Finally, it's done. I've finished the course and here I give away the version it ended with. There are bugs and there are features I've promised and not implemented, bur it reads RSS!
I might find time to really finish it, but it's not that probable as I'd like.
Download apk
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Friday, April 27, 2012
It's been a long week
It's been a bit more than a week since I've posted my objectives for the following weeek. The task has taken me a bit more time than I've expected, but I've fixed quite some issues and design flaws on the way, so I'm OK with it.
I've removed some DB problems and, most importantly, made the Views really managable!
The management is done via drag'n'drop. Wanna delete something? Drag it into the bin! Moving feeds around the views is no problem, and it's really intuitive I think. All the editing is done using dialogs, I'll need to talk to the software keyboard a little and make her behave. But now, it's finally useable! Issues there, still, but i'm gnna fix that soon.
Next week, thede won't be any exceptions thrown in the log! I need to devise a way to close the DB in the right time.
I've removed some DB problems and, most importantly, made the Views really managable!
The management is done via drag'n'drop. Wanna delete something? Drag it into the bin! Moving feeds around the views is no problem, and it's really intuitive I think. All the editing is done using dialogs, I'll need to talk to the software keyboard a little and make her behave. But now, it's finally useable! Issues there, still, but i'm gnna fix that soon.
Next week, thede won't be any exceptions thrown in the log! I need to devise a way to close the DB in the right time.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
How things go on
I've kind of forgotten to post this week, so I have here for you a special treat: screenshots, yay!
The settings activity needs quite some graphics work, but I think the rest looks quite good for my design. As you can guess, all the colors are customizable using a nice color-picking dialog I've written. The feed organization is all done using drag and drop, which I'm yet to finish, but the idea is in place.
The least user-friendly thing I have yet to solve is adding feeds. Users will have to copy/paste from Browser, which is quite user-unfriendly, but I can't think of a different way. At least there will be a paste button...
I have now 2-3 weeks to finish the whole thing, so I'll need to hurry a little bit. The good news is that other school stuff has become less of a time-eater, so I might manage to meet most of my targets. But there's still work to do elsewhere, so I'll start cutting off features.
The resolution this week:
Gourmet reader will let you manage your feeds an feedviews next week!
Wish me good luck and lots of free time!
The settings activity needs quite some graphics work, but I think the rest looks quite good for my design. As you can guess, all the colors are customizable using a nice color-picking dialog I've written. The feed organization is all done using drag and drop, which I'm yet to finish, but the idea is in place.
The least user-friendly thing I have yet to solve is adding feeds. Users will have to copy/paste from Browser, which is quite user-unfriendly, but I can't think of a different way. At least there will be a paste button...
I have now 2-3 weeks to finish the whole thing, so I'll need to hurry a little bit. The good news is that other school stuff has become less of a time-eater, so I might manage to meet most of my targets. But there's still work to do elsewhere, so I'll start cutting off features.
The resolution this week:
Gourmet reader will let you manage your feeds an feedviews next week!
Wish me good luck and lots of free time!
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Next wek's joys 4 - 3. - 9. 4.
Another week passed and here I am, writing the next report. I've written basic code for the views and a designed the UI for the initial screen. (Await the screens and fancy drawings!) It's pretty cool, and I've devised a way to draw cool frames of completely custom colors! Now just to talk a friend of mine into making a nice box for me.
Next week, the views will be manageable - will allow the user to add and remove single feeds and add custom coloring.
That might work, because it's Easter!
Next week, the views will be manageable - will allow the user to add and remove single feeds and add custom coloring.
That might work, because it's Easter!
Monday, March 26, 2012
Next week's joys 3 - 26. 3 - 2. 4.
Ok, loading from the Internet works like a charm! I'll need to deal with HTML entities and rogue HTML in the feed, but these are just minor details.
Now for the next steps:
Next week Gourmet reader will be able to display the so-called FeedViews.
A FeedView is a page that takes different feeds and puts them together in chronological order. One example is of course the All FeedView, that displays every sinlge item from all the followed feeds. Then there could be News, Sport for sports fans, Maths for math research fellows etc.
The items will be color-coded by feed, of course customizable. That implies some settings interface, which I may not manage to complete.
Now for the next steps:
Next week Gourmet reader will be able to display the so-called FeedViews.
A FeedView is a page that takes different feeds and puts them together in chronological order. One example is of course the All FeedView, that displays every sinlge item from all the followed feeds. Then there could be News, Sport for sports fans, Maths for math research fellows etc.
The items will be color-coded by feed, of course customizable. That implies some settings interface, which I may not manage to complete.
Monday, March 19, 2012
Next week's joys 2 - 19. - 24.3.
Since I have done some extra work during past week and before, I thing this target is completely manageable, even though I'm to sit to like 3 tests next week.
Next week, Gourmet reader will be able to display a single feed from the Internet in a readable form.
I really hope there will be no problems this time. Maybe last week I just didn't hope enough!
Next week, Gourmet reader will be able to display a single feed from the Internet in a readable form.
I really hope there will be no problems this time. Maybe last week I just didn't hope enough!
The outcomes of past week
The week flew by, and unfortunately I had less time to do work than I expected (I forgot that I'd be gone all the weekend). However, it seems now that I've done enough to be able to meet my targets today!
Behold:
That's my blog, right! For now, there's some dummy coloring not even aiming to be readable (pretty much random), completely random headline sizes and not-so-nice black borders. But it works, and it doesn't die in pan when I interact with it!
Behold:
Monday, March 12, 2012
Long have the resolutions lasted
Well, it seems that Android won't let me do network stuff in the main thread (although they said it was only "discouraged", which means "OK for testing" for me).
What does it mean? That I'll have to do all the ContentProvider and database stuff before I can display any piece of real information on the tablet screen. That implies pretty much work, which implies that it'll take a while. Although I have the architecture on a piece of paper, transforming it to code and doing it right will take a rather long while, so I'll need to redefine my targets. I'll just take some time to think it over and choose priorities. Then, I'll update this post with the new resolutions (like the new iPad, newer is always better; now just not to make a habbit of changing the resolutions).
Finally:
After quite some thought and design decissions, I've set up a new target for the week (I've completed most of the other tasks, so I can be generous).
Next week, Gourmet reader will be able to display data from the database. It will be dummy data randomly generated by the program itself.
Let's all hope now it doesn'!t go all wrong tommorrow...
What does it mean? That I'll have to do all the ContentProvider and database stuff before I can display any piece of real information on the tablet screen. That implies pretty much work, which implies that it'll take a while. Although I have the architecture on a piece of paper, transforming it to code and doing it right will take a rather long while, so I'll need to redefine my targets. I'll just take some time to think it over and choose priorities. Then, I'll update this post with the new resolutions (like the new iPad, newer is always better; now just not to make a habbit of changing the resolutions).
Finally:
After quite some thought and design decissions, I've set up a new target for the week (I've completed most of the other tasks, so I can be generous).
Next week, Gourmet reader will be able to display data from the database. It will be dummy data randomly generated by the program itself.
Let's all hope now it doesn'!t go all wrong tommorrow...
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Next week's joys 1 - 12. - 17. 3.
My teacher says it's a good practice to give myself targets to focus on for the next week. Well, it's better late than never, so here come my new week's resolutions.
Next week, Gourmet reader will be able to read and display a single hardcoded RSS feed. It'll display the corresponding page next to the list (landscape) or in the Browser (portrait).
Now I just hope the homework from other subjects can complete themselves with as little of my help as possible. Happy new week!
Next week, Gourmet reader will be able to read and display a single hardcoded RSS feed. It'll display the corresponding page next to the list (landscape) or in the Browser (portrait).
Now I just hope the homework from other subjects can complete themselves with as little of my help as possible. Happy new week!
The Object design
Well, after some deep thoughts I finally made out how the app architecture will work.
For the ListView to work, you need a data container called an Adapter. I've called mine FeeedAdapterand it extends the BaseAdapter android class. The adapter handles data operations requested by the ListView (like "give me item no. 13") and the drawing of the list items. The drawing part is crucial for my app to work as I want it to.
The dataset for the FeedAdapter is represented by a FeedView - that is a view of a number of separate feeds aggregated together into one stream if information. Every single feed item has it's own instance of the FeedItem class. A FeedItem has all the information neccesary to display it in a FeedView - the URL, the color label, the estimated importance of the article for the reader... The FeedItems are gonna be stored in a Collection (HashMap for now).
Next, the FeedView has a Filter class instance to filter the items, assign labels and importances to them and to do the smart stuff (like learn what the user likes).
In the basement of the app, there will be the DataDownloader class, that will be providing all the Internet communication services for the app, like updating the feeds or downloading the images do display. The downloaded data will travel to a FeedParser, that will get the feed items and store them locally, in the DB. Once in a while, a clean-up will be run to delete old items and free some space.
Then there will be a ContentProvider to transfer the items from DB to the FeedView.
The SettingsActivity will be quite simple as of the architecture. There'll be a page for managing feeds and a page for simple settings, no really interesting stuff there.
So, that's how it'll work. Now just to get it to work, and I'm done!
Warning:
This is about the programming stuff, if you're a user, you probably won't find it really interesting...
So, in Android, the Java implementation needs an activity class, that does all the fancy stuff. In my case, that will be the ReadFeed class extending Activity base class. UI-wise, it will contain a ListView and optionally, if the screen is large enough, a WebView to read the articles straight away.This is about the programming stuff, if you're a user, you probably won't find it really interesting...
For the ListView to work, you need a data container called an Adapter. I've called mine FeeedAdapterand it extends the BaseAdapter android class. The adapter handles data operations requested by the ListView (like "give me item no. 13") and the drawing of the list items. The drawing part is crucial for my app to work as I want it to.
The dataset for the FeedAdapter is represented by a FeedView - that is a view of a number of separate feeds aggregated together into one stream if information. Every single feed item has it's own instance of the FeedItem class. A FeedItem has all the information neccesary to display it in a FeedView - the URL, the color label, the estimated importance of the article for the reader... The FeedItems are gonna be stored in a Collection (HashMap for now).
Next, the FeedView has a Filter class instance to filter the items, assign labels and importances to them and to do the smart stuff (like learn what the user likes).
In the basement of the app, there will be the DataDownloader class, that will be providing all the Internet communication services for the app, like updating the feeds or downloading the images do display. The downloaded data will travel to a FeedParser, that will get the feed items and store them locally, in the DB. Once in a while, a clean-up will be run to delete old items and free some space.
Then there will be a ContentProvider to transfer the items from DB to the FeedView.
The SettingsActivity will be quite simple as of the architecture. There'll be a page for managing feeds and a page for simple settings, no really interesting stuff there.
So, that's how it'll work. Now just to get it to work, and I'm done!
Monday, March 5, 2012
First small steps for a man, but giant leaps for me.
I ought to be working on the project now, and a good way to start is to find out where to start. Some steps that need to be done:
- lay out the app architecture
- write a RSS parser to work as a content provider for the app
- think of a not-too-awkward UI layout for reading feeds
The Project
So, it has come to it (Credit: xkcd.com). Time to tell the world what I will be spending time with:
RSS is a great invention. You can keep all the new you're interested in in one app, the reader. There is a plenty of RSS readers in the known universe, some of them also for Android. But none really seems to be able to do all the things at once. Wiew all the feeds in a single stream, add tags to articles, color the articles for easier orientation in all the world's news, integration with ReadItLater, content based learning filters... Often you see long lists of headlines you might be interested in - but what if you miss something? I think I can do better than that!
I proudly present to you the Gourmet Reader, the reader to use when you know what you want to read. As the food admirers consume only selected, especially tasty food, you'll get to read the articles that fit your taste. The key features I've already thought of:
Now the real work shall commence!
RSS is a great invention. You can keep all the new you're interested in in one app, the reader. There is a plenty of RSS readers in the known universe, some of them also for Android. But none really seems to be able to do all the things at once. Wiew all the feeds in a single stream, add tags to articles, color the articles for easier orientation in all the world's news, integration with ReadItLater, content based learning filters... Often you see long lists of headlines you might be interested in - but what if you miss something? I think I can do better than that!
I proudly present to you the Gourmet Reader, the reader to use when you know what you want to read. As the food admirers consume only selected, especially tasty food, you'll get to read the articles that fit your taste. The key features I've already thought of:
- feed views filtered by site or all feeds in one place
- marking articles with colorful labels for visual orientation, emphasizing important articles
- some learning filter to get to know you, give you only the important information and spare you all the ballast
- integration with ReadItLater
Now the real work shall commence!
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Then came the first words: Hello, World!
I was told, that a Hello World app in android is a little tricky buisness. And it's true!
After setting up a decent system to test the app on an actual tablet, there was a black window (covering a part of the screen only) and a crash comming soon. No widgets displayed whatsoever. Some google stuff finaled in
a) you need to state, what API versions and screen sizes you need for your app. Not a word about it in any tutorial (or maybe I was not an attent enough reader)
b) the Activity name is a path to the Activity class inside the app package. Sadly, the Netbeasn IDE plugin got it wrong (a dot missing, meaning "the Activity class is in the current package"). Yet another showstopper...
Well, I got there and it's working now! Now, Android development starts to look like real fun, with how Google designed the Android things. The system is real smart, things make sense to common sense and it's just cool.
Now just to get to know the tons of widgets, get a grip on how to lay the out and I'll be good to go!
Oh, and a mindblower to say goodbye: who would have thought that ceil(x/y) would be any different from floor(x/y)+1? Anybody but me, apparently, but it cost me three hours' swearing...
After setting up a decent system to test the app on an actual tablet, there was a black window (covering a part of the screen only) and a crash comming soon. No widgets displayed whatsoever. Some google stuff finaled in
a) you need to state, what API versions and screen sizes you need for your app. Not a word about it in any tutorial (or maybe I was not an attent enough reader)
b) the Activity name is a path to the Activity class inside the app package. Sadly, the Netbeasn IDE plugin got it wrong (a dot missing, meaning "the Activity class is in the current package"). Yet another showstopper...
Well, I got there and it's working now! Now, Android development starts to look like real fun, with how Google designed the Android things. The system is real smart, things make sense to common sense and it's just cool.
Now just to get to know the tons of widgets, get a grip on how to lay the out and I'll be good to go!
Oh, and a mindblower to say goodbye: who would have thought that ceil(x/y) would be any different from floor(x/y)+1? Anybody but me, apparently, but it cost me three hours' swearing...
Friday, February 17, 2012
First, there was void...
Well, the thing is I am taking part in an experimental Java course where we are given Samsung Galaxy Tabs and learn to program them. Sounds like fun? Here, it does!
We also need to keep the world posted about our progress, which includes this blog. Never had one, but this might be the opportunity to get mankind to know me. Anyway, this post is here because it felt a bit awkward to leave the blog empty...
So, if anybody reads this, sorry for the 60 secs of your life!
We also need to keep the world posted about our progress, which includes this blog. Never had one, but this might be the opportunity to get mankind to know me. Anyway, this post is here because it felt a bit awkward to leave the blog empty...
So, if anybody reads this, sorry for the 60 secs of your life!
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