Bangalore Android Developers Meetup 9 (Tabs!) : Live Event
01:01PM
We are almost at the end of the session, with people playing with the Xoom.
12:39PM
Native Apps
Though Native app support is evolving, its still not there, and to develop in Eclipse, you will need Sequoyah. However, things can work with a breeze if you happen to use the Motodev Studio.
The Motodev Studio can be downloaded free of Cost from here.
A demo of Motodev Studio is on.
12:20PM
Testing Apps
After some socializing, we are back to sessions, the testing side of the story.
There preferred took is JUnit. Logcat, DDMS, TraceView are the Devs best friend.
Strictmode API also helps build quality, as it catches the Disk and Network access in the UI thread, helping remove the ANRs.
MonkeyRunner generates pseudo random events. Good for stress testing.
Motodev Studio sports mem analyzer, App Validator, Integrated Emulator which improve the productivity even more. Its MonkeyRunner is more customizable too.
11:55AM
Android 3.1, API Level 12
Resizable widgets are here.
New Input devices and motion events are supported. Such as Mouse, Joystick, gamepads etc.
USB API is also new. Android now supports USB host support. The device should also support.
Official MTP support is also available via android.mtp.*.
11:44AM
There is discussion how to track the devices as no method is foolproof. Some devices do not have IMEI, MAC Addresses are not consistent, Android_IDs are not unique, factory reset kills almost everything!
Some best practices now, such as revisiting the images, permissions, font sizes, minSdkVersion, one apk rather than multiple.
11:12AM
Animations
There are 2 types of animations, such as View Animations and Property Animation which is introduced in 3.0.
Sensors
There are only 30 apps which use Gyroscope. There are no apps which use the barometer. (BTW, what to do with it anyway?)
Want no rotation? use android:screenOrientation="nosensor".
Touch Screens
From API Level 9, Android supports 10 finger tracking multitouch, and to use it, the hadrware has to support it too. Xoom does it.
Telephony
Telephony feature is not supported, but does support the radio for 4G/LTE networks.
11:03AM
Views
There are new views introduced in 3.0, such as android.widget.popupMenu etc.
Hardware Accelation
HA is built in for a subset of 2D graphics (Canvas API). HA can be defined in the manifest by setting android:hardwareAccelerated="true" for the entire app or the activity.
This can also be done thru code by doing
Window win = getWindow();
win.setFlags(WindowManager.layoutparams.FLAG_HARDWARE_ACCELERATED, WindowManager.layoutparams.FLAG_HARDWARE_ACCELERATED);
Texture Compression
Very much dependent on Chipsets. (Works in all API level though)
ETC1 on all devices with OpenGL ES 2.0, but no alpha.
PVRTC for Power VR from Imaginion
ATTIC etc.
10:45AM
Fragments
Allows an app to be divided into subcomponents, those can be individually managed and combined in various ways such as creating a multi-pane UI.
The APIs are
android.app.Fragment, android.app.ListFragment (like list activity), android.app.DialogFragment (A floating one). There is android.app.FragmentManager is there to interact with the fragment (findFragmentById). There is also a android.app.FragmentTransaction to do operate on fragments (add, remove, replace, visibility etc).
10:33AM
Holographic Theme
MinSdkVersion has to be 11 to have it inheritted.
You can dim the system bar by
View v = findViewById(R.id.viewid);
v.setSystemUiVisibility(View.SYSTEM_BAR_HIDDEN);
v.setSystemUiVisibility(View.SYSTEM_BAR_VISIBLE);
There is no Menu button. So if a menu interaction is required, the overflow button in Action bar is to be used.
The Icon can also be made actionable. Action bar can have action items listed rather than in the overflow menu, both with icons and text and both being optional.
You can get the action bar ref by doing a
ActionBar aBar = getActionBar();
aBar.setNavigationMode(ActionBar.NAVIGATION_MODE_TABS);
The action bar can be hidden buy setting the theme to @android:style/Theme
Menu button can come up if hte apps minSdkVersion is < 11.
10:28AM
There are only 1000 apps targetted at Tabs, and they have better sales than the iPad apps.
Intro of Moto Xoom on. 10.1" Screen, WXGA 160 dpi, 23GB storage, nVidia Tegra, gyroscope, WiFi, BT, HDMi etc.
3 Hardware buttons, Vol up, Vol down and power. There is a system bar to make up for the other buttons.
10:24AM
Sreehari to start now, has 11 yrs of exp, 4 yrs in Motodev.
10:20AM
Some more people trickling in. Hope to start the event in another 10 mins.
10:12AM
Around 20 people in the meetup now. A round of Angry Birds going on near the screen, in a Xoom.
After a few initial hiccups, I am up for the liveblogging! MS gonna give the WiFi access in a while, until then, sit back and have a deferred live!
We are almost at the end of the session, with people playing with the Xoom.
12:39PM
Native Apps
Though Native app support is evolving, its still not there, and to develop in Eclipse, you will need Sequoyah. However, things can work with a breeze if you happen to use the Motodev Studio.
The Motodev Studio can be downloaded free of Cost from here.
A demo of Motodev Studio is on.
12:20PM
Testing Apps
After some socializing, we are back to sessions, the testing side of the story.
There preferred took is JUnit. Logcat, DDMS, TraceView are the Devs best friend.
Strictmode API also helps build quality, as it catches the Disk and Network access in the UI thread, helping remove the ANRs.
MonkeyRunner generates pseudo random events. Good for stress testing.
Motodev Studio sports mem analyzer, App Validator, Integrated Emulator which improve the productivity even more. Its MonkeyRunner is more customizable too.
11:55AM
Android 3.1, API Level 12
Resizable widgets are here.
New Input devices and motion events are supported. Such as Mouse, Joystick, gamepads etc.
USB API is also new. Android now supports USB host support. The device should also support.
Official MTP support is also available via android.mtp.*.
11:44AM
There is discussion how to track the devices as no method is foolproof. Some devices do not have IMEI, MAC Addresses are not consistent, Android_IDs are not unique, factory reset kills almost everything!
Some best practices now, such as revisiting the images, permissions, font sizes, minSdkVersion, one apk rather than multiple.
11:12AM
Animations
There are 2 types of animations, such as View Animations and Property Animation which is introduced in 3.0.
Sensors
There are only 30 apps which use Gyroscope. There are no apps which use the barometer. (BTW, what to do with it anyway?)
Want no rotation? use android:screenOrientation="nosensor".
Touch Screens
From API Level 9, Android supports 10 finger tracking multitouch, and to use it, the hadrware has to support it too. Xoom does it.
Telephony
Telephony feature is not supported, but does support the radio for 4G/LTE networks.
11:03AM
Views
There are new views introduced in 3.0, such as android.widget.popupMenu etc.
Hardware Accelation
HA is built in for a subset of 2D graphics (Canvas API). HA can be defined in the manifest by setting android:hardwareAccelerated="true" for the entire app or the activity.
This can also be done thru code by doing
Window win = getWindow();
win.setFlags(WindowManager.layoutparams.FLAG_HARDWARE_ACCELERATED, WindowManager.layoutparams.FLAG_HARDWARE_ACCELERATED);
Texture Compression
Very much dependent on Chipsets. (Works in all API level though)
ETC1 on all devices with OpenGL ES 2.0, but no alpha.
PVRTC for Power VR from Imaginion
ATTIC etc.
10:45AM
Fragments
Allows an app to be divided into subcomponents, those can be individually managed and combined in various ways such as creating a multi-pane UI.
The APIs are
android.app.Fragment, android.app.ListFragment (like list activity), android.app.DialogFragment (A floating one). There is android.app.FragmentManager is there to interact with the fragment (findFragmentById). There is also a android.app.FragmentTransaction to do operate on fragments (add, remove, replace, visibility etc).
10:33AM
Holographic Theme
MinSdkVersion has to be 11 to have it inheritted.
You can dim the system bar by
View v = findViewById(R.id.viewid);
v.setSystemUiVisibility(View.SYSTEM_BAR_HIDDEN);
v.setSystemUiVisibility(View.SYSTEM_BAR_VISIBLE);
There is no Menu button. So if a menu interaction is required, the overflow button in Action bar is to be used.
The Icon can also be made actionable. Action bar can have action items listed rather than in the overflow menu, both with icons and text and both being optional.
You can get the action bar ref by doing a
ActionBar aBar = getActionBar();
aBar.setNavigationMode(ActionBar.NAVIGATION_MODE_TABS);
The action bar can be hidden buy setting the theme to @android:style/Theme
Menu button can come up if hte apps minSdkVersion is < 11.
10:28AM
There are only 1000 apps targetted at Tabs, and they have better sales than the iPad apps.
Intro of Moto Xoom on. 10.1" Screen, WXGA 160 dpi, 23GB storage, nVidia Tegra, gyroscope, WiFi, BT, HDMi etc.
3 Hardware buttons, Vol up, Vol down and power. There is a system bar to make up for the other buttons.
10:24AM
Sreehari to start now, has 11 yrs of exp, 4 yrs in Motodev.
10:20AM
Some more people trickling in. Hope to start the event in another 10 mins.
10:12AM
Around 20 people in the meetup now. A round of Angry Birds going on near the screen, in a Xoom.
After a few initial hiccups, I am up for the liveblogging! MS gonna give the WiFi access in a while, until then, sit back and have a deferred live!
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