Building quality software for Android - A post-mortem for Tweagle • Hacker News Board

Re: Building quality software for Android - A post-mortem for Tweagle

#21

Post by huggyface » Tue, Jun 05, 2012, 6:04 PM UTC

Dove wrote: post #19

huggyface wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really looking forward to apologizing for the weak graphical tools, however- "Ever try to change the color of a button on Android?" android:background="#ffee11" on the button? Or use something like CSS variables (you know -- where CSS wants to go) and pull from a resource. Are you talking about something much more complex? You can define a shape resource and then reference that in your button. Your button can be…

android:background="#ffee11" on the button? That . . . actually works! Well, now I'm embarrassed. I had previously had to go this route http://www.androidworks.com/changing-the-android-edittext-ui... with text fields, and assumed it was the only way. How do you get buttons to occupy a percentage of the screen (I hesitate to ask, as it's probably something similarly trivial . . . but it's been such a painful subject f…

How do you get buttons to occupy a percentage of the screen

In a LinearLayout take a look at layout_weight -- it is the key (or rather, one of the keys) to goodness. It really is an onion, and if you can get through the crying the flexibility comes in the layers.

Re: Building quality software for Android - A post-mortem for Tweagle

#22

Post by njern » Tue, Jun 05, 2012, 6:20 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #8

Where's the actual post mortem analysis? I wanted to see a discussion about actual problems encountered developing Tweagle specifically. Instead, this is just another exposition of the generic flames we've all seen done to death. Android apps have lots of screen resolutions (so what did you have to do to manage that?). "Some devices lack WiFi, A-GPS or both." (what is your fallback if the user doesn't have local inte…

You have a valid argument. My only excuse is that this is the first (publicly available) post-mortem I've written.

The answers to the questions you bring up have enough material for a blog post of their own, so I'll most likely end up doing a follow-up to this blog post where I address them.

Thanks for the feedback!

Re: Building quality software for Android - A post-mortem for Tweagle

#23

Post by maatanin » Tue, Jun 05, 2012, 6:38 PM UTC

triathlete wrote: post #14

loeschg wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Missed that. Thanks. I'll tuck that little tidbit away for later use.

Parsing json is a pain in android. You have to do so may things to do what should be a simple straightforward thing. One article mentioned that library but i never looked at it.

Another neat library is JSON Simple if you looked for SAX style json parsing.

http://code.google.com/p/json-simple/

Re: Building quality software for Android - A post-mortem for Tweagle

#24

Post by Dove » Tue, Jun 05, 2012, 7:00 PM UTC

huggyface wrote: post #21

Dove wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

android:background="#ffee11" on the button? That . . . actually works! Well, now I'm embarrassed. I had previously had to go this route http://www.androidworks.com/changing-the-android-edittext-ui... with text fields, and assumed it was the only way. How do you get buttons to occupy a percentage of the screen (I hesitate to ask, as it's probably something similarly trivial . . . but it's been such a painful subject f…

How do you get buttons to occupy a percentage of the screen In a LinearLayout take a look at layout_weight -- it is the key (or rather, one of the keys) to goodness. It really is an onion, and if you can get through the crying the flexibility comes in the layers.

Oh dear! That's really not the answer I was hoping for. That's about where I gave up last time -- somewhere around a dozen nested vertical and horizontal linear layouts with various weights, gravities and alignments that still wasn't giving me quite what I wanted.

Still, for correcting me on the button background thing alone, I suspect you've added years to my life. Dunno what the online equivalent of buying you a drink is, but . . . thank you.

Re: Building quality software for Android - A post-mortem for Tweagle

#25

Post by Dove » Tue, Jun 05, 2012, 7:04 PM UTC

king_jester wrote: post #13

Dove wrote: post #9

One of our two full-time developers on the project spent most of his time fighting a never-ending war against our XML views to make the app look just as good on a ZTE Blade as it does on a brand new Galaxy Nexus. I'm definitely feeling that way these days. When I first started learning Android, I was very excited about the resource system. The ecosystem is highly fragmented, but they give you the tools to deal with i…

I think your post highlights one of the problems with the Android framework when it comes to UI: it's difficult to know what the right approach is for a particular task, esp. when thinking about many OS versions and device types. There are simple solutions to the problems you mention, but it is very difficult to know they even exist without several hours of research and trial and error. For framework environments lik…

Yes, it's learning *nix all over again. There is an easy way to do things, which you cannot on any account find, until you complain and look like an idiot when someone tells you how to do it in twenty-eight characters.

I'm moving to the "It's not me, it's you" phase of the relationship faster this time, though.

Re: Building quality software for Android - A post-mortem for Tweagle

#26

Post by biafra » Tue, Jun 05, 2012, 7:30 PM UTC

buerkle wrote: post #10

loeschg wrote: post #2

An application I'm currently building (shameless plug - www.quaffic.com) will definitely benefit from this post. If nothing else, I feel affirmed that we're on the right track. From what you're saying, the value of ACRA is huge. That's my big takeaway at this point. I wondered what the normal process was for getting crash reports from users. Also, what did you end up doing to alleviate your JSONObject problem? JSONSm…

The article said they use Jackson for parsing json. A great library by the way.

I use Google GSON on Android. Also a great library for serializing and deserializing JSON. I did not yet try the streaming api.

Re: Building quality software for Android - A post-mortem for Tweagle

#27

Post by baconner » Tue, Jun 05, 2012, 8:21 PM UTC

"..we’re using MS Paint while we would like to use Photoshop."

Ok i feel some of the authors pain on getting complex layouts right, managing lots of different density image resources, etc. But what in android dictates what graphic editing software you have to use? I'm happily using Photoshop for my resources.

Re: Building quality software for Android - A post-mortem for Tweagle

#28

Post by njern » Tue, Jun 05, 2012, 9:19 PM UTC

baconner wrote: post #27

"..we’re using MS Paint while we would like to use Photoshop." Ok i feel some of the authors pain on getting complex layouts right, managing lots of different density image resources, etc. But what in android dictates what graphic editing software you have to use? I'm happily using Photoshop for my resources.

What I meant was that the current system feels like Paint while I would like something with the power of Photoshop.

Sorry for the confusion, English isn't my native language :)

Re: Building quality software for Android - A post-mortem for Tweagle

#29

Post by baconner » Tue, Jun 05, 2012, 9:56 PM UTC

njern wrote: post #28

baconner wrote: post #27

"..we’re using MS Paint while we would like to use Photoshop." Ok i feel some of the authors pain on getting complex layouts right, managing lots of different density image resources, etc. But what in android dictates what graphic editing software you have to use? I'm happily using Photoshop for my resources.

What I meant was that the current system feels like Paint while I would like something with the power of Photoshop. Sorry for the confusion, English isn't my native language :)

Ha! I don't think its your English that failed, its mine...

Now that I agree with. The ui tools are not first class though they're improving slowly. There's a ton of power in there but one hits a lot of speedbumps on the way to building good layouts that work on many devices.