howdy, Dmitri!

hello

how can I help you today?

I am build a typical application that communicates via http (json) to a backend service.

the data retrieve is then stored in app sqlite database in order to save roundtrips to the server and hence bandwith.

Dimitri: OK, keep going

(btw, howdy, Marco!)

First of all is there a way to store my initial database in my apk ?

yes, by packaging it in your assets/ directory and copying it from there on first run

Hi! Just taking a look how chat works, i don't have any question yet

however, you cannot get rid of the copy in the APK, so if it is large it takes up extra space

Marco: OK

how can i remove the copy in the APK?

you cannot remove the copy in the APK -- that is what I meant when I wrote "you cannot get rid of the copy in the APK"

sorry misread...

What i am doing so far is running a splash screen an loading the database from there! First time takes a while.. After that it update are rather scarse!!!

observing today :)

fitz: OK (and howdy!)

Dmitri: is there more to your question?

howdy, Rick!

I have read in different posts that splash screens should not be used hence my initial questions of keeping data. Is this the case here?

Dmitri: splash screens just because somebody wants a splash screen are a bad idea

Hi

a splash screen with some sort of "loading" message, on the first run of your app, may be necessary

(or just use a ProgressDialog)

Thanks

Rick: do you have a question?

Yes

We are writing an application that needs to pause any music while we have focus

But this has been problematic

If the user hits the home button, we need to know

if by "problematic" you mean "impossible", then yes, I imagine that it is problematic

so we can't just use onPause

:)

yeah, everything we have come up with results in a race condition of some sort

well, more directly, you cannot "pause any music"

that's simply not possible

there is no API in Android to control Pandora, or Last.FM, or Spotify, or...

we requestfocus, abandonfocus

from the AudioManager

OK, though that only works on 2.2 and higher

yes

and that will only stop the music from being heard

it may not pause the music

going back to your previous point, there is really no way to detect when the user presses HOME that I am aware of

yes, my understanding is that the onChangeAudioFocus call back allows for the app to decide what to do. Pause, or lower volume..

the stock android audio player implements a pause when loosing focus.

but there are many applications that will not use that callback (e.g., they support earlier versions of Android)

true.. we have a focused release on a particular platform..

but if a user loads an older application this could still be a problem.

our biggest issue is that if we exit and then restart quickly then there is a race condition.

you mean with the audio focus changes?

we abandon focus, the player then gets the call back and eventually requests the audio focus back. If we restart before the music player gets to request the audio focus then we wind up having music playing during our app.

Sorry, a quick question, how can i force (en) as a locale for my app. I am having problem with DatePicker Dialogs.

Rick: I am not sure how you can get around that

thanks..

Dmitri: try http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4985805…

though I have no idea why you would need to force a locale to get a DatePickerDialog to work

Bye

any other questions? we should have another person joining us shortly

It works however if my application only supports english i would not like a Greek user to view greek datepickers since the rest of the ui is in English...

ah, I see

that's interesting -- I had not thought about that

Mark last week you mentioned to look at Harmony to see about a phone on wifi talking directly to a pc on same network - any other areas you can point me to look into?

sorry, I am short on sleep

what was the context of that discussion again?

I needs files to transfer not via cable via wifi

Thanks Mark, that worked

fitz: but what was your issue?

(btw, howdy, Rob, and sorry about the email -- probably routed to your spam folder :-( )

I need certain files on cell to compare to files on PC - if updated on either the other gets the new file

OK, so put a Web service on the PC that can give you hashes of the files or something

Rob: since we're short on time, I'll try to multitask with your question and fitz's, so go ahead

I'm having issues trying to save the web page I was on in a webview when the application is paused. I've tried browser.saveState(outState) and restore state, but I return to a blank page once I leave the application. I can send you my source if that helps.

I'm trying not to have to reload the page, as it contains a good amount of data

Rob: rigth

er, right

I haven't tried saveState(), assuming it was impractical :-)

WebView, IMHO, is a fine reason to use android:configChanges and simply avoid the destroy/recreate cycle

ya just looking for something like RMI

that covers most of the cases

fitz: ah, yes, right, now I remember

Just tried http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4985805… however although the dialog popup is now in english the formated text (Time retTime.format("%x");) is in greek...

you can always go something open source (Protocol Buffers or Thrift)

I have ..

Dmitri: I have no idea how to help with that part, sorry

to hadle when the keyboard slides out,

handle

Rob: If you're already doing that, the only place onSaveInstanceState() should come into play will be any other configuration changes you do not have listed in android:configChanges

thanks anywat..

or if the user navigates further down the stack, Android closes your activity, and the user BACK-buttons their way back to your activity

that latter scenario does not seem terribly likely in general

So what line do i need in my manifest besides, android:configChanges="keyboardHidden|orientation">

Rob: well, for orientation changes, that should be it

there are other configuration changes -- you'll find them listed in the docs

most of the other events are relatively unlikely, except perhaps the uiMode one for car/desk docks

ok, so I'm looking to add to my config changes any events that would destroy an activity... Sorry, relatively new to java

most of this is Android-specific, not really general to Java

if you need all of them, put all of them in your pipe-delimited list

new to both I should have said

the big problem with doing this is that you have to handle *all* resource changes

Android will not automatically reload any resources for any configuration change

so can you point me to investigate anything process that might do something like RMI or should I look to scrap that part of our project

fitz: I don't know what "something like RMI" is in your mind

there is SOAP, and Protocol Buffers, and Thrift, and various REST frameworsk

really, I just want the webpage to stay loaded in the webview until the click the exit application button. Short of powering off the phone. Basically it's a list of address and information our field staff needs for the day. I've used your code as a starting point and figured out how to launch navigation and the camera from javascript on the page

er, frameworks

Rob: OK, so list all the possible configuration changes in the android:configChanges attribute

you also don't really need the do-nothing onConfigurationChanged(), since it, well, doesn't do anything :-)

Thanks

it is possible you will still have to reload the page in some circumstances (e.g., user presses HOME and leaves for a while)

that's unavoidable

I figured I had to have something there to handle the event even if it did nothing

The main issue is that some of the pages rely on form input, so It's not like I can store and reload the url

Rob: then you may need to rethink your approach

e.g., store the form input somewhere

I may have to figure out how to store the variable to reload at a later time if the application...right

if the whole app will mostly just be this WebView, you might want to consider redoing it as a PhoneGap app

I keep hearing about phonegap, I guess I should look into it.

ok thanks Mark have a great day

big benefit of PhoneGap is it is cross-platform, so your app will work on iPhones and such as well

and, it has hooks for the camera

Mark, thanks for your time, you gave me a hood starting point

not sure about navigation, but that might just be a plugin for the PhoneGap framework

hood=good

OK, that's all for today's chat

next chat is Thursday at 4pm Eastern

have a pleasant day, everyone!

Thanks

thanks have a nice day