HI Mark

howdy, Bill!

how can I help you today?

I have a question about Instumented Testing and TouchUtils.drag methods

oy

I'll give it a shot, but I haven't used drag()

what specifically is your question?

when I run TouchUtils.dragViewBy(this, knightImage,Gravity.BOTTOM,50,50); I get a RuntimeException stating that INJECT_EVENTS is not set

but I only have one ActivityRunning and I'm not trying to access any other window or application that I am aware of

INJECT_EVENTS is a permission

in your line of code, what is "this"?

oh, never mind

knightImage is an ImageView?

the instance of ActivityInstrumentationTestCase2

yes

let me show you part of the stack trace

I certainly wouldn't expect that error

is it a case where other places dragViewBy() is working and it's not here?

or does it fail for you everywhere?

this is the only place i'm using it

do you want to see the whole test method?

is the activity actually on the screen when you are running the test?

I'm seeing a bunch of posts suggesting that this error crops up if the lock screen is active when the test is run

howdy, Rich!

Bill: here's another one: http://stackoverflow.com/q/3214531/115145

but the screen is definately not locked

Rawr! Hello all :) woot! I have been trying to make this for WEEKS! I finally made it!

I have other tests that I can see running

hmmmm

I don't know what to tell you

like I said, I've never used dragViewBy() or kin

ok, I'll look at the links you pointed me to

sorry

Rich: do you have a question?

thanks for the help

I was posting an answer on SO for someone last night and they had a good question, I just wonder if I was completely correct... He starts an Activity from Activity1 and wanted to use getIntent() in Activity2

Does the Intent hold any information from the initial class? I looked and didn't see anywhere this information was

located in the Intent

if Activity1 calls startActivity() for Activity2, and you call getIntent() on Activity2, you will see nothing related to the Intent used to start Activity1

that's a good thing, because startActivity() might start up another app entirely, and you don't want apps somehow being able to walk some Intent chain and get at all sorts of non-public data

Ok that is what I told them.

huh?

OH nvm ok I see I think...

Bill: do you have another question?

OK, does anyone have another question?

I am really unprepared today! I just happen to be here at my comp and saw the time. Sorry I have not prepared better. I do have a couple quick questions though if you don't mind

fire away

In my app I have an issue I had to tackle recently. I added an appwidget and start a service with it (indirectly atm)

the service needs to tell the appwidget that it is active. I tried using sharedprefs to do this however there naturally a race condition

a service cannot "tell the appwidget" about anything

right

a service can *update* the RemoteViews that renders an app widget, though

what is your objective of the "needs to tell" part?

for example, if your AppWidgetProvider simply needs to know if the service is started when it does its next regularly-scheduled update, just use a static data member

To change the "state" of the appwidget saying the service is "On" right now the service sets a flag in a intermediate class that I use as a sort of "go between" between the appwidget, service, and activity(there is a textview that is updated as well)

So it needs to be pretty immediate, this 'state' change... I found that broadcasting a message was unreliable

in the timing

what do you mean by "the 'state' of the appwidget"?

do you mean "the pixels that the user sees with his/her eyeballs"? or something else?

Yeah the On or Off state

the visual

ok, have the service use AppWidgetManager to update the app widget

(directly or via your intermediate class, whatever)

and use a boolean isRunning static data member for future AppWidgetProvider onUpdate() calls

(assuming there are any)

updating the activity could be by broadcast, or createPendingResult(), or Messenger, etc.

YOU RULE!!!! I only use AppWidgetProvider never knew that AppWidgetManager (according to the docs) "Updates AppWidget state; gets information about installed AppWidget providers and other AppWidget related state."

you get passed in an AppWidgetManager in onUpdate() of your AppWidgetProvider

it's how you are getting your RemoteViews to the home screen

however, you can get an AppWidgetManager whenever you want, if you want to "push" an update to the home screen outside of any standard polling period

Yeah see I don't even touch that! I am looking at my code and I think this is going to be useful

Man you just gave me hours of research... lol

this stuff is covered in the Advanced Android book, FWIW

Oddly enough until about a month ago I used your books for very specific reasons... then I started actually reading them all the way through and... WOW it really opened me up to some great ways of approaching my Android development

glad you like 'em!

no, love them!

I never went to school for any of this so I have MANY books and 9 languages later... Android! Anyway thank you Mr. Murphy you have def given me much to think about. You have a wonderful weekend sir

you too!

Oh and to finish my earlier thought... your books are by far in the top ten of ALL i have

Thank you

Evening

Rich: you are very welcome

howdy, NetApex!

How are you?

do you have a question?

Quick question

Embedding YouTube

Since it ends up in webview, is there a way to account for screen size differences?

let's back up a step

Lol okay

you're explicitly forcing an embed, rather than launching the YouTube player -- correct?

Correct

Using octane

in that case, that's an HTML/JS issue, to size the embed

octane?

Err... Iframe

Stupid auto correct

ha!

thought maybe it was some JS YouTube library :-)

Hehe

Ok I will look into that then

if you are truly using WebView, you could also feed some JS code the screen size via loadUrl("javascript:...")

or have the JS pull it via addJavascriptInterface()

if you're showing this in a browser, though, those won't be options

Would that account for tablets vs phones

would what account for tablets vs phones?

The Javascript, would I be able to size differently for phones vs tablets?

well, again, it's a question of how you're getting the screen size

is this WebView, or a browser?

you mentioned WebView before, I'm just confirming

With the octane you can define a size, but one size doesn't fit all obviously, and I can't find a "if HE then this size" easy method

It's webview

is this WebView, or a browser?

ok

then, if you can't find a pure HTML/JS way to find the screen size, I'd use addJavascriptInterface() and give JS the means to find the screen size

then, your JS can modify the DOM to size your iframe appropriately

I am guessing that is how the market does their app preview views

beats me

Seems logical at least

There is always something new to learn it seems

good thing, too

it helps with book sales

:-)

True

Lol

Thanks again

no problem, happy to help

Working on my first "important" app

don't say that so loud -- your other apps might hear you

Lol, they know they were just for fun

Off to learn some JS screen size finding

yeah, that part's outside my skill set\

I rely on stuff like GWT or ExtJS or something to figure that out

I will write up a chapter for ya to include in your next book update. :)

Gwt...that sounds like an idea

there was a presentation on GWT-for-mobile at 2011 Google I|O

haven't watched the video yet

I will tonight

Trying to work this for tablets and phones is new to me

Which book goes over fragments?

introductory stuff in BCG to Android App Development

dynamic fragments (transactions) in the Advanced Android one

Going to be a long night of reading and videos

well, I'll let you get to it then, as it's time to put the chat to bed

next one 4pm on Monday

Take care man

Ok

(Eastern)

have a pleasant evening!