hello, midas!

how can I help you today?

hey mark

I have a few questions

one is about single activity architecture

I wouldnt ask

but from what I understood from io 18

google is now recommending this and is pushing it with the navigation arch component

yes

anyway, I was wondering if one screen can have a tab layout and another not in this framework

since the tabs are part of the app bar layout

which is an activity level ui

or am I making a fundamental error somewhere?

some design choices may force you into using separate activities

just because Google steers you towards a single activity does not mean that you necessarily have to use a single activity for everything

(BTW, hello Milan -- I will be with you shortly!)

(hello Mark, no prob :) )

I agree with that, just find it strange, since one screen having tabs is not that uncommon

how useful can navigation be if it cant handle tabs?

well, tabs do not necessarily have to be in the app bar layout

thats true, unless you want them to collapse with the app bar per material design

and I think Google is leaning more towards bottom navigation

which are not supposed to be swipeable tabs

anyway that was the first question

let me take a question from Milan, and then I can return to you for your next question

Milan: your turn! do you have a question?

feel free to finish with midas

OK

midas: back to you! what's your next question?

ok, thanks milan. The other is about connecting to a wifi enabled device (like a camera w/o data) and remaining connected to mobile network

are you aware of anyway to do that?

Im finding myself forced to manually switch back and forth

IIRC, newer versions of Android offer some ability to control which network connections go on WiFi and which go on mobile data

but I have not spent any time with that problem

IIRC ?

"if I recall correctly"

ah

but can I stay connected to both at the same time?

my understanding is: yes

but, I do not know the details

but you dont know specifically how, or which apis to look at

ok thanks anyway

I'd start with ConnectivityManager, but otherwise no

look in the release notes for Android 7.0-8.0

will do

I think this showed up around there

thanks

the capability has been around for quite a while, as there are nasty hacks on Stack Overflow using hidden APIs related to this

well wifi hotspots were around much longer

it's only in recent versions that they made it official and supported

yes, though I think what you are asking for has also been possible

anyway, again, I don't recall the details, as it's not an area that I have worked in directly or spent much time on

so, I can offer you hope, but not much more

ha!

thanks mark

midas: do you have another question? if not, I'll turn it over to Milan

nope thats it for me

OK

Milan: your turn! again! :-)

My notification is playing a ringtone. With the channels, it is not possible to change a ringtone from application. The only thing I could do is to point user to the settings of specific channel. However, clicking on sound there lists a short tones, not ringtones.

Any way to force that screen to list ringtones instead?

Could I share a small piece of code with you to discuss it?

you can, though I am uncertain if it will help

I am not aware of any ability to control what Settings offers here

I thought it would be possible by .setUsage(AudioAttributes.USAGE_NOTIFICATION_RINGTONE)

however, same result as with .setUsage(AudioAttributes.USAGE_NOTIFICATION)

hmmm...

broken api?

what version of Android are you testing on?

8 and above

I ask, because I just brought up my SAW Monitor app's page in Settings, for my "Whatever" channel

8.0 currently

when I tap on "Sound" -- where my channel just opts into the default -- I get a chooser for picking an audio file

you mean + Add ringtone option?

no, just a file chooser

so, I tap on "Sound", the chooser shows up, and I can choose a file

presumably, it's scoped to audio files via the MIME type

this is on a Nexus 5X running 8.1

all I got is pre-populated list of short tones and Add ringtone option

so I am seeing the opposite of you: I don't have short tones or canned ringtones, but I can choose an arbitrary media file

what device?

mine 5.x on 8.9

8.0

5x

whew, you had me scared there for a moment :-)

:D

note that you have two setSound() calls in your not-a-chromebook branch of code

first one is commented out

oh, right, sorry

shared by mistake

FWIW, my SAW Monitor app's notification is: https://github.com/commonsguy/cw-omnibus/blob/v...

I'm just using setDefaults(Notification.DEFAULT_ALL)

I am surprised that Settings behaves differently here for what the user can choose in the channel settings

5X and some devices have +Add ringtone options from that settings screen / sound

Pixel 2 does not have such option

not the Samsung devices with 8 and above

EMUI does not have Sound option at all

hence, this is more of a Settings issue than a notification API issue, most likely

I would say so

perhaps someday Google will establish and enforce some requirements, though that won't necessarily help with the EMUI case

but I really doubt that there is much that you can do, in your app, to force consistent behavior

don't care for EMUI at the momment but wondering why it is different on Pixel 2

because Google changed their mind, presumably

+Essential PH-1 with stock ROM has +Add ringtone option

8.1

whereas the Nexus devices were a fairly pure AOSP experience, Google is making the Pixels be more Googly

Pixel 2 has prepopulated list of alarm tones, onlu

only

so you think there is no way to force that list to show ringtones instead of alarm tones?

I doubt it

and if there is a way, I have no idea what it would be

what is the purpose of AudioAttributes::setUsage then?

to be honest, I have never tried that

:) ok

I guess that is all, then

sorry that I did not have a solution for you

no prob

I am just wondering were the notifications good choice for playing ringtone, after all

before the channels - absolutely yes, I would say

now, I am not so sure

if the audio is tightly tied to the notification, then I'd say yes, and "let the chips fall where they may" on configurability

if the audio is not tightly tied to the notification, and you're willing to offer your own UI for configuring the rules for playing the audio, then perhaps playing it yourself directly makes more sense

I have both notifications and UI, UI is displayed when the screen is locked only

nut main idea is to have notification responsible to answer/decline the call, and that way no need to have activity in fg

your use case is fairly unusual, so managing ringtones yourself seems reasonable

though you may wish to explore setting up your own rules for DND, etc., if you do not have them already

why you think it is unusual?

most apps using notifications are not handling incoming calls

and the term "ringtone" originated with the concept of incoming calls

I have no option to unlock the screen with notification, especially if user forbid that via channel setting, so I have to provide UI for answering the call, too

agree and not agree :) most popular messengers have a heads up notificaton

and there are, what, 10 popular messenger apps, out of millions of Android apps?

true

in your particular product area (call managers), your requirements may be typical

but over the entire Android app space, your requirements are unusual

with user base bigger than other messanger apps

unusual != bad

Ah I see what you try to say

make sense

but unusual does mean that Google's changes may harm you more than it does the average app

and so you may need to get... creative

such as playing the ringtone yourself

and taking care of DND, native calls and all similar stuff by yourself

yes

for your product category, my feeling is that those steps are necessary and reasonable

but if I'm writing a fitness app, and I want to remind the user that they are still 6,349 steps short of their 10,000 for the day, I should not be playing the ringtone myself

I hoped that AudioAttributes was step forward in direction to minimize developer interfirence

with the system

well, bear in mind that the AudioAttributes version of setSound() was introduced in Android 5.0

so, when they added it, they may not have been thinking about the sorts of user-managed channels that were introduced with Android 8.0

hm, good point

lets create them a ticket and give an idea to Google devs :)

thanks for your time

happy to (try to) be useful!

midas: if you have another question, go ahead!

nope just listening

no problem

I was hoping to find some more info about the question I had asked

but no success

I was thinking that I might need another process

and use IPC

it's older than I thought -- showed up in 5.0

now, I have not attempted to use this, and it may be that this is not what you're looking for, but it is what I thought of with respect to your problem

that's a wrap for today's chat

the transcript will be posted to https://commonsware.com/office-hours/ shortly

the next chat is tomorrow at the same time, 9am US Eastern

have a pleasant day!