lambdasoup

Core Death Bell got multiple updates recently, the most imortant changes being:

• tracks blocks signaling Bitcoin Unlimited blocksize protocol
• shows 24 hours and 7 day average blockchain shares for Classic & Unlimited

Available for free on Google Play

Find the source (GPL) on GitHub

You can now get the FAB behavior shown in this post as a library. Go to the project on github to see the source, read the gradle instructions or file an issue. Comments are also well-liked on reddit or Google+!

There are already enhancements in place over the code as shown originally:

• No more performance penalty when using the behavior
• Behavior corrects snackbar handling, so both play well together now

Near future plan is to include proper handling of AppBarLayouts that do not collapse completely.

Edit: The code from this post became a library and got significant enhancements. It’s open source, so just look it up on github for the source code and instructions on using it as a gradle dependency.

Just want the goods without explanation? See this gist.

Picture a list view, with a Floating Action Button (FAB) sitting on it, like this:

The FAB needs to be able to move out of the way, so that all parts of all list items are actually reachable. Also, it is good form in this situation to have the app bar scroll out of the way, to maximise the viewport area dedicated to the list. There’s a well-known ready-made solution for this; it looks like this

and has two disadvantages:

• it does not visually sync up well with the leaving app bar - in contrast to the scrolling AppBarLayout, the animation is not linked to the actual scrolled distance, and to me, the hiding animation is distracting while I, as a user, am focused on scrolling the list
• it does not sync up with the leaving app bar by implementation - this solution does its listening on nested scroll events and subsequent processing on its own. Together with the snapping behavior of the AppBarLayout, this can lead to states where the app bar is expanded, but the FAB hidden. This does not bode well for confused users having no idea where the FAB has gone.

Here’s how to get the FAB to move in sync with the app bar.

QuickFit now features a beautiful wide layout, for use on tablets in landscape mode. See:

A post or two on how to implement this fabulous FAB behavior is to follow.

This release also fixes a bug; scheduled activities do now really get cleared by clicking on the notification and will not reappear together with the next alert.

QuickFit is free on Google Play, or be a beta tester

Find the source (Apache License 2.0) on GitHub

I’d be happy about feedback on reddit, or raise an issue on GitHub.

Taking screenshots for the play store is boring as hell: several locales, three form factors, setting up content data for the screenshots, possibly varying by locale… For the last release of QuickFit, I decided to automate.

What you get in this post

• a complete step-by-step description
• in a real project
• how to automate taking play store screenshots
• and simultanously increase your test coverage (or get started with some UI tests at all!)

And because UI tests are needed and a happy byproduct of the process, it comes with

• a very short introduction to Espresso
• a very short introduction to UiAutomator
• examples for testing RecyclerViews with Espresso
• examples for setting up test data

I’ll walk you through my journey on automating the screenshots for the QuickFit app. It’s open source, on github and on the play store.

QuickFit now allow scheduling workouts on a weekly repeating basis!

This update is all about taking even more thought and effort out of tracking workouts with Google Fit: Set up once when you plan doing your workouts, and then get reminded via a notification to actually do it, and to enter your session into Google Fit. The focus is still on delivering minimal UI that allows the user to get all needed information as fast as possible.

I’m learning Android development, and after hacking on Watchlater for a while, it was time for the first project completely of my own, that should also allow me to try my hand at some framework component that Watchlater simply had no use for. That project lies dormant on my HDD - while it taught me about the support library, material design and all about the service lifecycle, ultimately my goal of writing the IRC client I wanted was doomed from the start. The IRC protocol simply does not allow to identify users persistently, and so my goal of presenting query conversations on the same level as channels was unreachable. So QuickFit is the much better replacement project.

For me, using Google Fit is about logging my activity, looking at the calendar view and seeing a nice, high level and getting my daily pling. So walking and cycling gets tracked nicely automatically, but of course I want to enter my other workouts too. The Google Fit app can do this, but it is a bit of a long process: select the activity from the dropdown (easy, with the favorites), enter a time span, hit submit, get the “activity is in the future” message, go back, decide on some easy-to-enter start time that will work, hit submit again. That should be easier!

There was my perfect excuse for an app that allows me to:

• solve my problem
• try out using the Fit API using the Play Services library
• use some fully featured material design, with pretty RecyclerView and CoordinatorLayout and a FAB
• use Loader, ContentProvider and SyncAdapter
• do some proper persistence with sqlite
• and I have some great plans for the future

Available for free on Google Play, or be a beta tester

Find the source (Apache License 2.0) on GitHub

I’d be happy about feedback by mail, or raise an issue on GitHub.

Watch Later got another update:

• Adds a launcher activity, with explanation, example link for trying out and advice on defaults configuration.
• Adds settings (resetting default youtube account choice).
• Allows setting a default youtube account to always use.
• Deals with changes in YouTube Data API v3 (no more channels returned for accounts without channel).

Available for free on Google Play

Feedback welcome on Reddit

Find the source (GPL) on GitHub

Watch Later got an update:

• User interface improvements
• User can open added video directly for watching
• Bug fixes
• Support for Android 6.0 Marshmallow

Unfortunately, we did not have time yet to get around Android M’s AppLinks-Anti-Feature. There are some ideas, but no time right now.

Available for free on Google Play

Feedback welcome on Reddit

Find the source (GPL) on GitHub

I googled the following things so often that I will be lazy and put them on my site for easier retrieval:

Android debug keystore fingerprint

keytool -list -v -keystore ~/.android/debug.keystore -alias androiddebugkey -storepass android -keypass android

Source

Android emulator hardware acceleration

emulator -avd <avd_name> -qemu -m 512 -enable-kvm

Source

Android emulator mock GPS location

adb emu geo fix 121.4961236714487 31.24010934431376

Source