SmartFM Android Study Dictionary v1.1 released

[tansaku]

So I even managed to find time for a few performance fixes and have
released version 1.1 of the SmartFM Android Study Dictionary to the
Android Market.

The main difference is pretty much on the back end with the app using
a separate Java client to consume JSON (instead of XML) from the new
"unofficial" SmartFM API. This necessitated a performance fix on the
main item list view since checking whether there was a sound for an
item required a separate HTTP request. This creates the main
noticeable different, that you'll briefly see progress indicators for
the sound icons when you first get a set of results back.

I was pleased that using ProgressBar, AsyncTask and a cache of my own
design was effective in making the list scroll smoothly and I went on
to use the same approach for image loading in the sentence list that
is part of each individual item view. That's something that was always
a performance issue in earlier versions, but only came up for items
with more than 3 or 4 sentences.

I'm disappointed not to have been able to add more functionality or
fix other minor gripes, but the old version one XML SmartFM API is
being discontinued today or tomorrow, so I thought it better to kick
out a version that works with the new API, and leave everything else
for subsequent releases. "Release Early, Release Often".

Anyhow, I am moving house and starting a new job, so will probably be
restricted to bugfixes for the next couple of months, but hope to
release some new features and fixes by Christmas. I think my main
goals are making the voice search go straight to results without
requiring a second click, and pre-loading lots of content so users
don't have to wait to download sounds. I think the multiple HTTP
requests associated with each individual items could be put into
AsyncTasks, to make the item display more responsive ...

The two most frequently requested features are support for some study,
and OpenID. I do hope to include a study feature soon. As for OpenID,
we'll see ... :-)

http://linklens.blogspot.com/2010/08/smartfm-android-study-dictionary-v11.html

CHEERS> SAM