NewsRob 3.3.8-4 / 3.4.0 beta

[Mariano Kamp]

Hi,

  here is the new binary.

Notable Changes (unchanged from 3.3.8-0)

- Added setting to disable hovering zoom controls

- Added setting to disable hovering navigation controls

- Added setting to allow volume down/up to navigate to next next/previous

- Added setting to allow camera button to toggle read state

- Re-Added setting "sync type" that can be set to "Keep And Sync: Unread Articles Only (Experimental)"

- Re-enabled GWT support (mobile web page) including images, 

  looks better than ever, but is a bit slower now that it is downloading the images again ;-)

- Enhanced "friends"-support (shared by whom?)

- Feeds with the same title should be displayed as two separate entities

- Lots of under the hood stuff

Known issues:

- The user agent that the NewsRob downloaded pretends to be should automatically be set based on the user agent in the embedded browser. This became necessary as the GWT service in one of its recent changes stopped providing images when not providing a "proper"(?) user agent. And it's good practice anyway.

Unfortunately I don't know how to do that in a clean(!) way and so I will follow the lead of Android's WebView settings and will hardcode it:

http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers/browse_thread/thread/a068e7829fa050bb/

I don't think it makes a difference for GWT anyway.

- Articles that are annotated by someone, but shared by friend X will be under a feed that is called "annotated by X". Also this feed can occur more than once. This issue will likely not be fixed in the near term future as I don't really know how: http://groups.google.com/group/fougrapi/browse_thread/thread/68812df426ad5074

- GWT website are lacking some images sometimes. What is your experience? As there are currently so many pages rendered by GWT that return "Oops..." and non-GWT websites look good on my phone, I would suspect this is a temporary problem with GWT as the images are there after retrying with Clear Cache / Refresh, but other articles don't have the images then.

- Also I found out during testing that I have an issue with images that don't have an extension (.png etc.). In practice this only seems to be a problem for the feedburner images like "Email this", but it could be other things too. 

Hence I would like to fix it. As it competes with actual features for my time I opened a suggestion and hope for you guys to vote on it as I would hope you guys that NewsRob should usually get things right first, before implementing new features:

http://newsrob.uservoice.com/pages/35624-general/suggestions/418971-robustness-newsrob-should-also-make-images-available-offline-that-don-t-have-an-extension

State of testing "sync and keep unread only":

So what is your experience with the new sync?

Austin: Reported that articles were accidentally marked as read. Got instructions how to turn on logs, no further response so far. This issue is a real blocker, but without further communication and nobody else reporting this issue, I will still post the new version next week.

Mark: Reported that not all new articles from his GR account were synced. Meanwhile this issue is closed for the time 

being, but if you see something similar please let me know. Turn on logging for the report though.

Henrik: Items are fetched and immediately removed by the initial fetch?

Mariano & Claudia: Works fine.

Who else tried the new sync?

Cheers,

Mariano

[Mariano Kamp]

Here is an updated binary.

It doesn't contain any significant changes. I changed the order in the article detail view menu and put the zoom actions onto the "more" page ... and so my recently created icons go to waste ;-( Also I did a bit of cleanup.

This will become NewsRob 3.4 if no new errors are found.

Is anybody actively testing? I am happy to wait another couple of days or a week, but only if somebody speaks up that s/he is really testing. Otherwise postponing the release date won't help and I will release 3.4 soon.

[Mark Otway]

I'm testing. Use it every day. :-)

On 21 Dec 2009 10:32, "Mariano Kamp" <marian...@gmail.com> wrote:

Here is an updated binary.

It doesn't contain any significant changes. I changed the order in the article detail view menu and put the zoom actions onto the "more" page ... and so my recently created icons go to waste ;-( Also I did a bit of cleanup.

This will become NewsRob 3.4 if no new errors are found.

Is anybody actively testing? I am happy to wait another couple of days or a week, but only if somebody speaks up that s/he is really testing. Otherwise postponing the release date won't help and I will release 3.4 soon.

On Sat, Dec 19, 2009 at 5:11 PM, Mariano Kamp <marian...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Hi, > >   here i...

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[Mariano Kamp]

;

Written on a mobile device

> > On 21 Dec 2009 10:32, "Mariano Kamp" <marian...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Here is an updated bin...

> Is anybody actively testing? I am happy to wait another couple of days or a week, but only if some...

On Sat, Dec 19, 2009 at 5:11 PM, Mariano Kamp <marian...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Hi, > >   here i...

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[Mariano Kamp]

;-) And do you expect to run into scenarios that you haven't tried yet?

Written on a mobile device

On Dec 21, 2009 12:05 PM, "Mark Otway" <ma...@otway.com> wrote:

I'm testing. Use it every day. :-)

> > On 21 Dec 2009 10:32, "Mariano Kamp" <marian...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Here is an updated bin...

> Is anybody actively testing? I am happy to wait another couple of days or a week, but only if some...

On Sat, Dec 19, 2009 at 5:11 PM, Mariano Kamp <marian...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Hi, > >   here i...

-- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NewsRob User Group" g...

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[Patrick]

I'm testing. So far so good.

[Mariano Kamp]

Thanks for the feedback. I'll wait then.

Written on a mobile device

On Dec 22, 2009 8:55 AM, "Patrick" <pdst...@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm testing.  So far so good.

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[vincent]

cannot install it on my htc hero.. I am currently using a community-
dev android 2.1 rom, but previous version(3.3.8-0) installs right.
MD5 (newsrob338-4.apk) = e8491fdc878abe862455fe324068caa0

btw, I am using ASTRO to install apk, it's weird that tapping the new
apk does not prompt an "Update" button, so I have to uninstall first.

On Dec 22, 4:00 pm, Mariano Kamp <mariano.k...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks for the feedback. I'll wait then.
>
> Written on a mobile device
>

[vincent]

also here is a feature request:
could NewsRob provide an option to export/import the settings
manually? or maybe just left the settings on sdcard untouched? you
know, just like profiles in firefox, for specific google account.
you see, after such a reinstallation, I have to setup my account, and
go over each option again, then start over a full sync ....

[Bernd]

I don´t think this happens with a normal Update via Market.

Bernd

[Bernd]

In my opinion, 3.3.8 is much better than 3.3.1 in the Market, so I
think you should fire it to public soon.

You wont find all bugs, so better update now to have a full day
tomorrow for an urgent fix :-)

Greetings and "Frohe Weihnachten" (verstehst du ja eh...)
Bernd

[Mariano Kamp]

Hi Bernd,

I see your point, but I remember what happens to my inbox and my heart rate when a big bug hits the Market ;-) And the new sync can have potentially negative impact on the read state of articles and so the annoyance potential is very high.

Also NewsRob is almost a year old and people can expect it to be somewhat mature. I think that's what missing from most apps on the Android Market, they are neither polished nor stable.

I also try not to update more than twice a month, because I know how annoying it is to find new updates all the time. 

And a Frohe Weihnachten to you too ;-)

--

[Mariano Kamp]

also here is a feature request:

Suggestions are best submitted here: http://newsrob.uservoice.com

 

could NewsRob provide an option to export/import the settings
manually? or maybe just left the settings on sdcard untouched? you
know, just like profiles in firefox, for specific google account.
you see, after such a reinstallation, I have to setup my account, and
go over each option again, then start over a full sync ....

And there is suggestions available that you may want to vote for: http://newsrob.uservoice.com/pages/35624-general/suggestions/409310-export-newsrob-settings-to-sd-card?ref=title

It will restore you per-feed-settings automatically. You still would have to login again and setup the global settings (like capacity, download default). But the latter only takes 10 seconds. 

[Mariano Kamp]

Just click on the link. The apk will download and then click on the downloaded file on the download screen. You will see a install question then. 

To install applications from other sources, you also need go to Settings -> Application Settings and enable Unknown Sources, if you haven't done that before.

And hurry up, if you want to test the current release. At latest tomorrow morning I will release the version if nothing else comes up.

Unrelated:

Interestingly enough I had to google the name of the above mentioned setting and copied the sentence from above into this mail. I am using Chrome and it automatically added this:

Read more: http://www.brighthub.com/mobile/google-android/articles/37151.aspx#ixzz0aPOa3xTg

Cool ;-)

--

[Mariano Kamp]

On Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 9:30 AM, vincent <list...@gmail.com> wrote:

btw, I am using ASTRO to install apk, it's weird that tapping the new
apk does not prompt an "Update" button, so I have to uninstall first.

If I don't explicitly say that you need to uninstall then something went wrong when you feel the need to uninstall to install the new version.

Having said that, you can't go back to the current Market version without uninstalling the beta first. This is because for the extended "friends" support I needed to change the underlying database schema.

But you shouldn't feel the need to go back anyway. 

[vincent]

On Dec 22, 5:37 pm, Mariano Kamp <mariano.k...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Just click on the link <http://claudia-und-mariano.net/newsrob338-5.apk>.

> The apk will download and then click on the downloaded file on the download
> screen. You will see a install question then.
>
> To install applications from other sources, you also need go to Settings ->
> Application Settings and enable Unknown Sources, if you haven't done that
> before.
>

this step is always the first move whenever I flashed a new rom, hehe.
I did lots of installation from apk.

3.3.8-5 now installs OK. thanks.

> And hurry up, if you want to test the current release. At latest tomorrow
> morning I will release the version if nothing else comes up.
>
> Unrelated:
> Interestingly enough I had to google the name of the above mentioned setting
> and copied the sentence from above into this mail. I am using Chrome and it
> automatically added this:
>

> Read more:http://www.brighthub.com/mobile/google-android/articles/37151.aspx#ix...
>
> Cool ;-)

>
> On Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 9:30 AM, vincent <listin...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > cannot install it on my htc hero.. I am currently using a community-
> > dev android 2.1 rom, but previous version(3.3.8-0) installs right.
> > MD5 (newsrob338-4.apk) = e8491fdc878abe862455fe324068caa0
>
> > btw, I am using ASTRO to install apk, it's weird that tapping the new
> > apk does not prompt an "Update" button, so I have to uninstall first.
>
> > On Dec 22, 4:00 pm, Mariano Kamp <mariano.k...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Thanks for the feedback. I'll wait then.
>
> > > Written on a mobile device
>
> > > On Dec 22, 2009 8:55 AM, "Patrick" <pdsta...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > I'm testing.  So far so good.
>
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> > > "NewsRob User Group" ...
>
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