Android development

faceboob-sdk

Android Facebook integration

Jan 21st

Posted by Sebastian in Android development

Steps for Facebook integration into your app

  1. Create your app on Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/developers/createapp.php
  2. Download Facebook SDK : http://developers.facebook.com/docs/guides/mobile
    More >
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Admob with padding

Aug 26th

Posted by Sebastian in Android development

I just added AdMob to my Android app DRoute and it doesn’t work. I receive many calls to onFailedToReceiveAd event function

  1. @Override
  2.         public void onFailedToReceiveAd(AdView adView)
  3.         {
  4.                 Log.d("DRoute", "onFailedToReceiveAd");
  5.                 super.onFailedToReceiveAd(adView);
  6.         }

I dig into the problem, search on the internet and didn’t found a solution. This morning I’ve created step by step a fresh new app only to test AdMob publisher code and ID and it works fine on emulator with :

  1. AdManager.setTestDevices(new String[] {AdManager.TEST_EMULATOR});

After step by step testing I found out that the problem was with a padding value that I have in my surrounding
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ScrollView and fillViewport

Aug 16th

Posted by Sebastian in Android development

Romain Guy write a little info about a ScrollView attribute that is missing  from documentation : android:fillViewport=”true” .

It must be set to ScrollView and has the following efect : when set to true, this attribute causes the scroll view’s child to expand to the height of the ScrollView if needed. When the child is taller than the ScrollView, the attribute has no effect.

Source : http://www.curious-creature.org/2010/08/15/scrollviews-handy-trick/

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Handle Back button action

Aug 10th

Posted by Sebastian in Android development

By default pressing Back button on any activity the Android sistem will close / destroy the activity ( OnDestroy method is called ) See : Activity Lifecycle.

This can be a little annoying when you have some service that perform background work.
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Install/Move to sd card on Froyo

Aug 5th

Posted by Sebastian in Android development

On Froyo ( Android 2.2 ) the user have the option to move / install applications to sd card. This is good due to lack of space on phone memory.

To enable this option at application level the developer should do some simple modifications.

  1. Open manifest file ( AndroidManifest.xml ).
  2. Add android:installLocation=”auto” as attributes to your root manifest element. Here you have 3 options :
    • internalOnly: Install the application on internal storage only. This will result in storage errors if the device runs low on internal storage.
    • preferExternal: The android system tries to install the application on external storage. If that is full, the application is installed on internal storage.
    • auto: Let the Android system decide the best install location for the application. The default system policy is to install the application on internal storage first. If the system is running low on storage, the application is then installed on external storage.
  3. Change Project Build Target to Android 2.2
  4. Keep android:minSdkVersion as low as you want. This new option will be available only on devices running Froyo (2.2)

References : http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/07/apps-on-sd-card-details.html

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Services – connect and communicate using aidl

Jul 31st

Posted by Sebastian in Android development

With services there are 2 ways to work with :

  1. One is to use startService(Intent) to start the service and stopService(Intent) to stop the service from within your activity. With this solution you cannot communicate directly with the service, but you can use SQLITE as a layer between activities and services.
  2. The second is to use bindService() to bind the service with the activity. With this the service is alive all the time the activity that is bind to is alive. With this method you can communicate with the service directly.

I will write a simple tutorial about the second option.

I use Eclipse and ADT Plugin for Eclipse . This will do some background work.

More >

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Add settings to an application using Preferences

Jul 10th

Posted by Sebastian in Android development

You can use Preference classes from Android SDK to store, set and retrieve Settings at application level or at activity level.

There are 2 ways to manipulate preferences :

  1. Using your own screen to modify the settings
  2. Using the built in PreferenceActivity class

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How to share / send data from your application

Jun 29th

Posted by Sebastian in Android development

If you want to share / send data from your application using others applications, you must use ACTION_SEND intent.
An example below :

  1. Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SEND);
  2.  
  3.         intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT, this.getResources().getString(R.string.shareSubject));
  4.         intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, this.getResources().getString(R.string.shareExtra));
  5.         intent.setType("text/plain");
  6.  
  7.         startActivity(Intent.createChooser(intent, this.getResources().getString(R.string.mailAppChoose)));

If you want to choose only from e-mail applications use :

  1. intent.setType("application/e-mail");

If you want to attach a file to e-mail use :

  1. intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_STREAM, Uri.parse("file://"+Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory()+"/"+fileName));
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Create a custom adapter

May 28th

Posted by Sebastian in Android development

If you want to create a detailed list you may need a custom adapter for that list.
With the solution below you can manipulate and populate your custom list.

1. extend ArrayAdapter<YourClass>

2. override public View getView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent)

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How to get string resources values

May 27th

Posted by Sebastian in Android development

In code :

getResources().getString(R.string.resourceName);

In xml :

@string/resourceName

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