you said in past there is now way to query google calendar right or search calendar for specific data right - limitation from google
Mark M.
fitz: there's no documented and supported way to access on-device calendar information
scottt
fitz
and the same with docs or email just contacts correct?
Mark M.
scottt: I'd say "cool", but I am guessing that "cool" is not a valid adjective for the Tampa area right now
fitz: I don't know what "docs" are in terms of Android. Email is just contacts -- nothing documented/supported to access Gmail or email messages
scottt
83F, sunny, windless at the moment
4:20 PM
fitz
ya that would be google docs - so anything accessed via web portal for google from a PC, you can not really access an search on android, at least all the google stuff - kinda limiting EH!
Mark M.
you're supposed to be able to access their respective GData APIs
fitz
last weekend it showed in the low hills here in the east bay in San Fran area - go figure ...
Mark M.
there's an I|O conference session on that
fitz
snowed :) typing is off today
maybe I should take the day off ...
scottt
i'm sure promising a commonsware subscription (obtained via bug bounty) as a door prize helped drive interest
fitz
hmmm ya did not get signed up fast enough for I|O
Mark M.
scottt: OTOH, you're going to get slapped with a truth-in-advertising suit if you don't start giving away actual doors :-)
fitz: it might be streamed live (not sure which ones are), and it'll be on YouTube sometime this summer even if not
fitz
ok great thanks
4:25 PM
scottt
i need to read the books more to see if i can find some more typos and earn some more bounties. the main problem with that is that typos are pretty rare in your books
fitz
gdata what an fun adventure - get something working and a week later Google changes something and app breaks .... yawn
I|O is May 8th ish?
Mark M.
10th and 11th
scottt
i agree fitz, the android platform is a moving target and there's a lot of diffs amongst the hardware. while that makes development harder it does and will continue to drive handset sales, which should mean more app installs
4:30 PM
fitz
ya agreed it is gdata that is so much fun :) can't complain to much at least they are making changes weekly now and not yearly like they use to ....
Mark M.
if anyone comes up with a question, chime in
4:35 PM
fitz
so to clarify - do search via dgata for email and calendar - once I find results I can search local contacts on cell - correct? They I can display results with RSS info and GPS data if needed
they = then
Mark M.
um, that sounds about right
fitz
ya like I said I need to take the day off from typing
been up since about 3am and that is not normal protocol :)
Mark M.
if it makes you feel better, I'm short on sleep too
fitz
so Penguins going to make a run of it this year?
4:40 PM
Mark M.
beats me
fitz
oh ya your not into hockey right
Mark M.
first, I'm eastern PA -- more in Flyers territory
fitz
playoffs started yesterday - ops sorry Flyers
Mark M.
second, hockey is so far off my radar, that I don't pay attention hardly at all
as far as I'm concerned, hockey is the intersection of curling and MMA, neither of which I pay attention to, either :-)
scottt
lol. i often do all-nighters. i've been up (except for a 30 min snooze) since 2pm yesterday. after i follow-up some emails, it's lights-out for me
fitz
well I bet if you turn on the news or radio they are talking it up - so you get some exposure :) There was a live demo feed last night for javaFX - you see it? was interesting
Mark M.
oh, yeah, that's right, JavaFX isn't dead yet
scottt
tampa bay has a team, but i havent been following it
Mark M.
I can never keep score
fitz
they are not in beta yet but real soon
4:45 PM
fitz
ok thanks Mark off to do more tutorials - good thing I am not typing much today :)
Mark M.
have fun!
fitz
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Don M.
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Mark M.
howdy, Don!
Don M.
Hello
hi
Mark M.
Don: do you have a question?
scottt
i've been playing around with some of the android OGL engines. the most interesting appear to be libgdx and andengine
Don M.
Yes, I'm trying to figure out why onItemSelected() is not being called in the Collections/Grid example from the first book
4:50 PM
Mark M.
Sure it is
Bear in mind that selection events are driven by the D-pad/trackball/whatever
tapping on a Grid item is a click event
Don M.
I'm running in the simulator and clicking on the items
Mark M.
click != select
Don M.
ok
So, I would have to register for clicks and then tell the Grid to select that item?
Mark M.
um, well, if you want to find out when something is clicked, you would set up an OnItemClickListener
you would not tell the GridView "to select that item", as that has no meaning when you're in touch mode (screen taps) and would be superfluous if the user clicked using the D-pad/trackball/whatever
Don M.
ok
thanks
Mark M.
no problem
Don M.
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4:55 PM
scottt
i guess time is about up and there's no need for me to fill the void. lol. i'll see you next time.
Mark M.
OK, see you later!
scottt
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5:00 PM
Kathy
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Mark M.
howdy, Kathy!
Kathy
Hello
Mark M.
the chat is just about over -- do you have a quick question?
Kathy
What is the best way to handle the different screen sizes in Android?
Mark M.
that is so not a quick question :-)
Kathy
Is there a good tutorial I could look at?
Mark M.
see Chapter 25 in _The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development_
Kathy
I thought I was getting in earlier. I wasn't able to get into the chat last week to ask this question.
I did look at Chapter 25 but I am still finding it very confusing.
Mark M.
then my recommendation would be to come up with somewhat more focused questions, either for future chats, or for StackOverflow
to put it in perspective, it would take a couple of hours of live training to really go through it all, if we're including fragments and dealing with phones-vs.-tablets
Kathy
When is your next chat?
Mark M.
next week's are Tuesday at 7:30pm Eastern and Thursday at 10am Eastern
5:05 PM
Kathy
Is there a device or a couple of devices that a lot of developers are targeting so I could worry less about the screen issues?
Mark M.
not really
or, more to the point, it's not a question of device, but a question of screen size and density
developers are usually targeting everything, though perhaps not so much the really small screens (e.g., 3")
Kathy
Are developers targeting particular screen sizes and densities?
Mark M.
and developers are slowly getting into tablets, as the tablets are slowly getting out there
normal screen size in medium and high density is the "sweet spot"
Kathy
I have a simple background, would a good starting point be to try and make it the largest phone device size and let it get made smaller?
Mark M.
large/xlarge screen size are your tablets, which is growing in importance but still fairly few in number today
Kathy
What is the normal screen size in medium and high density?
Mark M.
normal *is* a screen size -- screen sizes are small, normal, large, and xlarge
Kathy
When I am creating a png in photoshop what would be the best size to make it then?
Mark M.
that's impossible to answer in the abstract
personally, I have no experience with activity backgrounds, and would generally recommend developers avoid them, specifically for this sort of problem
games are one of the few areas where having a custom PNG background makes sense, and I'm not a game developer
5:10 PM
Kathy
If I was aiming for the sweet spot what would be a good size to make my background. The background will not be animated and will be more of an abstracted texture.
Mark M.
I'm afraid that I cannot answer that
again, personally, I have no experience with activity backgrounds
Kathy
okay
Mark M.
white or black, from the built-in themes, are all I use
my guess is that you will wind up with a couple of images, to handle different aspect ratios, and perhaps more if the built-in scaling doesn't give you nice results, but that's a guess
Kathy
I am trying to create a little bit of a richer experience and differntiate myself from some of the other apps with what I thought would be very simple graphics.
Mark M.
graphics are fine, but it tends to be easier to use them for individual elements, not full-screen backgrounds
anyway, I really must be going
Kathy
That helps then. Are you saying I shuold really concentrate my graphics into buttons and the like?
Mark M.
again, next week's chats are Tuesday at 7:30pm Eastern and Thursday at 10am Eastern
yes, buttons and similar iconography tend to be easier
it's not to say that you *can't* do backgrounds, but that it's a common pain point, and may not be worth the hassle
sorry I am not of greater assistance on this specific topic
have a pleasant day!
Kathy
That is good to know and probably why I have been having such difficulty finding out info.
Dimitri
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Kathy
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Mark M.
turned off guest access

Monday, April 11

 

Office Hours

People in this transcript

  • Dimitri
  • Don Messerli
  • fitz
  • Kathy
  • Mark Murphy
  • scottt