howdy, fitz!

Morning

yes, it it

er, it is

at least here

quick question - is there a way to convert swing code? or is it rewrite?

at best its rewrite

at worst, it's reconceptualize

ok - ugly oh well

while Android's widget framework has some Swing-isms, courtesy of Romain Guy I think, there's no direct relationship

will hang here for a bit to see if I can get some pointers

nope

this is mostly Java

no pointers

Romain Guy did the GTUG meetup last week - great person, he knows his stuff. He looked totally fried - working him to the bone.

he's very solid

was it just him, or was Anderson Coop...er, I mean, Chet Haase with him?

Chet - they did the IO presentation with more animation

made comments about the tough stuff etc. The group had some very pointed questions for them - think they were surprised at knowledge and some needs the group had

I'm hoping that "pointed" means "specific" in this case, not "nasty"

Hello everyone

no not nasty - pointed meaning very detailed - they mentioned some tools they used to work around issue in things like open gl etc. all a bit over my head but I am getting most of it now :)

howdy, Kathy!

Kathy, do you have a question?

Yes. I was looking at the action bar you mentioned last Tuesday and it seems it is only availble for Android 3. Is that the case?

the Honeycomb action bar is only Android 3.x

you can use ActionBarSherlock to get a replacement implementation for Android 1.x/2.x

actionbarsherlock.com

on API Level 11+, it will use the standard action bar

note that I have not tried ActionBarSherlock yet, though I have heard good things

thank you, that is helpful

I was wondering if you had any recommendations for some good books, tutorials,etc. I could look at that discussed good Android app design.

that kinda presumes that there is agreement on "good Android app design"

Do you know of any reference materials that discuss what you consider to be good Android app design?

outside of icon design, there are no official reference materials on design-related topics

you'll find a Google I|O presentation or two from the past couple of years that are helpful

those were the big two at this year's conference

Thanks for locating them for me.

I was wondering if you knew of any tutorials on how to write a simple game.

I'm sure there are some tutorials

there's at least one book out on Android game development

but I don't pay much attention that segment, so I have no tutorial links at the ready

no, problem, I just thought I would ask.

Last night I was working on some code where I need to pass a string variable from one activity to another. I used intents to do this. Is that the best way to do this or could I have done it a different way?

usually, you ship that data in an Intent extra when you call startActivity() or startActivityForResult()

Ok. That is all for now. Thank you for your time and patience.

can I ask a dumb question? ok here it goes

it says option 1 is add library into Eclipse - or option 2 do maven link - so when you compile and load to phone I assume phone does not hit maven when running app correct?

correct

Maven is a compile time thing

think Ant + retrieving dependent libraries and tools automagically

ok - just wanted to make sure I understood flow

so from a coders stand point is it better to do maven link because code might be more up-to-date

I can't really answer that

I don't use Maven

ok thanks

feel free to chime in with other questions, if they come to you

OK, in your opinion what are some of the best designed apss you have seen?

I meant apps.

I have the aesthetic sense of a hamster

good chart if people want to know differences in versions http://androidos.in/2011/06/android-versio…

it's rare that I run into an app that is really awful that I bother to actually install

I guess I don't mean aesthetics so much as good navigation and ease of use.

such apps tend to get poor ratings

rephrase: apps with poor navigation/ease of use get poor ratings

so, I'd start with highly-rated apps that resemble yours, functionally, and see what they do

looking at some of my devices now...

Gmail, Google I|O 2011 conference app, and Maps all work well on tablets

the Market app on a tablet is a bit of a mixed bag

on phones...

Gmail, Market, Remember the Milk, and Seesmic are all pretty solid

Evernote is pretty good on the phone, too -- waiting for the tablet edition to make better use of the real estate

but, again, that's just me

That is helpful since you are very app savvy.

Have a great day

Goodbye.

See ya!