Highlight Sentence Bug

[Rami Jami]

Hello everyone,

I have an app which had been effected by a bug since one year and still I don't know how to fix it.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HdXES5ZbyICl8o14P-uDxhRDqHJTxfmLWWBhPdF0VWo/edit?usp=sharing

[Ghica]

What does it look now, and where is the .aia?

Cheers, Ghica.

[Ghica]

Do you also have an aia that has the version of the mp4?

Cheers, Ghica

[Ghica]

Something strange is indeed happening. I am trying to find someone to look at it.

But it would be much better if you made that aia of the mp4 available.

Cheers, Ghica

[Ghica]

Hi Osama,

I still get the Arabic text.

Concerning the WebViewer problem: if you update the Companion and use version 2.55, the WebViewer will show OK.

Please take a look making sure that you are using the latest Companion.

But, the synchronization of the player and downloading files etc. is not OK anymore. I know that I have been working very hard to get that right a year ago. 

So, we would need to know what you changed. 

I am sorry, I cannot spend any time on this. The best I can do is get attention from other power users.

Cheers, Ghica.

[Ghica]

Osama,

Did you try running your app with the Companion app version 2.55?

If you do, is your problem still there?

Cheers, Ghica.

[Osama]

Hello Ghica, 

Yes, I tried with version 2.55.

Yes, it is still there.

[Ghica]

What is still there?

What does the problem look like??

[Osama]

When the highlight moves from one sentence to another sentence all text is hidden for a while.

[TimAI2]

That is because the html page is reloading, not a lot you can do about that unless you change EVERYTHING !!

Or get a very fast device....

[Ghica]

What I see, is reloading the page that takes some time.

Now, answer these questions:

1. Do you have a version of your app where this problem does not happen?

2. Did the problem start to happen with a new release of App Inventor, where the same app worked fine before?

Cheers, Ghica.

[Osama]

Please see the last conversation since last year:

Hi everybody,

I installed the app in my phone. When it starts play, the slider becomes very thin and also other problem occurs all the sentences blink every time just when move to next the sentence. This happens just when I build app .apk for google play because there are two options in MIT App Inventor; one  for App and the  other one is for App for Google Play. That problem has never happened but might be because there is some updates in MIT App Investor. 

How to solve this problem?

Ghica

8/24/18

Now try to use the theme Device default and see if that solves your slider problem. 

Maybe it also helps for your blinking sentences. 

This may be a problem with the new changes for API 26, therefore if you want to have this solved. you should post the link to the .aia

Cheers, Ghica.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/mitappinventortest/ukHOwyr2UeQ/AVmu33H6BAAJ

[Osama]

This is the link of last convesation last year:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/mitappinventortest/ukHOwyr2UeQ/AVmu33H6BAAJ

[Osama]

Ghica

6:26 PM (1 hour ago)

What I see, is reloading the page that takes some time.

Now, answer these questions:

1. Do you have a version of your app where this problem does not happen?

Yes, I have:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ODZ8eTarDgtoE50E_F5RRl1uofzvywUQ/view

2. Did the problem start to happen with a new release of App Inventor, where the same app worked fine before?

   This  problem with the new changes for API 26 and was not happened before at all. 

[Ghica]

Osama,

The answers to my questions cannot both be true.

1. The version you reference (book_final_hightlight_15_a) shows a flickering screen, but that is different from the problem you describe in your video.

2. The problem you had a year ago was the appearance of the slider that you did not like.

If your problem is 1, improvement is possible, but maybe not completely. And I am not going to do it.

If your problem is 2, there is nothing I can do.

Cheers, Ghica.

[Osama]

Hello Ghica,
I just need to solve a flickering screen.

[Ghica]

Osama,

Do this:

Previously, the page was refreshed every second. If you apply these changes, it will refresh only when there is a new highlighted sentence.

It is based on keeping the last highlighted sentence in the lastIndex global variable.

Then check if the current highlighted sentence is the same. If no, display page and keep new last index. If yes, skip.

The lastIndex must be reset when new surah text is read.

This is the best that is possible with the new releases. 

Cheers, Ghica.

[Osama]

Hello Ghica,

I have done what you told me but still it's blinking. I hope the blinking would be solved.

Thank you so much

[Ghica]

Osama,

Where is the reset of the last index variable in the SurahText.GotText?

I tested it, and it works. In so far, that it still blinks when a new sentence must be highlighted. Refreshing the page is unavoidable then. 

If that blinks for you that is unavoidable too. It looks like that because you get a new page and sometimes the page is scrolled up or down.

But the blinking should be much less than it was before.

Cheers, Ghica.

[Osama]

Hello Ghica,

I am sorry I forgot to attach the index variable in the previous email.

Also I attach the mp4 to see how it looks like now.

[Osama]

Hello Ghica,

Hello Ghica,

I am thinking about reward you after you solve the problem because you are trying a very hard to solve the blinking. I really appreciate of your work.

[Ghica]

Osama, You did not update the GotText block, which is just as well, because it is better to update like this:

Try this .aia: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yMevTApyq8y1Rq--qpbYOE3YcQiYDMs9/view?usp=sharing

Does it make a difference?

What is the reward??

Cheers, Ghica.

[Osama]

Hi Ghica,

Does it make a difference?

I have tested the one you sent it now and again it is blinking.

What is the reward??

All my wishes is that it would be working like before.

It's a very good surprise because you really deserve a respect due to your great effort and hard working on this app.

Regards,

[Ghica]

Osama,

Now try this one

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1t1TRQdHUY9i9bNGXSS4w4KdVOsqej4OU/view?usp=sharing

I think it is faster, but there is no special Quran font.

Cheers, Ghica.

[Osama]

Hi Ghica,

Now I tried this one, it's ok. There is no blinking like before. But the special Quran font is a very important for all users because all they like it and more favorite for them.  I think that it is much better to be there. I believe that you be able to solve this problem some how.

[Ghica]

Hi Osama,

Let one thing be very clear: This is not a problem that I can solve because it is not a coding problem in the app itself.

What I am trying to do is finding a workaround. 

This means trying to minimize the number of times the html page is loaded. We did that by only loading the html when a new sentence needed to be highlighted. There is no way that can be minimized further.

The other thing that takes time is loading of the fonts. There were two fonts before, while only one was used. I will put that font back and see what happens.

Cheers, Ghica

[Osama]

Great job!

I wish you all the best,,,

[Ghica]

Hi Osama,

In this version the Quran font is back, but the flickering is back also: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-yntJOs4LUgZDuKaJkg6UHdVz7QrMRdo/view?usp=sharing

If you think that you must have the Quran font, then:

What you can try to do is prepare an .aia, based on the version I am sending you now, that I can give to someone at MIT. It should NOT contain large soundfiles (those > 10MB that must be loaded via the Google player) that must be loaded. Some small ones is OK.

But there is NO guarantee that there is a solution that MIT can provide.

Cheers, Ghica.

[Osama]

Hi Ghica,

I have tried this version but unfortunately it doesn't work.

[Osama]

Hello Ghica,

I have minimize the sura_Links.csv and the readers. so, there are only 2 sura and  2 soundfile. There is only one reader. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XQ-yAOqv0p4bzfMh_JQyEjwJMotOuyYM/view?usp=sharing

[Osama]

Hello Ghica,

Do you have any news?

Thank you.

[Ghica]

Did you try your new .aia?

I cannot run it.

[Osama]

Hi Ghica,

You need to remove all files asset from phone first. I tested it works but after I select one item from sentence spinner.

[Ghica]

Osama,

That is not good enough. If I want to give the app to someone at MIT, it must be foolproof. 

I get a run time error at startup. Maybe because of missing file view permissions?

[Ghica]

I made a small app that shows the problem.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ovJelrYBUUdbL8gnegii-O7xDTcCB1aH/view?usp=sharing

Cheers, Ghica.

[Osama]

Hi Ghica,

That is fine. I hope that they might find a solution to solve this problem.

[Osama]

Hello Ghica,

Please tell me if there is any news about solving the flickering.

Thank you so much.

[Ghica]

Hi Osama,

The bad news is that the bug is in the Android system, therefore nothing can be done about that by App Inventor.

The other bad news is that yes, I have made a very good solution, after an idea of Tim, but no, you are not getting it yet. 

We are discussing it and I have to spend time to prepare the app to show where the changes are. The solution requires important changes to the app and some difficult JavaScript. 

I have no time before Sunday.

Cheers, Ghica.

[Osama]

Hi Ghica,

Thank you for your interest in solving this difficult problem. I feel that you will find a good solution even if it is very difficult.

Thank you and I wish you all the best.

[Ghica]

Osama,

Here is a pointer to a version of your app where the WebViewer does not flicker AND which uses the Quran font.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SOeMtAeHgf-QHExxk0X1GywJjaZZTy73/view?usp=sharing

As you know, your email address is blocked from my inbox, therefore I will not see any of your posts unless I look for them in the forum.

In this case I will do that on Sunday night. You have until that time to thoroughly test the app and report any problems. 

- If there are real bugs I will solve them. 

- If there are enhancement requests I will not solve them.

After that, my participation in your app has ended, even if there would be new Android problems.

I also warn you that the other power users will not be very responsive to your requests. You have overstepped your limit for support many times. 

Asking for support because we could solve something quicker than you could, is not why we are answering questions. We want to help people to find their own solutions, not to do the work for them.

You should really consider finding an Arab speaking person who knows HTML, JavaScript, CSS and who is willing to learn App Inventor, for free or for payment. 

Otherwise, you could consider to take a year to learn these subjects. There are enough free courses on the web. 

But, I think that your talents are elsewhere and you should be happy with that.

So, I repeat: On Sunday night I will look if there are any real problems with the app attached here, that should be solved. If there are, I will solve them.

After that: Good luck with your app.

And consider a generous donation to App Inventor. You can find a donate button on the upper right corner of the App Inventor home page: http://appinventor.mit.edu/

Cheers, Ghica.

[Osama]

Hello Ghica,

Well done!

I really appreciate of your great effort to help me in solving this big problem. Thank you so much for a very polite and delicate words.  I learn from you a lot.

You really deserve to give you a very big gift. Kindly send me your Bank Account number.

Thank you so much.

[TimAI2]

Do you not read what Ghica posted?

[Osama]

I read it,but I promise her to give her a gift because she really deserve and I took a lot of her time to help me.

[TimAI2]

HERE:

https://giving.mit.edu/give/

[Peter Mathijssen]

Give to the App Inventor Fund if you can. It is the top one.

https://giving.mit.edu/taxonomy/term/135#3832320

[Ghica]

Osama,

I saw this now. I do not need any money and the best gift is to help MIT to develop App Inventor.

It would be better if you concentrate on testing the .aia I posted here.

Cheers, Ghica.

[Osama]

Hello Ghica,

I'm sorry to be late because  I was concentrating on testing the .aia you posted and I took a long time to check it carefully. There is no flickering but I have noticed that the highlight is not on the specific sentence and there is a very big different.  Also the soundlink.csv in the asset don't contain the distances for every sentence .

Sure, I will give money to MIT as help to develop App Inventor.

Good luck!

[Ghica]

Osama,

It is not clear to me what I could do with your problems.

I cannot hear if the sentences spoken are not the same as the sentences highlighted, because I do not know Arabic.

What happens if you load the soundlink csv files you posted into book_final_highlight_15_f.aia ?

Is it then better? If not, what is wrong?

What do you mean with very big different??

Cheers, Ghica.

[Osama]

Hi Ghica,

I mean that every reader has .csv include the interval in sencond for each sentence to be highlighted for example :

Sentence one start highlited from 0 second and end at 35 second. 

Then sentence 2 start highlighted from 35 second and end at 90 second and so on

 Please see attached version which has the same working .

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wkkDoKJnGdY6C6Y2XQ3zQjGie-oPoy_k/view?usp=sharing

[Peter Mathijssen]

Dear Osama,

I get more and more the impression that the Power Users are writing your app for you. The forum is for questions for part of your app that doesn't work, not for writing complete blocks/apps and spending weeks and weeks in helping you. We expect our users to learn from the examples we give them. If they are not able to understand what we are trying to explain they sometimes are not ready to begin programming complex apps, like the one have here. But we always expect that they do it themselves in the end. 

If you want the interval blocks and you have them, why not build them into your app yourself? 

Peter

[Osama]

Dear Peter Mathijssen,

I have tried to build the interval blocks into my app myself since Ghica sent the version to me but unfortunattly I could not succed.

I promised Ghica to give him a gift because he spent a lot of time building this one but he advised me to donate instead of give him money. and I will do because I promesed him.

Thank you.

[Peter Mathijssen]

First Ghica is not a man. Second, what do you expect from the Power Users? I have seen that you post a lot of times that you can not do the things you are advised to do. I guess this project is over your head and without the power users extensive help you wouldn't be able to do this yourself. 

[Osama]

Dear Peter,

I am sorry. In fact, I don't know what should I tell you. Believe I tried myself to add the interval blocks but it is really a very difficult for me to do it.

Thank you so much. 

[Ghica]

Osama, PLEASE!!!

If you want any further help from me: One step at a time. ANSWER my questions!!

And I know how the csv files work. Did you forget that I made all the code for it for you?

I repeat my questions here, together with a repeat to the pointer of my new app:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SOeMtAeHgf-QHExxk0X1GywJjaZZTy73/view?usp=sharing

Does MY new app work as expected?

If you load the csv files you posted into my app, does it work right then?

If anything is wrong, you have to tell me EXACTLY what is wrong.

Then, DO NOT try to integrate my code into your app. That cannot be done, there are too many differences. What you CAN do, and you have done that before, is integrate your code, step-by-step, into MY app (use the backpack!), insuring that everything stays working at every step. I cannot help you with this, even if I wanted to, because all of it is in Arabic.

Cheers, Ghica.

[Osama]

Hi Ghica,

No, it doesn't work as I expected because for each sentence the text is highlighted synchronized with the person that reads the text. I think In the current app this is done by looking at the text length of each sentence and I noticed that it is only an approximation. 

The idea is to have a file for each reader and each surah that contains the real positions of the sound file for each sentence.

I hope you can improve this problem.

[Ghica]

I see. You gave me the wrong app to start from. I will see what I can do.

Cheers, Ghica

[Osama]

I am sorry to disturb you. It's my mistake. I appreciate of your great job to help me solving this big problem.

[Ghica]

I am very VERY sorry you gave me the wrong app to start from!

Try this one:

and tell me if there are problems.

Cheers, Ghica.

[Osama]

Hello Ghica,

I will check this version and tell you if it is working as I expected.

Please delete the link contents:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_aTBJ5A0X7epVjW31BSiynFnPwh54cAK/view?usp=sharing

because I have download it now.

[Ghica]

Google has decided that  cannot edit others people posts anymore. But you can do it yourself. 

[Ghica]

And anyway, your app is public property, why would you want it to be removed?

[Ghica]

Osama,

Did you test the latest .aia (book_with_qfont_highlight_1.aia)??

If yes, what did you find? Any problems?

If I do not hear about any problems by tonight, I am going to close this thread.

Cheers, Ghica.

[Osama]

Hello Ghica,

Yes, I have tested the latest .aia( book_with_qfont_highlight_1.aia). it works a very good and there is no problem at all. 

Thank you so much for your help and I really appreciate of your help.

Good luck & best wishes.

[Ghica]

Hi Osama,

Fine! Good luck to you too.

Cheers, Ghica.

[Osama]

Hi Ghica,

I have noticed that if I am at current bottom of sura and I want to select another sura, the scroll still at the bottom unless I click the play button and highlight sentence 2.

Is it possible to set the scroll on the top after go to next page instead of stay in same place in the previous one.

[Ghica]

Hi Osama,

This was a rather difficult to find timing problem.

Do this:

 * Load the attached HTML file
 * add this block: 

 * change this one as indicated:

I found a few small problems that you can solve as follows:

(Reset Continue text after loading a sound file)

and, as the last block in setSentenceLengths:

(reset the list picker text to 1 after a new page is loaded).

Let us know if it works.

Cheers, Ghica.

[Osama]

Hi Ghica,

Well done! Now it works a very well. 

Thank you so much for a great job and solving the problem in a very short time.

Would you please give me an idea how to swipe left and right because I spent couple of days to learn how to do it but I fail and stop for some time then I return back.

If you don't have a time now, you can do it when you feel free.

Thank you so much.

Regards,

Osama 

[Ghica]

No, No and no.
Swiping in itself is easy enough, but combining it with sentence highlighting is very tricky.
Be happy with what you have.
Cheers, Ghica

[Osama]

Hi Ghica,

I believe that combining it with sentence highlighting is very tricky. 

I have a solution for this:

The user has a choice whether he likes to use the play button or not. 

The solution is apply the swipe method just when he choose to not use the play button. 

In case he choose the play button, highlighting sentence will be start, in that case he can't use swipe method but he will use the next and previous buttons.

You can add a new button on the top for selecting whether he likes to use play button or not.

In case he doesn't like to use play button, he will just read.

Please tell me if this idea can be a good solution.

[Ghica]

No, No, and NO.
That will make it even more tricky.
You already have buttons to go back and forward, be happy with what you have.
Cheers, Ghica.

[Osama]

Thank you so much. 

I am very happy.

Good luck:)

[Osama]

Hi Ghica,

I just need to know how can I highlight any sentence without click play button. 

I mean if I select sentence  17 in LPSentence, it just highlight that sentence without play. 

Thank you so much.

[Ghica]

Sorry, For the moment I have no time to look at it.

Cheers, Ghica.

[Osama]

Hello Ghica,

I am so sorry to bother you.

Thank you so much.

[Osama]

Hello Ghica,

How are you?

I hope you are fine.

I need to help me please if you can and if you have timing to have a look to my question. 

I want to add some block in order to repeat a list of sentences.

For example:

If the user want to repeat from sentence 6 to sentence 11 he can simply chose from Repeat List Picker.

I will give donation as a gift  for the forum after you do it because it is a very difficult.

Thank you so much.

[Ghica]

No. I am busy with other projects.

Cheers, Ghica.

[Osama]

Ok no problem. 

Good luck and best wishes Ghica.

[Ghica]

And, if you want to have any chance of someone helping you, you should start a new thread, this one is closed and completed.
Use your real name, we do not like imposters and show that you learned something, that you made progress. Show code you made.
Or, recognize that app development is not your thing. No harm done. There are many things you are good at!
Cheers, Ghica

[Osama]

I have got your point and it's clear to me now. So, I will do that.

Thank you too much Ghica for encourage me.That will let me develop my projects in future.