Thread: Android Frontend App for tablets and phones

Good to see it seems to working mostly, as for the audio it will turn off for any outside audio call, that includes notifications like emails, text messages, etc, along with things like navigation and even if you open up another music player such as pandora or a radio app. There is a problem with the video where it doesnt like to turn off the music but that should be fixed pretty easy once i figure out why.

Now that I have my tablet its gonna get some changes to the layout again, nothing huge the general style will be the same but going to adjust the music browser some and work on making that nicer, and the now playing screen will be changing also. After today I have a week off from work and gonna be quite bored so i should get a lot of work done as long as I dont get tired of programming.

Originally Posted by zr2ee

Awesome job man, its looking real good as always. here's a few things I noticed that your probably already working on.

• Larger menu font size
• Menu page swipes in gesture area, less confusing
• Close and open andcar with external power
• Integrating music streaming services into media player

Originally Posted by Punky

finally got a chance to install it on my dell streak.
Everything works great!
Some suggestions:
- Make buttons bigger and clearly separated (actual rectangular buttons)
- Make texts much bigger (like 3 per page) it won't be much of a sacrifice, since your scrolling is nice and smooth. (pretty much all tablets have the same problem in car, too hard to read text while reading)
- Lots of empty space in the music page utilize it, add buttons and enlarge text there.

These two comments pretty much sum up what I've experienced so far. Of all these small issues, the fonts are definitely the first thing I'd like to see addressed. They are just too small on both the music player and the shortcut buttons. Also, when a track has no album art, can you drop in a generic pic that looks better than the current option?

Font size is on the list of things to fix, its a simple thing to fix but a tedious one, there is no way to preview the size or know the exact size needed without rebuilding and running the app for each change, so my first priority is get everything like I want to and working, then Im gonna go through and adjust all font sizes and everything to work.

On another note, I have decided to focus on tablets for the time being and as such the following releases will require honeycomb (3.0) or higher. I know this is gonna stop alot of you from being able to use for those who are using either the first galaxy tab or their phones, but because of the major differences in the tablet software and the phone software Im gonna have to make two different versions. And since im going to be using it on a tablet the tablet version wins for getting finished first. Once I finish the tablet version it shouldnt be too hard to make a phone version.

@Craigbru- As Im not artistically gifted the graphics most likely wont be the greatest, however, as always im open to help ini that department so if you want to see a certain thing in there send me a pm and if i like it ill use it.

If somebody wants to make an icon for the app I would greatly appreciate it, Im getting tired of seeing the default android icon and cant think of something else so feel free to make something up I believe the size would be a 512 x 512 for high resolution and smaller icon would be 78 x78

Fair enough. Having the app function as it should is certainly important. If the fonts have to wait, I can certainly live with it.

I do happen to know a guy who is an excellent graphic artist. I'm not sure what he has for time, or if he would have any terms, but I'll point him in your direction.

Originally Posted by NightJumper

Ok so got my computer up and running and after playing with the tablet today, I think im gonna need to make it for the tablet specifically, and then later make a phone version, because there is enough of a difference in the structure that it needs to be customized a seperate app other wise there will be lots of errors

This looks good!
What software/language are you using for development? Eclipse?

Im using the android SDK which is java based and working in eclipse for the compiler. I just do a little programming in my spare time so this is a lot of learning experience for me. i pretty much have to do a lot of research everytime I need to add something in that isnt the same as something ive previously done. Luckily no matter what language you use they are similar in practices and good practices in one usually transfers over to another so thats helping me quite a bit. And the logic is very standard among programming also so that helps.

Looks good so far! Fast learner I'd say!
How different is the tablet/mobile setup?

Its not too much different, the major differences comes in layouts and features. The programming is pretty much the same, but there are extra things you can do with the tablet versions because they have more layout options available. Also because of the way they do the task bar and action bar in the tablet that changes some things also.

I want to take advantage of those features cause they are useful, so thats why im focusing on the tablet version right now, but because its just features it should be relatively simple to adjust everything once its done to work for the phone.

Originally Posted by NightJumper

On another note, I have decided to focus on tablets for the time being and as such the following releases will require honeycomb (3.0) or higher.

Is there any functions specific to v3.0 of the SDK that you're using? If not, you're restricting your market, there's heaps of tablets out there that aren't running Honeycomb, only 0.6% of Android users can use your app.
http://developer.android.com/resourc...-versions.html

I can understand the issues the different size screens can cause with the layouts, but you're going to severely restrict the number of users that can test your app.

I've been wanting to test your app, but my tablet is out of memory and can't install any new apps. I'll have to root it so I can move apps to the sd card.