howdy, fitz!

just watching today - see if I can pick up some ideas :)

howdy, Phil!

OK

Phil: how can I help you today?

Hey, it's been a while

Alright, so I'm curious if it's possible to have too applications stored in a single apk. ie. two totally separate apps that run in their own application space

*two

what do you mean by "application space"?

running in their own application process

so one would be a constantly running service doing socket operations and the other being the UI portion of the product

and i have a good reason for wanting to have them separate

why would you ever want to do that?

I have never seen a manifest with two <application> elements, but I don't see in the docs where it is impossible (quick scan)

I see no value in having these in two applications, though

I'm trying to program around dumb users who think they need to shut down my app to exit it, thus also shutting down the service part of it

um, what you're asking for is unlikely to help

at least, IMHO

it's not like they can't shut down the service running separately

you're welcome to try two <application> elements and see what happens, though

true, but (if i'm not mistaken) service apps don't show up in the app manager

what "app manager"?

Settings->Manage application

of course services show up there

i thought they show up under running serfices

more accurately, all applications show up there

*services instead

no

if it is installed, it is in Manage Applications

oh, well then, that makes my idea mute

guess that makes my life easier in the end

if you don't mind my asking, what does the service do?

keeps a socket connection open to send and receive asynchronous data, ie push

I take it C2DM isn't meeting your needs

need to support <2.2

ah, OK

in a pinch, you could try to switch to a relatively fast poll approach < 2.2 (e.g., AlarmManager every minute)

can't, the product is designed around push

ah, well

anyways, i have another questions

wish they'd've back-ported the C2DM client piece

that WOULD be nice

go ahead with other questions -- fitz, if you come up with a question, chime in

howdy, Chris!

Hi

was just doing some review through the Services: The Theory chapter in your beginner book and i wanted to know what the dis/advantages of ListenerObjects vs Messenger objects were?

the Listener pattern requires binding

Messenger doesn't

Once again, I don't have a specific question :)

Chris: OK, if you come up with one, chime in

I did last night though and joined too late!

Phil: whether you consider binding to be an advantage or a disadvantage is up to you :-)

cool

if no one else has a question, I've got a third

fire away

by "fire away", I meant that you could ask your question... :-)

ok, so I have a thread that blocks on the socket waiting for some data to come in, the phone (and thus cpu) goes to sleep, when data does come in, the cpu wakes up to let the thread read from the socket, do i need to do anything with partial wake locks?

I'm not sure what the rules of the game are for that scenario

this chat could use a "typing" status

with AlarmManager, Ms. Hackborn indicated that AlarmManager holds a partial WakeLock long enough for a BroadcastReceiver to do its onReceive()

there might be a similar rule for incoming mobile data packets, but I don't know what that rule is

to be safe, I'd grab a partial WakeLock

so the pattern would be something like: read data from socket -> grab lock -> process data -> release lock -> loop around to wait on socket again

yes

cool

8I work as a technical support engineer at VMware for our vCloud product. I decided that I'm going to try to make a little android app that can connect to vCloud via its REST API and manage resources such as creating/deleting virtual machines. I created my own SSL certs using an internal CA and was having problem getting the android app to get past the cert on vCloud's web portal. I finally got past that part using some info I found online using a fake SSL factory. So far I've gotten the app to login to vCloud and list VMs. Now I'm trying to see if I can delete a VM...

yeah, Android support for SSL certs like that is not awesome

in part, inheriting from some Java non-awesomeness, as I recall

I got a tool call RESTClient that I can use to send commands to the API and delete VMs and that works fine. First, I have to access the login page and get back some headers. One is called x-vcloud-authorization. Then I can put this header into subsequent requests and do things like delete VMs.

yeah, I was like this SSL stuff is ridiculous.

So right now I'm just trying to build the request to delete a VM. I get the x-vcloud-authorization value and add that to the request using setHeader.

For delete request, would I use HttpDelete() instead of HttpGet()? In this RESTClient program I switch the http method type over to delete and it works fine.

yes, if it wants an HTTP DELETE operation, HttpDelete is the class to use

each HTTP verb has its own class

cool

On the same idea as my last question, I noticed in your(I'm assuming it was you) answer to this question: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5007721… that you say the socket will wake the phone if it's on a mobile connection, not wifi, how would we deal with the wifi case?

other than keeping the device perpetually awake and on WiFi with a WakeLock and WifiLock, I am not aware of a solution here

hmmm, in the case where both your wifi and mobile connection are working, can you specify which to use?

nope

at least not with public SDK methods

it'll go to WiFi

k, I think I'm out of questions for the time being

ok

if anyone comes up with a question, chime in

hmmm, just tested something and it seems a socket can wake the phone on wifi

I was under the impression that the WiFi radio will eventually power down

hmm, then maybe i didn't wait long enough

and whenever this topic came up with Googlers, the emphasis was always on mobile data

I don't know how long the WiFi radio stays on

well c2dm must handle this problem somehow

Once I execute a request using "HttpResponse response = client.execute(request);" do I need to do anything to "clean up" the connection because if I try to issue another request using the same client, nothing happens. Don't see any good info in the debugger. The app just ANRs.

Phil: my best guess would be that the device is on briefly when they shut down WiFi, and the normal failover broadcasts occur, and C2DM switches to mobile data

but that's just a guess

will test, thanks

Chris: I haven't used HttpResponse in ages -- I usually am using a ResponseHandler

Oh that's right. Like in the Weather app.

you need that header, so you will need HttpResponse

Oh

Well I gotta run. I'll work on this later. Thanks!

Chris: check the hc.apache.org docs for help with HttpResponse

might've had an answer for you chris had my eclipse not frozen

one sec

nvm, we didn't use httpResponse either

yeah, if you don't need the headers, the ResponseHandler pattern is simpler to use

we used a HttpUrlConnection

there's that too

both httpResponse and HttpUrlConnection are used a bunch in new v3-atom google stuff

v3-atam?

*atom

I believe he is referring to the v3 edition of the Google Docs APIs

yes sorry for typo

ag

ah

well, that's a wrap for today's chat

ok - thanks

two more next week, Tuesday 10am and Thursday 4pm, all times Eastern

ok, have a good one, thanks for the help

have a pleasant day, all!