Activity Starter and App Inventor and Android (ASAIA?)

[Gary]

I am working on my asUtil app. It is an Android app that does some of the Android stuff App Inventor does not do (yet?). It currently gives you a Date and a Time picker, a list picker that does multiple picking and uses a CSV file to load it and code that gives us file i/o code. I updated the app to use current Android software, the Holo theme, the new menu code and fragments. I am working on what to do with the file i/o parts and decided to update our example that used Activity Starter to get the Android date picker. I also added a Time picker and updated in Google Play -> Activity Starter DatePicker - Android Apps on Google Play

There is an example App Inventor app that you can use once you install the Activity Starter DatePicker from Google Play at the bottom of this page -> date picker - rm

AND

I then took the App Inventor source and converted it to a jar file and added it to an Android project. A few clicks and tweaks and I had an Android app that provides the Date and Time pickers to App Inventor code.

I want to get on updating the ai4a servers to the current MIT version next. Once I have that I will probably get back to asUtil and file i/o. I am getting closer to being able to release the tools that convert App Inventor source to a jar. That gives us things like AdMob, 50Mb apps and more. Woo Hoo

So many interesting things to build, 24 hours in the day.

Gary

[Sebastiano T.]

Gary, i'm amazed at all the progress you made on app inventor and eclipse tools! really looking forward to see your work on this "asUtil" project, the conversion from App Inventor source to jar would be a groundbreaking feature for all the community ! woooo!

[Gary]

:-) :-) :-)

I'm excited also, but it moves forward slowly...

Thanks

back to it :-)

Gary

[Gary]

I got V1.4.4 working. It's back to Activity Starter

  and other things.

Is anyone else interested in Activity Starter?

Gary

[Sebastiano T.]

Hi Gary, probably i sound repetitive but i'm much more interested in integration with android tools and possibility to use external sdk in our projects (admob anyone...?) 

:) 

[Gary]

No Problem

I am working on the Activity Starter examples, getting them working better helps with the AdMob etc integration.

I like the Android tools. I currently work with the MIT public server and when I have that part working I generate a jar and build the apk.

-----

I build the apps by adding code to Main.java that is the Android equivalent of Activity Starter to start the App Inventor code. We can go the other way, use Activity Starter in App Inventor to start code written in Android Java. The Date Picker tests have two versions, one that uses Activity Starter to start an app that has the Date picker in it and one that (to be accurate) uses Android Activity Starter to start the App Inventor code that uses Activity Starter to start the Date Picker that is part of the app. Using apps like  Activity Starter DatePicker lets us build apps that use things App Inventor do not currently have (eg the Date Picker) but your users have to install the app in addition to your app. Including the code for both App Inventor and for Android lets us distribute one app.

The app will be bigger

but

I may be able to use Proguard to make the apps smaller. ProGuard | Android Developers

a lot smaller! 

If it works...

Sooo

It is a good idea to know about Activity Starter, not critical but nice.

Gary

[Sebastiano T.]

Thanks Gary! you've been very detailed in your explanation, however honestly i don't think it's a good approach the needs for an external app to use in conjunction with AI, i used this approach long time ago (before web component) to fetch data for my app, but it was a bit ankward and a lot of people commented in play store that the program was not working ! (cause they didn't understood the need of the extra app...)

However i think we're going into the right direction and maybe with the app inventor source files and using the sdk android tools we'll be able to "pack" even more functional apps (i hope it will be possible to include both the java app and the ai app in the same apk and seamlessy integrate them in a single app...)

good luck with your project, i keep following this group that has so many interesting info !

[Gary]

On Wednesday, December 5, 2012 4:22:43 AM UTC-6, Sebastiano T. wrote:

Thanks Gary! you've been very detailed in your explanation, however honestly i don't think it's a good approach the needs for an external app to use in conjunction with AI, i used this approach long time ago (before web component) to fetch data for my app, but it was a bit ankward and a lot of people commented in play store that the program was not working ! (cause they didn't understood the need of the extra app...)

Kinda

You pointed out that many folks seem to have problems with installing another app to work with an app. I have about 1k folks still using the date picker.

The 'plan' with asUtil was to have an app that folks would install that would give App Inventor some of the things it was missing. A few may also install asUtil to have a file browser, there are better ones out there but if you already have asUtil installed to get a date picker...

I use asUtil to test things. The multi picker could be a nifty addition to an app. I can add the code that does the base64url and we have a way to use base64 in App Inventor. I am poking with file i/o.

 

However i think we're going into the right direction and maybe with the app inventor source files and using the sdk android tools we'll be able to "pack" even more functional apps (i hope it will be possible to include both the java app and the ai app in the same apk and seamlessy integrate them in a single app...)

Exactly. That is what I did with the test of the date/time picker. I wrote the code in App Inventor that used them from asUtil. Once I had the code working, it was VERY EASY (well ymmv ;-)) to take the App Inventor source, jar it and drop it into an app that had the asUtil code. Almost no code changes and we have an app that does things that App Inventor does not do.

and :-)

If we have something that could be a component, we can take the code from asUtil (or whatever we were testing with) and we have tested code work with.

So many interesting things

24 hours in the day

Gary 

[Dennis A.]

re: "I want to get on updating the ai4a servers to the current MIT version next."

Gary,

I have a large concern about that..

.. it's probably just a newbie concern but in case it's not..

I have your original windows AI server running on my home PC.

It works GREAT. Thank you.

But every time I try and to use the "new" (flavor of the week) MIT server it seems like that in the name of progress, 5 new things get added but 5 old things get broken.

.. then I end up going back to your stable tried and true version that continues to work.

It's great that MIT is running so fast with the ball but it's useless to me knowing that all I have to do is open my app in their newest version and now something is broken that was not broken before..

.. things I have not even touched (last try, SMS is now messed up in my app).

So regarding your statement 

"I want to get on updating the ai4a servers to the current MIT version next."

.. how will you insure that you don't de-stablize your otherwise "known good" server by incorporating their "latest" build.

I know it's "in all the cloud now".. but..

I just can't have an IDE that is controlled and changing outside the scope of my own server and introduces new bugs every time it does..

If I want to try a new version fine..

.. but if it's messed up I'd need an easy way to revert back to the older version.

Or even better.. a pull down list of which version I want to work in "today"?

(develop some apps in one version and other apps in another version?)

Right now, I don't have an easy way to do that..

.. other than keep your original Windows AI version tucked away and backed up for insurance.

.. I know you guys are playing way over my head but...

... am I missing something easy here?

thanks.. as always..

Dennis

[Gary]

Good comment! And right on!!!

I leave the old versions on sourceforge. You can get another copy if you have to roll back.

I personally leave old versions on my PC so if I need to compare the old with the new, I can. They are not huge so a copy or three is not a problem for me.

And I have source for the old versions.

I messed up when I got the more current version from MIT. I assumed that it worked on Windows. oops

I test that it works but do not do an in depth job. Unfortunately, testing takes time. sigh

I am going to start a conversation that will include your good points.

Till then, kick back, use an old version, listen to some music

I'm listening to this http://youtu.be/-1bPchQSyhE

Gary

[Dennis A.]

On Wednesday, December 5, 2012 8:37:56 AM UTC-5, Gary wrote:

Till then, kick back, use an old version, listen to some music

Gary

well.. heads up..

up until yesterday your original windows server was working perfectly for me..

.. today I starting getting an error when attempting to start the blocks editor.

... just as the JAVA file began to execute.. something about it could not find cached file..

In the past, every time I opened the blocks editor a new .jnlp file would download so I have dozens in my download folder..

.. usually I clean them out every few days.. but in this case I'm glad I had some "old" ones (from a few days ago).

bottom line: 

I directly opened the the blocks editor by clicking on "AppInventorForAndroidCodeblocks (50).jnlp" from my download folder and it works fine as always...

BUT if I click on the "open block editor" from the designer window and it downloads a new .jnlp file, it does not work.

SOMETHING has changed with the .jnlp file in the last two days ... so save your old ones..

of course I could be doing something dumb.. but I don't think so...

Dennis

[Gary]

Can you make sure your Java console is on and see if there is anything logged in there?

You may want to look into the support email group for ai4a https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!forum/usgsuacwai

It is a better place to talk about problems with running.