Daily Learnings

Flutter BottomAppBar widget

2019-02-05T12:25:00.003-08:00

Want to learn about how to implement bottom navigation in Flutter app that can run on Android and iOS seamless ? Checkout my article here.

Flutter AppBar widget recipe

2019-02-03T12:02:00.002-08:00

Checkout my article on Flutter AppBar widget recipe here.

Flutter code recipe for Hero animation

2019-02-02T07:17:00.001-08:00

Checkout my latest post on Flutter code recipe for Hero animation here.

Flutter code recipe for AnimatedOpacity widget

2019-02-02T07:16:00.000-08:00

Checkout my latest post on Flutter code recipe for AnimatedOpacity widget here.

Designing UX of EdOnGo WebApp

2017-12-28T00:36:00.002-08:00

In this post I’ll be describing my experience designing EdOnGo web app.

Week #1: Defining Mission

Motivation

As a parent to young children myself, I needed a way to cultivate learning from everyday things all around us waiting to be explored ! I wished if there were a way I could make my own flashcards to review with my kids anywhere on the go; and EdOnGo web app was born !

Android Model-View-Presenter (MVP) Design Pattern

2017-07-13T22:42:00.000-07:00

Checkout my post on Android Model-View-Presenter (MVP) Design Pattern here

Requesting Audio permission at Runtime

2017-06-20T23:26:00.001-07:00

Check out how to implement runtime permissions for an Audio recorder sample app in this post.

Getting started with developing Android Apps in Kotlin

2017-06-18T22:17:00.002-07:00

Kotlin is official language for Android Apps development. Checkout my post about Getting started with developing Android apps in Kotlin.

Scheduling Repeating Local Notifications using Alarm Manager

2017-06-16T14:49:00.004-07:00

Learn about Scheduling Repeating Local Notifications using Alarm Manager in this post.

Adding Menu Items in Navigation Drawer Dynamically

2017-06-16T14:47:00.000-07:00

Checkout my post about Adding Menu Items in Navigation Drawer Dynamically here.

How did I integrated a launcher screen in an Android App under 5 minutes

2017-06-16T14:42:00.002-07:00

Checkout my latest blog post about Android App Launcher Screen here.

Starting and Stopping Jenkins on Mac OS X

2017-04-06T13:14:00.000-07:00

Stopping Jenkins on Mac OSX:

sudo launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.jenkins-ci.plist

Starting Jenkins on Mac OS X:

sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.jenkins-ci.plist

Why Butterknife doesn't work for Android Libraries

2017-03-10T11:58:00.000-08:00

Have you tried using Butterknife library to bind Android's xml views for an Android library ? And ran into dreaded this error message:

Attribute must be constant

You're not alone ! Many people like myself tried using wonderful Butterknife in their Android Libraries like they do in their regular phone and tablet projects. Actually, Butterknife is not intended to be used for Android libraries project because R class in library project is not final.

Here's the explanation from Jake himself:

Values on the R class are not final in library modules which makes this library unusable on those modules. This is a limitation of Java, and something this library has decided not to work around. See #2.

[UPDATE]
Recent version of Butterknife library (8.5.1) supports library projects as well. Checkout out this link to configure library projects to start using Butterknife in your library projects as well.

How did I publish Android Library to JCenter from Android Studio

2017-01-09T12:20:00.003-08:00

JCenter is a Maven Repository or file server hosted by Bintray for Android libraries. It’s a default repository for Android Studio. I wrote this post to log my experience with open sourcing an Android Library on JCenter.

Checkout my detailed post on Medium or at my techLog.

WebViewOverlay Widget Android Library

2017-01-09T12:16:00.001-08:00

I needed a widget that can load a url in WebView in a full-screen closable overlay/modal. I wanted to re-use this new, shiny widget in my other projects as well. So, I decided to upload WebViewOverlay library in a central artifact repository. I chose JCenter because its one of the largest artifact repository for Java and Android libraries and has good integration with Android Studio IDE.

Checkout my detailed Medium post or at my techLog.

WebViewHelper Library in Android

2016-12-16T15:53:00.000-08:00

Recently, I've fiddling around a long lived Widget in Android "WebViews". I created a open source library WebView Helper to help with automatic URL validations and connivence methods to enable and disable JavaScript in a WebView. Don't forget to checkout out this post.

Source code is available on Github here.

RecyclerView sample code examples

2016-09-13T13:05:00.003-07:00

If you're looking for sample code to get started with RecyclerView in Android, then this post is for you !

Here's link to my github repo to demonstrate Linear and Grid Layout using RecyclerView.

Convert Canvas into Bitmap and Saving image in Gallery

2016-07-29T14:41:00.004-07:00

Have you ever thought of drawing something on Canvas and sharing it with others ? If yes, then this post is for you :)

So, you know that you can draw your stuff on a Canvas view. If you want to share your work with others, you may want to save it as an image. This post shows how to convert a Canvas view into a bitmap. First "Play" menu-item will show a programmatically drawn text on canvas view. "Save" icon will save it in gallery as well as in external SD card.

Details:

First create Custom View called MyCanvas class:

package com.teach.mycanvasapp;

import android.content.Context;
import android.graphics.Canvas;
import android.graphics.Color;
import android.graphics.Paint;
import android.view.View;

public class MyCanvas extends View {
    public MyCanvas(Context context) {
        super(context);
        // TODO Auto-generated constructor stub    }

    @Override    protected void onDraw(Canvas canvas) {
        // TODO Auto-generated method stub        super.onDraw(canvas);
        Paint pBackground = new Paint();
        pBackground.setColor(Color.WHITE);
        canvas.drawRect(0, 0, 512, 512, pBackground);
        Paint pText = new Paint();
        pText.setColor(Color.BLACK);
        pText.setTextSize(20);
        canvas.drawText("This is a sample canvas image", 100, 100, pText);
    }
}

Second, reference MyCanvas from MainActivity class to show it inside ImageView. I've two menu-items, one is for showing the bitmap and another is to take save action :

package com.teach.mycanvasapp;

import android.graphics.Bitmap;
import android.graphics.Canvas;
import android.graphics.drawable.BitmapDrawable;
import android.media.MediaScannerConnection;
import android.net.Uri;
import android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.util.Log;
import android.view.Menu;
import android.view.MenuItem;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.ImageView;

import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.OutputStream;

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {

    ImageView imageView = null;

    @Override    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
    }

    @Override    public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
        getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.menu, menu);
        return true;
    }

    @Override    public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
        int id = item.getItemId();

        if (id == R.id.show_canvas) {
            View v = new MyCanvas(getApplicationContext());
            Bitmap bitmap = Bitmap.createBitmap(500/*width*/, 500/*height*/, Bitmap.Config.ARGB_8888);
            Canvas canvas = new Canvas(bitmap);
            v.draw(canvas);
            imageView = (ImageView) findViewById(R.id.imageView);
            imageView.setImageBitmap(bitmap);
            return true;
        } else if (id == R.id.save_canvas) {
            saveImageToGallery();
            return true;
        }

        return super.onOptionsItemSelected(item);
    }

    public void saveImageToGallery() {
        Bitmap bitmap = ((BitmapDrawable)imageView.getDrawable()).getBitmap();

        //Writing image to SD card.        //It could also be saved to internal storage.        // That way, we don't need to have extra permissions        File dir = new File("/sdcard/tempfolder/");

        try {
            if (!dir.exists()) {
                dir.mkdirs();
            }

            File output = new File(dir, "tempfile.jpg");
            if (!output.exists())
                output.createNewFile();

            OutputStream os = null;
            os = new FileOutputStream(output);
            bitmap.compress(Bitmap.CompressFormat.JPEG, 100, os);
            os.flush();
            os.close();

            //Scans image and save it in gallery            MediaScannerConnection.scanFile(this, new String[] { output.toString() }, null,
                    new MediaScannerConnection.OnScanCompletedListener() {
                        public void onScanCompleted(String path, Uri uri) {
                            Log.d("Test", "Image saved in gallery!");
                        }
                    }
            );
        } catch (Exception e) {
            Log.d("Test", "Exception: " + e.getMessage());
        }
    }
}

Here's link to the github repo: https://github.com/ptyagi911/MyCanvasApp

Safe Installing from Web on Mac OSX

2016-07-25T13:14:00.000-07:00

Step 1: You should have md5 tool setup to verify installer/file downloaded from web.

brew install md5sha1sum

Step 2: Check downloaded file like this:

md5sum <path-to-file-to-be-verified>

Android Studio: Files to keep in version control

2016-06-27T09:22:00.000-07:00

Here's list of files that should be kept under version control like Git:

compiler.xml
encodings.xml
modules.xml
*.ipr : Contains project related data.

File to be included in gitignore OR not to be kept under version control:

workspace.xml
*.iws : Contains user specific data.

Tinkering with Physical Web (Android)

2016-06-17T11:36:00.002-07:00

How to convert a device into beacon (Device 1)

Install Beacon Toy application on device that you want to convert/use as beacon.
Enable data (wifi or cellular and bluetooth on this device)
Configure URL in Beacon Toy application. You also have option to choose to get a short url.
I'm using my blog's url for this testing purpose.

How to enable physical web on your device (Device 2)

Enable data, location and bluetooth
Open Chrome and turn on Physical Web

Chrome --> Settings --> Privacy --> Physical Web

Download Physical Web app from Play Store.
Open Physical Web app.

It'll start scanning all the nearby beacons.
It'll pick up Device 1's transmitted url and open my blog :)

Tinkering with Firebase: Notifications

2016-06-14T10:46:00.003-07:00

Here are quick steps/tips to integrate Firebase notifications in your client app:

AndroidManifest :

<application>
.....
.....
    <service        android:name=".MyFirebaseMessagingService">
        <intent-filter>
            <action android:name="com.google.firebase.MESSAGING_EVENT"/>
        </intent-filter>
    </service>
    
    <service        android:name=".MyFirebaseInstanceIdService">
        <intent-filter>
            <action android:name="com.google.firebase.INSTANCE_ID_EVENT"/>
        </intent-filter>
    </service>
    
</application>

app/build.gradle:

dependencies {
    compile 'com.google.firebase:firebase-messaging:9.0.2'}

//Make sure to apply it at the end of the file
apply plugin: 'com.google.gms.google-services'

Project level build.gradle:

dependencies {
    classpath 'com.google.gms:google-services:3.0.0'
}

New Classes:

class MyFirebaseMessagingService extends FirebaseMessagingService:

This is where notifications rendering is handled.

Method responsible for message handling:

@Overridepublic void onMessageReceived(RemoteMessage remoteMessage) {}

class MyFirebaseInstanceIdService extends FirebaseInstanceIdService

This class is useful in getting the device token. This token is used if you want to send message to that particular device.
This token can be collected: FirebaseInstanceId.getInstance().getToken() during app initialization.

Firebase console:

Go to Firebase Console to configure notifications: https://console.firebase.google.com/project/<projectId>/notification
Configure and start send notifications !

Side Notes:

You app should be signed setup for using Firebase by generating and copying google-services.json under your app/ folder.
You'll get opportunity to download google-services.json while configuring your Firebase Notifications via Firebase Console.
New SHA can be added from Setting tabs under chosen project.

How to keep Multi-Dex issue away !

2016-06-13T15:06:00.000-07:00

Tip 1: Always keep an check on library's method count using these two tools:

Tip 2: Use Proguard for debug builds as well.

Configuring gradle plug-in:

Global build.gradle:

classpath 'com.getkeepsafe.dexcount:dexcount-gradle-plugin:0.5.0'

Local : app/build.gradle

apply plugin: 'com.android.library'

//AFTER android or library pluginapply plugin: 'com.getkeepsafe.dexcount'

References:

http://jeroenmols.com/blog/2016/05/06/methodcount

Rx-Android sample code

2016-04-08T14:16:00.002-07:00

There's lots of fuss around Rx/functional programming these day. I wanted to learn by doing, but couldn't find any simple example code to get me started. There're plenty of information for advanced programmers, but nothing basic. So I'm sharing a very simple sample app that uses Rx-Android to do the same thing that an AsyncTask would do. Checkout README for more details.

Source code is here: https://github.com/ptyagi911/rx-android-examples

Super Simple example code for Android Fragment

2016-04-08T14:12:00.001-07:00

Looking for easy to follow code to understand Fragments in Android ? You're at right place ! Checkout this sample code in github: https://github.com/ptyagi911/android-fragments-example