Geohashdroid wiki features.

[Thomas Hirsch]

Hi all, Nicholas,

Following the discussion on the wiki (http://wiki.xkcd.com/geohashing/
User_talk:CaptainSpam), I have started to implement a few twitter-like
wiki features into the geohashdroid, based on the latest release
version.

Some screenshots can be found here:
http://relet.net/g2/v/misc/geohashing/droid/

Right now, this is just an early proof-of-concept implementation. It
works, but the functionality will change. What I am planning to
implement:

"Update wiki" menu
-> Send short twitter-like messages to the wiki. (Longer, if you want
to.) Optionally include (local) timestamp and coordinates of message.
Messages will be automatically appended to the "==Expedition=="
section of the corresponding wiki page, or appended to the bottom of
the page if this section does not exist. If the page itself does not
exist, it will be created using {{subst:Expedition|...}}.
The message is inserted using a bullet point, timestamp and
coordinates are appended to the wiki "-- signature". Coordinates
should include a link to google/osm.

-> Send pictures to the wiki. Include optional message, time stamp and
coordinates. The picture is inserted to a gallery found on the
expedition page, or a new gallery is created in the ==Photos==
section. Message, time stamp and coordinates are used for the
description.

-> Display the current expedition page. This one works nicely, and you
can do any more sophisticated wiki editing here. ;)

The menu in the screenshots includes a "Send location" link, but I
guess this will be deprecated. You can always send a blank message if
you really just want to update your location.

That said, I'm looking forward to your suggestions, questions and
comments! :)

Best regards,
Thomas / User:relet

[CaptainSpam]

Hm... okay, I like that so far. I'll assume the wiki features would
be disabled (or throw up a dialog with an explanation) if the username
and password aren't set up yet?

The picture interface you've got looks like it's going off the
pictures stored on the phone already. Once I have the picture-taking
from within the app done (which would definitely include EXIF data and
might include an infobox placed on the picture), would it be difficult
to add that to the interface?

It also looks like it's fairly separated from the rest of the program,
so it should be pretty easy to integrate in, once it's done, which is
good.

All in all, I like what I'm seeing! Once you've got it stable, I can
see about integrating it into the next release (once I have nearby
graticules and pick-whatever's-closest working). Thanks!

--
Nicholas Killewald

[Thomas Hirsch]

On Aug 13, 7:40 am, CaptainSpam <captains...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hm... okay, I like that so far.  I'll assume the wiki features would
> be disabled (or throw up a dialog with an explanation) if the username
> and password aren't set up yet?

Sending messages anonymously is possible (you might just have
downloaded the app, never registered in the wiki, and go on an
expedition), and will issue a warning. I should make that an "Are you
sure?" dialog, giving you more time to cancel the action.
Sending pictures anonymously is prohibited by the wiki. I will replace
the option with an explanatory message while no user name is entered.

> The picture interface you've got looks like it's going off the
> pictures stored on the phone already.  Once I have the picture-taking
> from within the app done (which would definitely include EXIF data and
> might include an infobox placed on the picture), would it be difficult
> to add that to the interface?

I haven't looked into that option yet. But it shouldn't be difficult
to run the gallery off a different cursor or a single Image source
instead of the main MediaStore.
I had in mind that the user might either want to keep a copy of the
picture on the phone - or not. Given that possibility, there are
different possible user interaction flows:
1) Select "Send Picture" menu -> Press button "Take Picture" -> Take
picture -> Confirm & Return to input form -> Fill form, check box
"Save picture on disk" -> Submit
or
2) Select "Send Picture" menu -> Press button "Open Camera app" ->
Take Picture -> Save & Return to input form -> Auto-select newest
picture in gallery -> Fill & Submit.
(or etc.)

I'm tempted to suggest the second option, as uploading pictures to the
wiki is unreliable and might eventually fail (when the user realizes
he just left the GPRS zone...).

> It also looks like it's fairly separated from the rest of the program,
> so it should be pretty easy to integrate in, once it's done, which is
> good.

Yes, it all runs in separate Activities.

> All in all, I like what I'm seeing!  Once you've got it stable, I can
> see about integrating it into the next release (once I have nearby
> graticules and pick-whatever's-closest working).  Thanks!

Thank you for your feedback!
If you like, I could check in my code in a separate branch of the svn.
Merging shouldn't be a trouble, but that would allow you (and others?)
to test it early. More users = more bugs discovered. Also, I'm just
getting the hang of this SDK and might not have followed all the
guidelines correctly. ;)

Best regards,
Thomas

[CaptainSpam]

On Aug 13, 4:40 am, Thomas Hirsch <thomas.hir...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Sending messages anonymously is possible (you might just have
> downloaded the app, never registered in the wiki, and go on an
> expedition), and will issue a warning. I should make that an "Are you
> sure?" dialog, giving you more time to cancel the action.
> Sending pictures anonymously is prohibited by the wiki. I will replace
> the option with an explanatory message while no user name is entered.

Ah, right, good point. Forgot about anonymous posting. But yeah, an
"Are you sure?" dialog would most likely be best in that case.

> I haven't looked into that option yet. But it shouldn't be difficult
> to run the gallery off a different cursor or a single Image source
> instead of the main MediaStore.
> I had in mind that the user might either want to keep a copy of the
> picture on the phone - or not. Given that possibility, there are
> different possible user interaction flows:
> 1) Select "Send Picture" menu -> Press button "Take Picture" -> Take
> picture -> Confirm & Return to input form -> Fill form, check box
> "Save picture on disk" -> Submit
> or
> 2) Select "Send Picture" menu -> Press button "Open Camera app" ->
> Take Picture -> Save & Return to input form -> Auto-select newest
> picture in gallery -> Fill & Submit.
> (or etc.)
>
> I'm tempted to suggest the second option, as uploading pictures to the
> wiki is unreliable and might eventually fail (when the user realizes
> he just left the GPRS zone...).

Well, I was thinking to store the pictures to disk in any case,
whether it be taken from the camera app or within Geohash Droid
itself. That way, even if the data connection fails for whatever
reason, the picture is still available to send (maybe without any
message the user was intending to send, though). But, you did give me
another idea: Make the picture-sending activity react to the picture-
sharing intent from the picture gallery, such that when someone
presses "Share" from there, it would prompt to share it via Geohash
Droid.

Granted, that would take a lot more work, especially when trying to
determine what expedition was used to take that picture (i.e. what
graticule, what date, etc), so that might take a lot more
consideration than I thought.

>
> > It also looks like it's fairly separated from the rest of the program,
> > so it should be pretty easy to integrate in, once it's done, which is
> > good.
>
> Yes, it all runs in separate Activities.

Excellent, excellent. That should make it easy.

> Thank you for your feedback!
> If you like, I could check in my code in a separate branch of the svn.
> Merging shouldn't be a trouble, but that would allow you (and others?)
> to test it early. More users = more bugs discovered. Also, I'm just
> getting the hang of this SDK and might not have followed all the
> guidelines correctly. ;)

I'll get the SVN part going (or just branch it in myself) and check
over what you've got when I can (I might be a bit slow in this, as
I've got realworld work stuff and other projects and such to deal
with). But once it's in, I'll try to make sure everything you've got
fits the SDK properly, as well as whatever coding standards I seem to
have come up with for the project. :-)

Thanks!

--
Nicholas Killewald

[Thomas Hirsch]

Latest update:

> Ah, right, good point.  Forgot about anonymous posting.  But yeah, an
> "Are you sure?" dialog would most likely be best in that case.

I had room for a permanent message. Basically it says "Warning: You
are posting anonymously..." below the "Submit" button now.
When trying anonymous image submission, also the button disappears.

> But, you did give me
> another idea: Make the picture-sending activity react to the picture-
> sharing intent from the picture gallery, such that when someone
> presses "Share" from there, it would prompt to share it via Geohash
> Droid.

Sounds good. :)

> Granted, that would take a lot more work, especially when trying to
> determine what expedition was used to take that picture (i.e. what
> graticule, what date, etc), so that might take a lot more
> consideration than I thought.

You could just keep the latest mInfo and latest location fix somewhere
statically for all hashdroid activities. These two are unlikely to
require multiplicity.

> I'll get the SVN part going (or just branch it in myself) and check
> over what you've got when I can (I might be a bit slow in this, as
> I've got realworld work stuff and other projects and such to deal
> with).  But once it's in, I'll try to make sure everything you've got
> fits the SDK properly, as well as whatever coding standards I seem to
> have come up with for the project. :-)

Excellent. :D
Message and picture upload is quite functional now. I had one untraced
bug crashing the image gallery when I scroll through too many a photo,
which I still have to replicate. I've also written some code for the
insertion of location tags into messages and images, which I hope to
test during today's expedition. It's a bit tricky to debug this
without proper GPS reception indoors. ;)

[CaptainSpam]

> You could just keep the latest mInfo and latest location fix somewhere
> statically for all hashdroid activities. These two are unlikely to
> require multiplicity.

Hm... that shouldn't be too hard to do, honestly. I could either make
it static or add it to the stock cache database (the latter would be
more reliable; if I'm not mistaken, the way the Android VM works, the
instance of Geohash Droid that has that static is liable to have its
memory freed if the system is low on RAM). I'll add that to the list
of stuff to do with the database, along with KML tracklogs. :-)

> Message and picture upload is quite functional now. I had one untraced
> bug crashing the image gallery when I scroll through too many a photo,
> which I still have to replicate. I've also written some code for the
> insertion of location tags into messages and images, which I hope to
> test during today's expedition. It's a bit tricky to debug this
> without proper GPS reception indoors. ;)

Yeah, from experience, it's rough testing GPS stuff if you're not
doing something for "real" (I had trouble figuring out the right time
to show the "Accuracy low/really low" messages, for instance). But,
if you're using the emulator, it IS possible to send GPS fixes
manually either via the terminal (telnet into the emulator; it will be
localhost with the port number listed on the title bar) or via the
DDMS program (there should be a section of the main window with
location stuff). It's not the same as getting real data, sure, but
it's something.

You should also be able to send fake GPS updates to an actual phone,
too, if you turn on mock updates in the application settings, but I'm
not sure how well those work.

Sorry I haven't been updating or responding quickly lately. This
week's been a bit hectic with my brother's wedding coming up, and I
haven't had much time to work on the app (or administer the project).
Next week I should have more updates and be able to get things set up
on SVN for you.

[Thomas Hirsch]

> it IS possible to send GPS fixes
> manually either via the terminal (telnet into the emulator; it will be
> localhost with the port number listed on the title bar) or via the
> DDMS program

Oh, great! Thanks. I am totally going to try that. :D

> Sorry I haven't been updating or responding quickly lately.  

No worries. There's absolutely no hurry, unless anyone speaks up and
wants to see the code. ;)
Myself, I will be traveling beginning on August 30. I will see what I
can finish until then, and push it to svn or to my own git farm when
it's either stable or late enough. In any case, you'll have something
to test or integrate whenever you find some time.

[CaptainSpam]

You should now be able to commit to SVN. Once you've got it in, I'll
look over what you've got (there's a lot of odd quirks to Android
which you could easily not know about from a first-time perspective)
and see about getting it integrated with the rest of what I've got.

Enjoy!

[Thomas Hirsch]

Thanks, Nicholas!

I've checked in my code in branches/livelogging - It's my current
working copy basically, and I probably won't have much time to review
it properly. It should compile, message and image upload should work.
The location tags not yet, but I have created the information
structure for transferring these from the MainMap. I've experienced
some problems with uploading images when the network connection was
unreliable, but haven't managed to track this down yet. Also, the
"View wiki page" feature broke some time - but since it basically
displays a browser and I haven't really used it, it did not get fixed
yet.

Looking forward to any comments. :)

Best regards,
Thomas

[CaptainSpam]

Finally had the chance to glance over your updates. So far, from what
I can see, it looks like it wouldn't be that hard to integrate in,
once I've got the time. Though first, I'm going to focus on "show
nearby graticules" and "auto-select nearest meetup point". Once I've
got that going, I'll get the wiki features in (and update the About
popup to include your name), and that should make for version 0.7.0.

I'll let you know if I've got any problems or anything I'll need to
ask about. Thanks!