hi

howdy, Julius!

just have a quick (hopefully) question

go right ahead!

I'm getting an ANR and not quite sure why although I know the lone

line

so I'm doing this:

thet way I have done this is I have a Service

and the Service runs a Thread

and the Service updates Activities based on what's happening

OK

(btw, howdy, Ron!)

so the interface is responsive

it's not like it's stopping

but occasionaly I get an ANR

Hi Mark

ANR dialog?

one thing I can control is potentially to parse a smaller amount of xml

but I figure maybe there's a better way

ah yes

on what thread are you parsing the XML?

one that I have started in the Service

then it is not the cause of your ANR, at least not directly

ANRs are purely from work done on the main application thread

oh

so it's just running at the same time perhaps

(why I'm seeing it mentioned in the traces.txt)

most likely

BTW, any reason you're forking your own Thread, versus using an AsyncTask?

I've had a play with the TraceViewer

oh

no I'm not familiar with AsyncTask...

android.os.AsyncTask

:)

ok I'll check it out

covered in the Threads chapter in The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development

Hi Mark,Should be a quick one. I'm trying to set a required time for a user touch to activate a button or list element. Say 10 seconds before calling 911 so it doesn't go off accidentally. Wh

ah ok I'll check that out

great for parsing jobs and stuff like that

ok thanks

Sorry, hit send too early

hi Ron, will let you ask :)

np

bfn

thank you Mark!

Julius: happy to help!

Ron B.: want to try that question again?

Hi Mark,Should be a quick one. I'm trying to set a required time for a user touch to activate a button or list element. Say 10 seconds before calling 911 so it doesn't go off accidentally. Where would I find the setting to make that happen?

Setting?

let's back up a step

what do you mean by "required time for a user touch to activate a button or list element"?

Well, a class or method, etc.

I know how to make a call programmatically. I want it to happen when the user presses an emergency key.

what do you mean by "required time for a user touch to activate a button or list element"?

I don't want the call to go off by accident, since it's a 911 call. So I want the user to press and hold for 10 seconds or so before the call is made.

If you're trying to change the time it takes for onClick() to react, I doubt that is possible.

Certainly, I don't know where to change it

you'd want to look at onTouchEvent() and handle it at a lower level

perhaps not using a true Button, but an ImageView or something

OK, thanks!

any other questions?

Not from me, have a good evening

you too!

howdy, Jonny!

Heya Mark.

been trying to catch one of these chats, but foiled by the time zones!

sorry

normally, they are Tuesday evening and Thursday morning, US Eastern

varies sometimes based on my schedule

No worries. Should've checked first. Good to know.

how can I help you?

I just started Android development - disgruntled iPhone dev - and your books have been a great help so far...

glad to hear they're useful!

I'm just starting to read about animations and how to apply them to views

wow, diving into the deep end early

:-)

and I've played around with layout animation controllers in a GridView and ListView

but, what I'm trying to do is animate only the addition of new data to my Adapters, if that makes sense, and I'm hoping you can point me in the right direction for where to be dealing with this code

that is so much in the deep end, you've made your own pool

hah! i bet

I would have absolutely no idea where to begin on that

animation of simple views and containers (as a whole) is as far as I've gone

the concept of animating the addition of something to an AdapterView...I suppose it's possible, but I don't have the slightest idea how to approach it

ok, well that's lower on my list of things to tackle, so I'll keep plowing through. Not even necessary for my app. Just a nice little bit of sheen.

yeah, I can imagine the effect would be rather striking, done right

i think i have a couple more questions for you, if I can figure out how to ask them =)

anything else I can try to help you with?

take your time -- as you can see, it's a quiet night in the chat

two others were here, got answers, and departed

I'm using your SimpleWebCache to load images from the web and I'm finding that, depending on the host, the loading can hang forever. I've pulled the source for SimpleWebCache into my project and modified it to be able to set a configurable ConnectionTimeout and ReadTimeout. A) Can you think of any problems that could arise from setting these timeouts and B) are there any Android "System" properties that I can set to achieve this without either modifying source or extending the SimpleWebCache?

A) If they work for you, they should be OK

B) No, sorry

C) SimpleWebCache is a nasty piece of code that I need to rewrite someday

one of the things I'm looking at is to have a different AsyncTask (or AsyncTaskEx) for reading the images from either level of the cache and having a different one for loading from the Web. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what AsyncEx is doing.

because the web loading is holding up loading from cache (i've got a bunch of thumbnails on the screen at once)

but, i haven't really dove in that far yet to see what's happening

AsyncTaskEx was there to deal with the fact that AsyncTask originally only handled one operation at a time and could not handle a queue of more than 10 pending tasks

newer versions of AsyncTask are better

if you are only supporting Android 2.x, you probably do not need AsyncTaskEx

ah, ok, gotcha. I'm shooting for 1.5 or 1.6, but that may change. I've certainly found other things I want from 2.x.

alright, well, I think I'll go play around in AsyncTask land and try and crack that nut. Thanks for your time, Mark, and the great books!

you're very welcome!

night!

Heya Mark

I couldn't leave you here alone! :)

howdy, Mark!

actually, three others were here and gone earlier

how can I help you?

Well, I am just somewhat here to chat, and somewhat here for questions

If nobody else is here

well, the floor is yours

Well, just wanted to say, nice job! I walked into a Barnes & Noble today and saw all of your Android books :)

All?

more than _Beginning Android 2_?

Maybe not All, But I saw 2? Maybe 3?

the ones with the CommonsWare imprint aren't usually carried in bricks-and-mortar bookstores

mostly because I don't accept returns

hence, I'm surprised if you saw more than the Apress _Beginning Android 2_ on the shelf

They weren't the ones here at commonware. But they were from Apress

well, I did _Beginning Android_, replaced by _Beginning Android 2_

both of which are Apress' branded version of _The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development_

Ahh, yes. Just a link to the store, and where I found them

ah, online they're available

most online bookstores carry them

just not the kind you walk into

Though, I guess I only saw the Beginning Android and Beginning Android 2 were the ones I saw

Well, before your time runs up I do have a quick question

go ahead!

I am looking for an easy way to background an RSS reader before it displays the info. My current work has it so that the application is frozen the entire time until it has finished retrieving the content

Do you know of somewhere I can read up on this

uh, well, what exactly do you mean by "background an RSS reader"?

I want the downloading of the content to happen in the background while my UI is still operating

As it is now, the application "Halts" while it waits for the content

OK

Did I explain enough?

first, you're going to need to move the fetching and parsing off the main application thread

Okay

to do that, you can use AsyncTask, covered in the Threads chapter of The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development

your choice then is whether to have your reader activity do the task, or have it managed by a service

Sweet, is pretty much everything I need covered in that chapter?

if you have the activity do it, you will need to think about orientation changes -- there's a new section on this in the latest edition of The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development

As far as the threads?

yes

if you want to have a service do it, that's covered in the services chapter of The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development

Alright I will take a look at both of them later this evening

Well, from now on, I will attempt to hop in here every session and at least chat and ask questions

To help out the crowd :)

hey, last week in this time slot, I had 8 people

actually a bit difficult to get everyone's questions answered

so, it comes and goes

you're certainly welcome to swing by, but it's rarely lonely for an extended period

Sweet :) I will try and make every single one, I love that you added the schedule to Google Calendar

yeah, I don't schedule too far in advance, in case of travel changes

I usually try to keep two chats outstanding

for example, I just updated the schedule for next Tuesday's chat -- oddball time, courtesy of a training event in Portugal

Ahh alrighty

One last question for you

Is all of the work you do related to Android?

Well, I vacuum the condo from time to time

:-)

:-) Sometimes you have to!

I do development in Ruby on some side projects

primary focus nowadays is Android

more than enough to keep me busy

anyway, that's all for this evening's chat

Okay, well if your time is coming to an end, you may end the chat. Though I will be here next time to hang out, and ask questions if anything comes around

Have a good evening Mark

thanks, and have a pleasant evening!