howdy, JR!

hello

Want to say, thanks for the books! They are a huge help

you're very welcome!

a quick question

fire away!

copied some of the source code into a project of I am working on. I created 2 new xml files in the layout folder to match the ones required by the code

the R.java file did not update with the new values in the XML files

any idea why or how to fix?

Project > Clean from Eclipse's main menu, or ant clean from the command line

ok. I am using Eclipse

that deleted my R.java file.

should be recreated automatically if you have Build Automatically checked; otherwise, it'll build on your next Run

testing

though I'm a bit fuzzy on the latter, since I'm not an Eclipse user

most of my students using Eclipse leave Build Automatically checked

I do keep Build Automatically checked

working on it

if R.java is not rebuilding, check your errors, warnings, and console, as there is probably a problem preventing aapt from doing its work

found it. The PNG files were not recognized. fixing it. thank you

I had been having difficulty with a portion of my program for almost 4 days now

I'm hoping to fix it with your tutorials

I have the image of you beating your computer with a copy of my tutorials... :-)

I've been near that stage. haha

I am working on a listview that is pulled from a preloaded database

The view structure that Android uses is less than ideal

meaning?

I guess I am not used to programming an interface that is a hierarchy of views.

I am a senior in college, so not a ton of experience, I guess.

if you're coming at this from a Web background, it's definitely different

many traditional GUI toolkits take this approach, though

Yes, most of my experience is asp.net

And finding a competent book that wasn't based on android 1.1 was difficult

Found yours yesterday and stayed up until 2am this morning reading.

Usually my books are a *cure* for insomnia

:-)

People think I am crazy, but I actually am really excited by Android

Its the first project that I want to do for me, instead of being forced by a college professor.

it's a fun area to be in

those darn professors

indeed. I work at our school as desktop and network support. I see both sides of the coin.

ok, got the list view example working. Now to modify it to work with my DatabaseHelper class

You will be seeing plenty of myself and probably a couple of my friends over the next year

that's what the chats are for!

We are building a massive Android application as a senior project at school

hmmm..."massive" and "smartphone" usually are two great tastes that don't taste great together

what are you considering "massive"?

too true. But that is the challenge of the project

It is an "interactive encyclopedia" for new students at our college

that could be massive, depending on the size of the college

sounds like a nice place to use WebView

Medium sized state college. University of North Florida

We had considered webview, but it is going to be much more than just information

GPS to help students find buildings and locations

you don't have to use WebView exclusively, but it makes it relatively easy to author the pure-information content

I see. Good information to have. Especially since I have the permissions to create content on the school's website

I tend to look towards long-term maintainability, which may not be a criterion for your project, depending on what it's for beyond your project.

wow, that last sentence was lousy

let's try that again

I tend to look towards long-term maintainability, which may not be a criterion for your project -- if it's just purely a senior project, what happens after spring is irrelevant

OTOH, if this is something the school will maintain going forward, the closer you can adhere to standards and conventions, the easier that maintenance is likely to be

That's something we have considered. We have wondered, if it takes off at our school, how can we make it easy to move to other colleges?

We are hoping to develop with that in mind

nice plan

hope it works out for you!

out of curiosity, do you have any applications in the market place?

hehehe

none under my name

I contributed to a couple on a contract basis

I have already been approached for the same thing

An Iphone developer asked if I was interested in profit share or contract work to port his apps to Android

fair number of Android jobs out there for those with demonstrated ability

plus freelance stuff like your iPhone->Android port

in fact, the two contract apps I did were iPhone->Android ports

That's why I want to learn this stuff now. I like it, its fun, and companies will soon be looking to hire people who know the layout

yup

ok, I won't keep you busy talking. Going to work on this some to see if I can get it. How much longer are you here?

chat room is open until 9pm Eastern

I try to run two of these a week

Roger. Thank you for the help.

though that depends on my travel schedule

I already added the dates and times to my phone so I wouldn't forget.

Best way to save small images to database?

as a blob or reference to a drawables?

haven't tried the blob approach

my gut instinct would be to store it as a file and put the filename in the database

how small and how many images?

70-100?

mostly a couple KB each

there's a chance the database approach will be more efficient, given filesystem block sizes

and, you have the advantage of keeping everything in one spot

That was my thought

not sure how annoying it is to get a Bitmap out of a database blob, but it's probably not too bad

I saw a reference to it somewhere

bitmapfactory.decodeResource();

no,that's for resources

ah, you're right

you'd be using decodeByteArray()

Looking at that now

I am afraid of the performance hit. Those pictures are going in a listview

As the user scrolled through, the decoding has to happen on the fly

probably not much worse than loading them from files, though

the decodes should be pretty quick

I will try both approaches to see which works best on my Droid

the question is how much more time a query to get the blob is over loading from a file

OK, any last questions?

nope, I have more than enough to keep me busy

Thank you for your time

OK

I'll be posting the transcript on cw-android tomorrow morning, when I can get WiFi at the hotel again

have a pleasant evening!

Thanks. you too