Gradle: add build time to your BuildConfig

Here’s a quick gradle snippet to put the time of your build into your BuildConfig field. Useful mostly for debugging and keeping track of builds.

Introducing TimeoutOverride

The screen timeout for Android Wear is rather short, so I wanted to extend it for my app. So I wrote a library to extend the screen timeout for an arbitrary number of seconds, and re-extend that timer automatically whenever the user touches the screen. Usage is a one-line addition to your onCreate():

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

    new ScreenTimeoutOverride(20, getWindow());
}

Clone TimeoutOverride on GitHub to get started.

Android Animation Interpolators

I was working with a designer this week on some animations, and I found there wasn’t a good resource that showed the different interpolators available in Android and how we could customize them.

So I made one. I present to you: A Visualization of Android Animation Interpolators.

Announcing Tehda v3.0

Tehda, the simple todo list, has released version 3.0, which answers popular demand by including a homescreen widget, for a quick at-a-glance view of your todo list.

Tehda is an Android client for TeuxDeux, the simple, designy todo list. Your list is always synchronized between the Tehda app on your phone and the TeuxDeux.com website. All the TeuxDeux features you love, including the simple interface, drag-and-drop organization, and the “someday” list are included.

New in Tehda version 3.0 is a homescreen widget. At a glance, see your upcoming tasks, and a count of tasks for each day. Users on Android 2.3 and older can only see their first upcoming task, due to a limitation on widgets in the older versions of Android. You’ll always know what’s coming up with the Tehda widget on your homescreen.

Check out Tehda in the Google Play Store today, and see why other users have given it a 4+ star rating, saying “Flawless!!!”, “Love it! Love it!” and “This is the best todo app I have found”.

Introducing JeuxDeux – an Android TeuxDeux client

Try JeuxDeux, the best way to use TeuxDeux on Android.

Are you the type who keeps your todo list as a simple list? You’ve tried other apps but you don’t want to waste time setting categories, priorities, color codes, and the like.

Try TeuxDeux. It’s a simple, designy, todo app that presents your todo list as just that. A list.

Changing the “due date” of an item is as simple as dragging it from today’s list, to tomorrow’s. Changing “priority” is a simple as dragging your most important todo to the top of the list.

If you like TeuxDeux and you’re an Android user, try JeuxDeux, the best way to use TeuxDeux on Android. Buy it from the Android Market today.

Scan this QR code from your Android phone to find JeuxDeux in the Market
[or click here to learn about QR codes]

Virginia Traffic for Android – 2.0 Release

This release adds two big new features: ‘My Roads’ and alerts. My Roads allows you to make a custom region of just the roads you care about, so you can check out the status of your commute without having to skim through every incident in the region. Alerts run in the background and use the Android notification bar to let you know when there is a problem on a road you care about.

My Roads

To set up the roads that you care about, switch to the My Roads region, where you’ll see a big button inviting you to set your roads.

Click that button (or press the menu button and choose Set My Roads) and you get a list of some major roads to select from. Click the roads you care about to select them. If you want a road that isn’t listed, press the Add a Road button at the bottom of each list. Enter the name of the road and press “Add”. Note that you’ll usually need a road number for this to work; use whatever gets highlighted as the road name for incidents on that road. In my case, I commute on Hampton Blvd. in Norfolk, so I’ve entered VA-337. Tunnel delays also get listed by their road number, so the Midtown Tunnel is US-58, the Downtown Tunnel is I-264, and the HRBT is I-64.

Alerts

If you want to be alerted when there’s a problem on your commute, first set up the roads you care about in your ‘My Roads’ region, then press the menu button and choose Settings. Check the Enable Background Alerts box; this will make the app download updates in the background and alert you if necessary. You can change when and how often the app will run in the background, and how you’ll get alerted (light, sound, vibration).

Other changes

The app asks for three new permissions: Vibrate, Get tasks, and Receive Boot Completed. These are all necessary to make background alerts work correctly.

In the menu, you’ll also notice that you can increase the font size. There’s also a button there to email me, so if you have any problems or suggestions I’d love to hear about them.

In addition, I’ve made some major changes under-the-hood to how the list of incidents is fetched from the server. This makes the app faster, more responsive, and less likely to crash. I’ve added a small advertisement to the bottom of the Incident List screen. This app incurs some expenses for me; in addition to all of the time I’ve spent developing it, I have to pay for a server to host all of the data that the apps pulls from. This is just a way for me to try to recoup some expenses.

On Third-Party Android Markets

I’m not sure what happened in the last two weeks, but I got directly contacted by three different companies. All three have third-party Android markets, and they wanted me to participate. That’s all well and good; I have a moderately successful freeware app, so I’m getting used to companies emailing me out of the blue to tell me about their Android-related products. Two of these companies started with short email pitches of why I should participate, and left the ball in my court to act. I’m not going to name these companies here, so that their names aren’t associated in any way with what comes next. When I found some time, I looked at what they had built, read through their developer agreements, and signed up. Win-win.

Appslib, on the other hand, is wildly unprofessional. Here’s the first email
Well that’s interesting, I certainly didn’t sign up for any account on my own. I would have remembered that. I’ll just ignore them and hope they go away.
Thanks for posting my application? I didn’t post a thing. This is getting pretty pushy.
Huh. I’m glad to know my app runs on tablets, even though I didn’t ask for it to be tested. At least they’re waiting for my confirmation to publish the app. Let’s just search their listings to be sure. Nope. They lied again. They stole my app and published it without my consent. Well, they have a Twitter account and it’s active, so I’ll tweet at them asking what gives….

Crickets…

No response on the twitters. I guess they just don’t care. They’ve already put my app out there, as though I had signed up with them (I didn’t), agreed to their Developer Agreement (I didn’t) or published my app to their market (I didn’t). With dishonesty like this throughout their business, I’m going to assume that the whole thing is a fraud, and recommend to other developers and to consumers to steer clear of Applib, they’ll probably steal from you, too.

Please let me know if this happened to you, too. We need to fight back on this. Publishers can’t just take our hard work and do with it as they please. It’s theft. And it’s wrong.

Category: Android