Android U1 :: GSoC 2010

GSoC has finished

2010-08-20T21:12:00.000+02:00

Ladies and getns, Google Summer of Code is over!

May http://wiki.ubuntu.com/AndroidU1 be your source of any further information about AndroidU1 :) Cheers!

Weekly report

2010-08-03T20:48:00.000+02:00

Weekly report http://goo.gl/F4xO
Some up to date screenshots are availible here

Quite soon I should make a release, hold that phones nearby and ready :)

Version 0.2.13pa1 Now Available

2010-07-29T13:12:00.009+02:00

Hey Everyone! Time for a new update to keep you all in the loop of some recent, and amazing, new changes.

As of today, 7/29/2010, version 0.2.13pa1 is now available for download and testing!
(Note: This is still a pre-alpha release and still under heavy development.)

Along with the new version comes the following new features:

New look to the UI. Matches one.ubuntu.com much better.(Screenshots below)
FamFamFam icons are used, same as in WebUI.

Image/Video
Audio
File/Unknown File Type
Folder

Changelog will soon be available for viewing through the AndroidU1 (sysadmin of wiki.ubuntu.com has to fix a certificate issue), but you can also find it here.
New "Downloading" and "Ready" toasts added.
Long Tap/Click brings up new context menu (needs fixing, sorry!).
Changing orientation has been sped up.

These are some awesome changes that have happened since the last release and I must say that I'm really impressed. AndroidU1 just feels much more stable now and every release brings a new user friendliness to the app.

Please feel free to download and test AndroidU1. Also, please remember to file bug reports if you encounter anything out of the norm. Known issues are listed in the changelog (we're working on them!). As always, we are available to chat and answer question in the irc (irc.freenode.net #androidu1), check us out at the bottom of the blog! :-)

Weekly report #8

2010-07-19T23:19:00.002+02:00

http://goo.gl/Cjco
There's some good progress!

I'm pleased to inform that I have passed GSoC midterm evaluation with AndroidU1. Thanks Stuart, I hope you're happy with the progress we made :) There's still tons of work and I'm excited to continue working on the application!

Come Join Us!

2010-07-19T00:13:00.006+02:00

Do you have Question about the project? Do you have underlying doubts? Do you just want to come thank the developers? Do you just feel like bothering the developers? ;-)

WELL JOIN US FOR A CHAT! :-D

How can I do that, you ask? Here's how:

Scroll down to the bottom of the blog
Type in a nickname
Click connect

IT'S THAT SIMPLE! :-)

We look forward to chatting with you. :-)

New Co-Author

2010-07-18T21:01:00.007+02:00

Hello everyone! My name is Lorenzo (Excedio) and I'm one of the testers for AndroidU1. I'm an Ubuntu user as well as an Android user (HTC DROID Incredible) and am excited about this project.

Since I'm not a programmer I'm not able to contribute code to the project, but I am an avid blogger and thought that I could help out by keeping the public up to date on the progress of the project. :-)

Moving forward, you all can look forward to more frequent updates as well as updated screenshots (I'm sure we all remember that post ;-) ).

So all that being said; keep visiting, commenting, and sending your suggestions!
:-)

PS…Remember that we can always be located in the AndroidU1 IRC Channel (irc.freenode.net #androidu1). Also remember that AndroidU1 is still a pre-Alpha release and still under heavy development.

Weekly reports #6 & #7

2010-07-13T10:46:00.000+02:00

#6 http://goo.gl/UtVT
#7 http://goo.gl/VLz6
Short one, I prefer to spend that time on coding (service / [up|down]load of files).

Weekly report #5

2010-06-29T14:20:00.002+02:00

http://goo.gl/42LU
Finally we're getting back on track :)

Weekly report #4

2010-06-21T02:44:00.001+02:00

http://goo.gl/lQGW

Sorry I haven't been updating you guys more often. The project, or should I say, everything related to it, was all over me.

Weekly report #3

2010-06-14T01:39:00.000+02:00

http://goo.gl/3V0W

The project is quite challenging, as I faced first platform compatibility issues and protocol-related issues. Check out the link.

Weekly report #2

2010-06-07T01:24:00.000+02:00

http://goo.gl/xpUe

commit #3

2010-06-01T05:38:00.000+02:00

Dang it's 5:33 AM o_O I did third commit to lp:androidu1/0.x - this night I fixed oauth (including success verification, that returns 200 OK if everything's fine) and introduced Auth Activity to separate code form GUI (which is Login Activity). I even tested it on my phone for the very first time :) It's a bit slow (due to the fact, that Auth doesn't need a view - I'll fix that), but it works well. Umm.. gotta go! Be sure to subscribe to https://launchpad.net/~androidu1-users

And that makes us really close to the first milestone :) I should reach it by tomorrow. That is: well implemented and functioning authorization. Yeah well.. nothing to show off (yet!) ;)

Weekly report #1

2010-05-31T03:13:00.001+02:00

Enjoy! (hosted on wiki.ubuntu.com) http://goo.gl/GGGp

users team (and soon: mailing list)

2010-05-29T03:05:00.001+02:00

Make sure you join androidu1-users team on lp :) ! I may also request a mailing list for the team, so that we'll have our own place, if you think it's a good idea - is it?

Launchpad project setup

2010-05-29T02:36:00.003+02:00

Hi everybody! It's been a while. On Wednesday evening I broke my Ubuntu (installed an old udev driver) and made it unusable. I recovered on Thursday, talked to my mentor, seeked some feedback on IRC and investigated OAuth behaviour (there are still issues, doesn't work every time).

I have setup a launchpad project, which you will find here. Since I don't want people to unintentionally bzr branch (download) the development sources, which can be broken any time and are suitable for review (or testing) only, I have left the trunk series with main branch empty. Therefore if you're interested in the devel branch, check this out. Whenever I will implement a feature in 0.x series, I will push that to the main branch.

Tomorrow I'm co-organizing this http://goo.gl/YGSX conference, and afterwards I plan to see into releases, blueprints and milestones of the lp project (+ some nightly hacking).

Stay tuned. I wonder if my project can have it's mailing list.. ah! I'll set up androidu1-users group :D

PS I should have started writing my blog post in HTML long ago ;) No stress at all.

OAuth continues

2010-05-26T03:28:00.010+02:00

And no, the log-in procedure is far from perfect. I feel that 1/3 of the time I was fighting with this error (and it, or my bug, cases authorization to work after 2nd or even 3rd try):

oauth.signpost.exception.OAuthExpectationFailedException: Request token or token secret not set in server reply. The service provider you use is probably buggy.

And now, for desert:

onResume

loginButton clicked

Retrieving request token...

Request token: xDs38NX3MsrSDP7H5hg4

Request secret: Fb7wZ9Gq3502TLRBSVXnWgg1LC4j41s8XtKKS9fqcTmJ936sc3KxxxxxxxNglBkpZS6W0WPvw31lF

Saving request information...

Saving Request Token: xDs38NX3MsrSDP7H5hg4

Saving Request Secret: Fb7wZ9Gq3502TLRBSVXnWgg1LC4j41s8XtKKS9fqcTmJ936sc3KxxxxxxxhNglBkpZS6W0WPvw31lF

Starting browser with authURL: https://one.ubuntu.com/oauth/authorize/?oauth_token=xDs38NX3MsrSDP7H5hg4&description=Android

onNewIntent

callback URI: androidu1://?oauth_token=xDs38NX3MsrSDP7H5hg4&oauth_verifier=0d14b808-fee3-40ba-b05e-1aedd595ab03&return=https://one.ubuntu.com

Saved request token: xDs38NX3MsrSDP7H5hg4

Saved request secret: Fb7wZ9Gq3502TLRBSVXnWgg1LC4j41s8XtKKS9fqcTmJxxxxxxxwMhWbhNglBkpZS6W0WPvw31lF

Restoring mConsumer state...

oauthToken: xDs38NX3MsrSDP7H5hg4

oauthVerifier: 0d14b808-fee3-40ba-b05e-1aedd595ab03

Retrieving access token...

Access token: xz2Xc2rlQ7nBJ3jG4hpm

Access secret: xz2Xc2rlQ7nBJ3jG4hpm

Saving access information...

Saving OAuth Token: xz2Xc2rlxxxxxG4hpm

Saving OAuth Secret: 9l5wXfmxlF0Px4RpZ5tm9R9fFKkr5kDGlWtsDfJrZV3hVQr1xxxxxxxxx0hRPdj3ScmThxMjzM78FP

Removing request information...

Clearing Request Token

Clearing Request Secret

Testing...

Sending request to U1...

200 OK

There's one bug in the log, but my eyes already hurt. G'nite.

First official coding day (night?)

2010-05-24T04:20:00.001+02:00

I knew I would overdo it.. The beards are already singing and it's 4:15 AM on the clock :P

Is this the best coding time, or what :D! I was afraid of OAuth, which I'm new to, so I dug tens of pages and browsed at least 5-6 sample codes, using this or that, newer or older oauth version, with and without callback, blah blah blah. And I got it :D Signpost is dead simple (yeah, it's true what they write :) ), and they have those lovely sample codes, so I used one :) I jumped into ubuntuone-client Python code and dug a reference to /etc/xdg/ubuntuone/oauth_urls which I needed, set up few more variables, and..

Fetching request token from Ubuntu One...
Request token: GnpqrjR98jBcXXXXXXX
Token secret: pvBlJDjq1jgm9M14rzx0hgH2xXNnhFG8zC3VkqxDdshrSKcnbBNJwD6CCJR4XXXXXXXX
Now visit:
https://one.ubuntu.com/oauth/authorize/?oauth_token=GnpqrjR98jBXXXXXXXX
... and grant this app authorization
Enter the PIN code and hit ENTER when you're done:
XXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXX
Fetching access token from Ubuntu One...
Access token: ddxQlp8tfltXXXXXXXX
Token secret: Zn172Q7xsFdTlfB58LhLg4c8TzFmHRRhLWMQDCdvrrjJ27d0fkbk8qvVjN9rtbcnmfXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Sending request to Ubuntu One...
Response: 200 OK

Well, I'm more confident now ;)

Regular update, May 22th

2010-05-23T04:19:00.000+02:00

Played with verterok's u1-java-storageprotocol example client code, tried to understand the Deferred and Deferred.Callbacks usage (seems like static class fields are the easiest way to overcome issues with scope of variable visibility in the callbacks, which I don't particularly like..) and added some simple CLI interactivity, as seen below (yeah, this is somewhat the very beginning of our Android app; a regular user would be at least moderately confused :D)

Regular update, May 21st

2010-05-22T03:07:00.006+02:00

Hi all!

First, I wanted to thank for your comments, mails, even a wiki feature-request entry :) Your opinions and feedback is priceless, and one of the things that gratifies my efforts. Thank you, Ubuntu Community!

And now the update: yet again, Guillermo (aka verterok) is my hero ^ ^ To remind you, he's the one that has written ubuntuone-java-storageprotocol, which I will be using. He has answered all my questions, both really silly and some less-but-still-silly ;) (I am glad he believes there's no such thing as dumb questions :) ). He also spent quite a while helping me to properly configure the project with maven, which I am new to. Thank you, verterok!

Finally I was able to run the ExampleClient from within Eclipse, and see it in action. I also played a bit with the code, but plan much more code-fun for tomorrow (Saturday, that is).

Keep visiting, commenting, and sending your suggestions :) !

Thank you Balsamiq

2010-05-20T21:51:00.004+02:00

Hi everybody! As you already know, for the last two days (or nights actually) I have been using Balsamiq software to make my mock-ups.

I would like to happily share with you, that I have been generously granted a Balsamiq license key, so that I can use it's full potential and bring you the best quality mock-ups I can in this Open Source project. Latest pictures you have seen are just the beginning. There's still much to design and many decisions to make. I believe Balsamiq will make my sketching much more pleasant, than working with a pencil and rubber like I have before (I had quite a few sheets of paper wasted when I came up with the first drawings).

Please enjoy, and don't hesitate to share with me how would you like the application to work and look like in the future! Thank you Balsamiq!

Short / long press on a file

2010-05-20T03:00:00.002+02:00

Hi there my dear visitors!

This time I really need your feedback, as this issue will directly impact the behavior of the application. As seen in the previous post on the mockup, there's no 'Open this file' nor 'Browse this directory', since I have concluded these would be normally what you wish to do when you tap/touch/click a file/folder. Long press, on the other hand, invokes a context menu to Share a folder with other people, or Publish (a file) via Ubuntu One, then you can copy or share the link options etc.

Question is: how would you want a short tap/touch to act upon a file on your Android Ubuntu One app? Would you think of opening it (point-and-shoot scenario ;) ), or perhaps (since you're using a mobile device) there are options you would be more probable to expect after short tap, like publish a file or remove it?

To rephrase one last time: do you want to open a file with a short tap/touch while long-press pops a menu to publish, delete; or do you want to pop a menu with the list of options (and maybe some additional info about the file) after any (short/long) press on a file?

Please leave your comments below. I will appreciate any constructive critique. (If you have used Android Dropbox application before, please note that or make sure your opinion is not influenced by you wanting to have the same behaviour as Db does.)

Thank you!

Regular update, May 19th

2010-05-20T01:28:00.001+02:00

Finally I can present you with some better quality GUI mockups prepared with Balsamiq. It still lacks some elements (not all the settings options are visible, how the file update notification looks, how the uploading progress looks), but I think it conveys the application looks I wanted to design to share with you. Feedback is welcome, thank you for your previous comments!

Click to enlarge.

Balsamiq mockups

2010-05-19T12:54:00.000+02:00

Balsamiq mockups on the way..

First GUI sketches

2010-05-18T05:37:00.000+02:00

Awaiting your opinions :) Sorry for bad quality, will upload scans ASAP

Regular update, May 17th

2010-05-18T01:22:00.000+02:00

That was quite a constructive evening! (And yet it has not finished)

Had a short IRC chat with my mentor, mentioned setting up a Launchpad project, and got a link to an article relating to OAuth, as this is an area I'm not yet confident in:
http://fireeagle.yahoo.net/developer/documentation/oauth_best_practice

Then I have talked to verterok (thanks for invaluable pointers on u1-java-storageprotocol !! Now I know where to start playing around), collecting further links:

(python script to extract my OAuth token from gnome-keyring for testing purposes)

http://pastebin.ubuntu.com/435147/plain/

Then found those three, perhaps semi-related, since OAuth nature is browser-based:

http://code.google.com/p/oauth-signpost/ ( http://brainflush.wordpress.com/2009/05/03/introducing-signpost-easy-oauth-for-java-and-apache-httpcomponents-android-too/ )

http://code.google.com/p/oauth/

http://github.com/novoda/oauth_for_android

We need to register such callback schema handling: x-oauth-androidu1://callback

And this one nails it!

http://donpark.org/blog/2009/01/24/android-client-side-oauth

Regular update, May 16th

2010-05-17T03:09:00.000+02:00

Today I read a bit from Android UI Guidelines, followed by doing Hello World and Notepad Tutorial step by step, very informative :) I also imported to Eclipse the Sample Sync Adapter sample code and poked around, but was sad to realize that the target Android API was 2.0, which means that if I would implement some sync functionality as the last stage of GSoC, the application wouldn't be compatible with older phones. I also hit #ubuntuone and #ubuntu-devel to get these GUI design tools:

http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/squaredots/ (pen and paper are still fancy)
http://www.balsamiq.com/ (however that I've also found earlier)

I also started to poke around ubuntuone-java-storageprotocol, but I see I'll really need some pointers from verterok on this.

Regular update, May 15th

2010-05-16T03:17:00.000+02:00

After a load of course work at my Institute during last days, finally I had time to catch up and read Content Providers, Security and Permissions and The AndroidManifest.xml File sections, which concludes the lecture of Framework Topics. For Sunday I plan to get dirty and play around with example Android applications. If I have time, also try out ubuntuone-java-storageprotocol test Client.

Blogger bug

2010-05-12T03:10:00.000+02:00

I don't really understand that, but blogger is populating newlines in my blog entries like crazy. And this looks darn stupid as if I was trying to make my posts longer (and I really don't have time to fix those :< ). I wish the wiki where I started could syndicate RSS :d

Regular update, May 11th

2010-05-12T03:06:00.000+02:00

I was getting worried, that I have little time left. It's late in the night, and today I only managed to reread the NotePad Intents declarations and read through Data Storage section. And you know what? Actually, I'm in a pretty good shape! (See: picture on the right)

From the Framework topics, I've got only Content Providers and Security and Permissions left :) (Graphics, Audio, etc are unrelated to my project). This feels right, as it's about time I start some storageprotocol-related code testing - it will be the very base for my work.

I leave Publishing for later, as I have to implement the application first :P

Best practices - well.. I should read that, anyway - as soon as possible. I've watched some Android-team movies concerning performance, responsiveness and seamlessness.

All in all I must admit, this documentation is quite a load of reading ;)

Regular update, May 10th

2010-05-11T04:27:00.005+02:00

Following section was Localization, which closed the Resources and Assets chapter. Next section is Intents and Intent Filters, which understanding is quite important for our application. I'll let myself collect a few lines of most interesting material. (By the way, if you some some wicked amount of new-lines in any post on this blog, it's some sort of blogger bug.. certainly, it's not a feature).

Useful action constant from Intent class:
ACTION_MAIN, target: activity; Start up as the initial activity of a task, with no data input and no returned output - app (i.e. activity) entry point
ACTION_SYNC, target: activity; Synchronize data on a server with data on the mobile device. - we would make sync service call that upon the app
ACTION_BATTERY_LOW, target: broadcast receiver; A warning that the battery is low - we could turn off data sync in such situations (defined in app settings)

The action in an Intent object is set by the setAction() method and read by getAction().
The setData() method specifies data only as a URI, setType() specifies it only as a MIME type, and setDataAndType() specifies it as both a URI and a MIME type. The URI is read by getData() and the type by getType().

Important categories:
CATEGORY_LAUNCHER - The activity can be the initial activity of a task and is listed in the top-level application launcher.
CATEGORY_PREFERENCE - The target activity is a preference panel.

The addCategory() method places a category in an Intent object, removeCategory() deletes a category previously added, and getCategories() gets the set of all categories currently in the object.

The Intent object has a series of put...() methods for inserting various types of extra data and a similar set of get...() methods for reading the data. These methods parallel those for Bundle objects. In fact, the extras can be installed and read as a Bundle using the putExtras() and getExtras() methods.

Only three aspects of an Intent object are consulted when the object is tested against an intent filter:
action
data (both URI and data type)
category

Activities that are willing to receive implicit intents must include "android.intent.category.DEFAULT" in their intent filters ("android.intent.action.MAIN" and "android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" are exceptions to that rule, they don't need to include CATEGORY_DEFAULT).

Data specification for intent filter:
cheme://host:port/path
For example, in the following URI,
content://com.example.project:200/folder/subfolder/etc
the scheme is "content", the host is "com.example.project", the port is "200", and the path is "folder/subfolder/etc".

The type attribute of a <data> element specifies the MIME type of the data. It's more common in filters than a URI. Both the Intent object and the filter can use a "*" wildcard for the subtype field — for example, "text/*" or "audio/*" — indicating any subtype matches.

I've gotta re-read the NotePad example to make sure I got it all right. It's a bit late, or should I say, it's already early - in the morning. Nite!

Regular update, May 9th

2010-05-10T04:11:00.000+02:00

From Resources and Assets, have read Resources and I18n and Available Resource Types sections. Neat idea (after GSoC) would be to use SearchManager to make the cloud searchable, with search suggestions. Also, if the user opts-in, we could introduce file search from the Quick Search Box (which would allow users so receive search suggestions from the application content from outside the app).

Regular update, May 8th

2010-05-09T03:22:00.000+02:00

From the User Interface, I have read last 5 sections: Applying Styles and Themes, Building Custom Components, Binding to Data with AdapterView, Common Layout Objects and How Android Draws Views. Apart from applying styles and themes (which we may use after GSoC to make the app more fancy), those sections where also quite relevant - for starters I'll stick to standard views, but later on I think it would be preferable to write a custom component to view single file entries in the file list / file browser (which would include: file name, size, icon/mime type based, perhaps when was the file last updated, etc). It's pretty late, but I'll have a look at Resources and i18n section.

Regular update, May 7th

2010-05-08T03:30:00.000+02:00

From the User Interface, I have read next three sections, which are: Creating Dialogs, Handling UI Events and Notifying the User. First and third of those three are pretty important for the application, that I'll be developing. During the weekend, I plan to finish the lecture of User Interface section, and jump to the next ones, like i18n, Intents (which have been already mentioned in the material), Data Storage, etc. In couple of days hopefully, I should have a clear understanding of how Android platform works. I'm already enjoying it :)

Regular update, May 5th

2010-05-06T02:46:00.000+02:00

From the User Interface, I have read Declaring Layout and Creating Menus sections.

More importantly, till late night I have talked to Guillermo (verterok at #ubuntuone) about Java implementation of ubuntuone storage protocol. He started it in January (it's still in the +junk ;) ), and though it's missing some features, it already handles get/put, which is great news! This means that, instead of getting dirty (at least for now!) with the low level details, I'll be able to focus on the application itself. verterok has therefore laid some basis on which I can build the Android app, very fortunate :) !

Here I'd like to thank him for his patience and time he spent helping me figure out maven issues, when attempting to compile ubuntuone-java-storageprotocol . I'll finish this entry with triumphal

[INFO] BUILD SUCCESSFUL
[INFO] ------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 8 seconds
[INFO] Finished at: Thu May 06 02:10:02 CEST 2010

Yup, time to get some sleep.

Regular update, May 3rd

2010-05-04T02:53:00.004+02:00

Finished lecture of fundamentals, didn't collect notes to conserve time (the documentation is well formatted and easily searchable, so there shouldn't be any problem if I need reference).

Clearing the stack
Starting tasks
Processes
Threads
Remote call procedures
Thread-safe methods
Activity lifecycle
Saving activity state
Coordinating activities
Service lifecycle
Broadcast receiver lifecycle
Processes and lifecycles

One of most important facts to note is that we'll be using a service, not spawning a thread, to upload files to the cloud (e.g. a picture from a camera), so that Android assigns service process rank to the task, minimizing jeopardy of it being killed in the meantime :)

Next up: User Interface

Regular update, May 2nd

2010-05-02T23:50:00.002+02:00

Some notes from Application Fundamentals

activities/intents
Activity.setContentView()
ContentResolver can talk to any ContentProvider
activities, services, and broadcast receivers are activated by asynchronous messages (intents)
Context.startActivity()
Activity.startActivityForResult() (we expect some result back, with onActivityResult())
intents are passed to activities by Android with onNewIntent()

starting service
Context.startService() (service's onStart() gets the intent)
Context.bindService() (to establish an ongoing connection, service's onBind() gets the intent)

initiating a broadcast
Context.sendBroadcast()
Context.sendOrderedBroadcast()
Context.sendStickyBroadcast()

shutting down components
no need to shutdown ContentProvider or BroadcastReceiver
shut down activity with finish(), or use finishActivity() to shut down the one it created
shut down service with stopSelf() method, or by calling Context.stopService()

the manifest file

declaring components

<activity>
  <service>
  <receiver> (BroadcastReceiver can be dynamically registered in code with Context.registerReceiver())
  <provicer>

ex of activity declaration
   <activity android:name="com.example.project.FreneticActivity"
   android:icon="@drawable/small_pic.png"
   android:label="@string/freneticLabel"
   . . . >
ex of intent-filters declaration (inbetween a activity tag)
   <intent-filter . . . > (entry point for the app)
   <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
   <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
   </intent-filter>
   <intent-filter . . . >
   <action android:name="com.example.project.BOUNCE" />
   <data android:mimeType="image/jpeg" />
   <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
   </intent-filter>

principal Intent flags
FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK
FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP
FLAG_ACTIVITY_RESET_TASK_IF_NEEDED
FLAG_ACTIVITY_SINGLE_TOP

principal <activity> attributes
taskAffinity
launchMode
allowTaskReparenting
clearTaskOnLaunch
alwaysRetainTaskState
finishOnTaskLaunch

The affinity comes into play in two circumstances: When the Intent object that launches an activity contains the FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK flag, and when an activity has its allowTaskReparenting attribute set to "true".

Four launch modes in <activity> element's launchMode attribute:
standard (the default mode, can appear anywhere in a stack)
singleTop can appear anywhere in a stack
singleTask will always be the root activity of the task
singleInstance (the only activity in its task)

Since I don't feel really well, I'll call it a day. By the way.. blogger editor is really f*cked. Next time I'll use HTML editing mode, I can't stand formatting issues it bugs me with.

Regular update, May 1st

2010-05-02T03:56:00.010+02:00

Videos watched & notes taken + reading materials

Androidology - Architecture Overview [ link ]

Decompose the app into application building blocks, which include

Activities
BroadcastReceivers (triggered by any event)
Services
ContentProviders

Androidology - Application Lifecycle [ link ]
Androidology - APIs [ link ]

Google I/O 2009 - ...Make your Android UI Fast and Efficient [ link ] (good one!)

reuse views with Recycler for higher fps
prescale bitmaps with
image = Bitmap.createPrescaledBitmap(image, view.getWidth(), view.getHeight(), true);
remove backgrounds from views, which fill parents full width and height (eg if you have a map, you don't see the background, which is still rendered) [00:17:23]
invalidate() to redraw a view is inefficient, use invalidate(rect) or invalidate(left, top, right, bottom)
fewer (views) is better ;) (try to get rid of views that have only one child, too: HierarchyViewer)
use compound drawables (eg TextView instead of ImageView+TextView)
use ViewStub to inflate part of the UI on demand (eg for part of the UI that for majority of the time is invisible) [00:35:20]
use merge tag to reuse UI hierarchy elements
RelativeLayout instead of embedding linear layouts; hard to use, but it pays off
use custom views, custom layouts instead of overusing numerous views
garbage collection kicks in for 100~500ms, stops threads (so allocate little memory, or even none :d)
do not allocate memory in those time-critical points:

onMeasure()
onLayout()
draw()
dispatchDraw()
onDraw()
dispatchTouchEvent()
onTouchEvent()
getView()
bindView()

SoftReferences != WeakReferences [00:51:17]
soft references are good for caching objects
weak references help avoid mem leaks
pool of objects (frameworks/base/core/java/android/util, find Pools.java)

Resources:
http://d.android.com
http://source.android.com (includes examples of relative layouts)
http://android.git.kernel.org
http://code.google.com/p/apps-for-android (about good quality UI)
http://code.google.com/p/shelves (about good quality UI)

Google I/O 2009 -...Interaction & Visual Design with Android [ link ]

ongoing notification (eg for downloading a file) vs event notification
uninvasive notification - Toast ;D
use Marquee to animate strings (eg for long filenames) [00:38:10]
built-in scalable pixel units typography [00:38:38] for font scaling (eg on the files list)

Resources:
http://android-developers.blogspot.com

Reading materials

http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html
http://www.talkandroid.com/android-sdk-install-guide/

http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/fundamentals.html

http://developer.android.com/resources/tutorials/hello-world.html
http://developer.android.com/resources/tutorials/notepad/index.html

Chitchat at IRC & e-mails

2010-04-29T03:20:00.004+02:00

Since I had much course work those last days, I have only managed to follow the mailing lists and engage in conversations at #gsoc-pl about how is GSoC, get to know experience of others and their proposals (tons of great proposals!).

I have sent an e-mail to -students-list to invite students from xx country to #gsoc-xx (generalization here was intentional for others to use gsoc-jp , gsoc-us , etc) so that at #gsoc-pl we could exchange ideas and perhaps get some feedback from fellow students.

This is my first time at GSoC, and all guys (and girls) are really incredible. We've got fresh, motivating atmosphere all over the place :)! I have been also e-mailed by Matt, who has some experience on Android platform and will be happy to help in case I stumble upon a problem (cheers Matt!). Along the schedule, this weekend's focus is Android SDK.

By the way, Ubuntu 10.04 LTS is out! Yay!

Accepted to GSoC 2010!

2010-04-28T02:44:00.005+02:00

And here we are, AndroidU1 has been accepted to Google Summer of Code 2010! Yay! That has actually taken place on 26th of April at 19 UTC, however it's just now that I set up this blog (which for a short moment was a wiki).

I am happy to have Stuart Langridge as my mentor! Stuart is one of the most notable Canonical employees. I was amazed to find him on Canonical wiki page and this wiki page, and read what a talented guy he is. We have already had a few chats on IRC concernig AndroidU1 project and did some brainstorming, and I'm already sure I will have great support of his whilst designing and implementing the next killer app for Ubuntu One service ;) !

It so happened, that we are just about the release of Lucid Lynx (Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, yay!) and Ubuntu One team, including aquarius, are making their best efforts to ship a high quality product really soon. That is the reason I'm not bugging them already to fill me with U1 details, but rather giving them some time to polish their work before release. Anyway, there's tons to read for me :)