[Q] How do I customise a preference to display a time picker widget through XML - General Questions and Answers

Hey guys!
Firstly I'd like to say that I have only been working on Android for about a week now, so I guess you can consider me a newb! Therefore I apologise in advance if the solution is overly simple, but I can assure you that I have done my research before posting here, and haven't found an appropriate solution as of yet (or maybe I have and don't fully realise it!). Nonetheless, having lots of fun and just want to solve this problem and learn, so here goes...
The Application
The application I am developing is essentially a reminder service, and I am currently working on the preferences screen.
The Problem
I would like the user to be able to specifiy a time when he/she will be reminded daily. I want this selection to be done via the preferences screen. This is how my preferences screen looks so far...
[http]://img87.imageshack.us/img87/3129/preferencesm.png
My Question
Ideally, whenever the user selects the "Alarm Time" preference, I would like the following to appear
[http]://img580.imageshack.us/img580/2366/timepickerwidget.png
My question is, what is the best way to create this? I really want to keep all the visual aspects of the application using only XML, therefore I don't want a Java solution. Is this possible or am I completely off track? Other potential solutions I have heard of are using themes, alert dialogs and extending preference classes etc. Maybe some of these are correct, but I am unsure.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

Related

Software helping to change habits

Hi everyone,
I have a question, maybe a suggestion: I'm looking for software that helps in changing habits. Let me make on example: suppose your doctor told you to change your posture... you try to do it but after five minute you forget it and get back to your old habit. I bet everyone can come up with some personal examples were this would be useful (from learning lucid dreaming to.. I don't know.. acting friendlier.. )
I am looking for a software that simply lets my pocketpc vibrate in my pocket at random intervals. That's about all. The vibration would remind me to change the habit and no one else would notice.
Is there some software that might be used to do this? I actively searched for it but could not find anything remotely close. Some calendar app with some settings for random alerts?
Maybe you know some software that might accomplish this task... I bet other people would find this useful as well!!
Thanks, Slist

Basics on how to change themes

Sounds daft & I'm sure the infos here. I just want to change the theme on my GSM HTC Touch Pro. I know all the software & links are here on this site. It's just there's no 'this software is what you need & this is how you change your theme' info.
Thanks
LOL, ok, google free wm themes, download it and transfer the tsk file to your device. Then simply goto settings/today and select the theme you downloaded... no extra software needed.
try this site, it has THOUSANDS
http://www.portablethemes.com/
Just realised tho, you might be wanting to change you manila theme.... http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=470023 there are some themes on here
Thanks for the reply, what exactly in Manila & how do I use it. I've already seen lots of reference to it but don't actually know what it is.
I've uplodaed a few tsk & cab files & selected them in my today them menu but all I get are slight changes like different icon, I've manged to add a different wallpaper, but as soon as the touchflo starts, it's lost.
Getting there
Ta
halo1234 said:
Sounds daft & I'm sure the infos here. I just want to change the theme on my GSM HTC Touch Pro. I know all the software & links are here on this site. It's just there's no 'this software is what you need & this is how you change your theme' info.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh my goodness guys, the test is coming up and I don't know any of the answers. I know all the information to pass the test is in the books. But that would require me to actually read and study.
You guys have already read the books and studied. Can you just give me all the answers to the test, I really can't be bothered to actually read and study myself.
I'm sure the infos here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are right all the info is in the Touch Pro Forum.
I understand your point. However this is not an interest or hobby of mine. I'm just a guy who doesn't like how my screen phone looks. Once this is done I may never look at this again. In the 24 hours I have each day I have other things I have to do first & then all the hobbies & interests I have.
I had a look through the first 3-4 pages of this forum & then I tried a few searches. Found a few things, but not enough to fingure it all out.
I've ran out of time for this now really. I might try again when I get some spare time.
Thanks for your help.
search for Replacing/Changing TouchFLO3D skins/themes.
here's some basic help for you, halo (and some commentary)
denco7 said:
Oh my goodness guys, the test is coming up and I don't know any of the answers. I know all the information to pass the test is in the books. But that would require me to actually read and study.
You guys have already read the books and studied. Can you just give me all the answers to the test, I really can't be bothered to actually read and study myself.
You are right all the info is in the Touch Pro Forum.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is so right-on... and yet ... at the same time I respect the Original Poster's comment framing:
I understand your point. However this is not an interest or hobby of mine. I'm just a guy who doesn't like how my screen phone looks. Once this is done I may never look at this again. In the 24 hours I have each day I have other things I have to do first & then all the hobbies & interests I have.
I had a look through the first 3-4 pages of this forum & then I tried a few searches. Found a few things, but not enough to fingure it all out.
I've ran out of time for this now really. I might try again when I get some spare time.
Thanks for your help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And because i think it's valid to have people want to utilize great resources here at XDA, yet not have to immerse themselves totally into weeks of XDA Culture in order to do so, I hope this helps the Original Poster. (see Commentary further below my effort to help halo1234)
=================
halo1234: Some Overview Help. It may or may not help your specific request:
1. IF you are running a version of the "TouchFlo" interface as the primary finger-controllable navigation tool,
then here's what you need to know:
2. "Manila" is the name of the interface system that HTC (phone maker) introduced which allowed the bottom-of-the-screen left-to-right finger-slider navigation system. That term, Manila, is synonymous with "TouchFLO 2D" ... and it took days for me to finally "get" that linkage. Later, HTC introduced what they considered a "new & improved" navigation system called "TouchFLO 3D" ... but many people here at XDA consider that its added eye-candy and transition effects were no real added-value. Thus most people here prefer the "TouchFLO 2D" navigation theme.
The prior "favorite naivgation scheme" was called "HTC Home" -- and one can debate their personal preference. I consider TouchFLO 2D to be miles beyond "HTC Home" in terms of a user-friendly navigation system and interface.
3. How to modify a "TouchFLO 2D" interface: M2DC utility
This has actually been made super easy thanks to the work of an XDA-developer who created a customization tool called "M2DC" -- which stands for Manilla TouchFLO 2D Customizer. It consolidates about 100 controllable factors for modifying themes:
Background images, tab systems and icon systems, font colors and sizes and faces, many other things.
SEARCH here for "M2DC" and you will quickly find it. DOwnload it and install it. Once you have M2DC installed (AND YOU SHOULD DONATE GENEROUSLY TO THE SOFTWARE AUTHOR OF THIS GREAT UTILITY!), then it creates a THEME folder. And various designers of themes here at XDA have used the author's file-format which packs all the elements for a particular theme change into an .m2dt file (m2d theme)
4. Find some themes you like, prefer:
XDA user KidnamedAlbert has a consolidated thread here at XDA which does nothing except show people's themes they have created and have made available to you to download for installation onot your phone, IF you are running one of the "TouchFLO 2D" Roms. Here. People who design themes package them in one of two ways: (a) as an .m2dt file which can be dropped into the M2D2 "Themes" folder on your device... or (b) as a .zip file which has all the graphic pieces for that theme, along with an .xml file which composes all these elements into a theme. I suggest you use (a).
5. Launch the M2DC utility; find the theme file you just inserted into its theme folder. Then follow the wizards "next steps" of the M2DC utility. NOTE: it is highly recommended that you find the bottom tab of that utlitity called "Backup" or "Restore" (i cant recall which). There you can Backup all the custom settings and files you have adjusted, and M2DC saves them for later restoration.
6. Top-bar and bottom-bar of the screen:
These are, generally, separate elements from the whole "TouchFLO" or Manila theme. You can search for these separately on this site. Search for .tsk files .These control the color scheme and gradient-quality of the top and bottom bars on the screen. After you find ones you want to try, then the way you implement these is:
(a) copy, or place, the .tsk file(s) you want to try into the \Windows folder of your device. Use "File Explorer" for this, to show the directory structure of the files on your phone.
(b) then, to access and switch between those .tsk themes, go to: Start > Settings > Personal > and find the "Today" icon. "Today" is the setting you will be changing. You'll now see in the left-hand box on that page the names of all the .tsk files you just loaded into the Windows directory of your phone. Now you select the one you want to try, click "OK" at the top-right of the screen, and in a second or two, the top-bar and bottom-bar will change. If you like, keep it. if not, try another.
7. Now, all I ask from you is this:
Tell me: Did these instructions help you. Or not. It's okay if the answer is "they did not". I just want to know, so please reply either way. Thanks and good luck.
=================
My Commentary re the Complexity of This Site's information design:
The truth is, XDA comprises an incredible, 2nd-to-none, knowledge base and dedicated developer community, and yet, because of those 2 things, the site is so sprawling and dense that even with using SEARCH and reading Sticky Threads and following links to HOW-TO's, and Newbie Guides, it takes weeks sometimes, just to assemble and/or decode some basic answers. That's a sign that even with the flexible & powerful hierarchical structure of prob the best forum software out there (vBulletin), nevertheless, there is a baseline INFORMATION DESIGN PROBLEM here.
It's not an easy solve by any means. But just for the record, I am taking on that task, since my area of professional specialty is Information Architectire and Customer Usability.
/qs
he was talking about the Touch Pro.. that is not M2D.. but TF3D
for M2D i've written a guide in the guides thread in the Q&A section..
nir36 said:
he was talking about the Touch Pro.. that is not M2D.. but TF3D
for M2D i've written a guide in the guides thread in the Q&A section..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Excellent stuff you've assembled & written. I really value those kinds of guides. Thanks. So i guess the answer to my #7 will be: nope, sorry, i am not using M2D... hah hah, well i had a good time wasting my time writing it up!
No not a waste of time. I read through your post & becasue you spent some time & effort on my post & decided to try again. So 2, 4 & 6 were useful, plus a few other links. Evetually I found some easy .cab files that worked without a problem from the Rapheal section & it's all working fine now.
If you hadnt bothered to respond I wouldn't of had another go, so it was worth it for me! Your right this forum is by far the largest I've useds & with so many variants of product & methods it's easy to get lost. My issue was that I new what I needed, but didn't know why or how.
Thanks
Peter
halo1234 said:
No not a waste of time. I read through your post & becasue you spent some time & effort on my post & decided to try again. So 2, 4 & 6 were useful, plus a few other links. Evetually I found some easy .cab files that worked without a problem from the Rapheal section & it's all working fine now.
If you hadnt bothered to respond I wouldn't of had another go, so it was worth it for me! Your right this forum is by far the largest I've useds & with so many variants of product & methods it's easy to get lost. My issue was that I new what I needed, but didn't know why or how.
Thanks
Peter
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey I am really glad you got some value from it. And that you found a solution overall for your Raphael. I'll tell you the OTHER value from it: I hadn't even known of nir36's outstanding GUIDES til he referenced them here. So there are multiple outcomes from asking questions. And I could spot that in your case you weren't the more typical "I need this now, i don't have time to look, so could someone just email me the answer?" user who parachutes into XDA-Developers forum land and expects to be handheld for their specific request.
There's a continuum here of what new users ask for -- and thus I think it would be way more realistic for some veteran members here to sometimes see new user questions from the ground level of someone coming into this land of knowledge and, as you sort of said, not even knowing how to frame the question, since the density of information is sometimes impenetrable, and just frame it out for a new user, vs just the standard reply to read read read read read.
As an information designer, I have never ever understood the impulse of some early-adopter people who have had to dig dig dig and read read read to finally pioneer the understandings and piece-together solutions to complex questions, to then want others who follow to work as hard at it as they did. My philosophy is build a better gateway to the knowledge storage, vs chastising people for using the wrong entrance.
For sure it's a 2-way street, and there are hundreds-a-day justifiable reasons for frustrations from knowledge-holders seeing the level of laziness and entitlement coming from the OTHER end of the new user spectrum. They give human beings a bad name
P.S. -- people hate my philosophy comments on a tech-board. I know. I don't try to be verbose, but I know it drives some people batty. In which case, sorry !
hah, i actually like these.

[REQ] Showing the day of the week on WM 6.5 taskbar & also on cclock panel

Hi,
This is the first time for me to post a Request, and since my Samsung Intrepid isn't on the list below, I'm posting here. I hope it's not out of order, if it is, then Admin please do not delete, but just move it to the appropriate place and email me as to new location.
I'm running Titanium, and one thing I've been looking for high and low, on this and other forums, is an app that allows me to put the day of the week, in addition to time & date on the taskbar.
Haven't found one yet, which is surprising. Anyone know of one that'd work on Titanium WM 6.5, or can create one?
I'd also like to be able to put the day of the week on the cclock panel on the Today screen, or else have a separate panel that shows time, date, day of week.
Now, I know you can alter the .cpr file, BUT unfortunately I'm not a developer, and don't know what to put in the Titanium xxxx.cpr's at the various resolutions. Also, I'm rather nervous about experimenting here, since these files are in the ROM, and if I screw up my phone in the process, my warranty may be voided.
So, to make a long story short, I'd just like to be able to install another panel, or whatever, something like a Titanium plugin, like notifications, that I can install/uninstall w/o touching the ROM.
Again, I'm rather surprised there isn't anything like these apps to place the day of the week on the taskbar & Today screen. And leave it to MSFT to leave something like this out, ESP since they had it for the previous WM OS's. 8(
Well, that's why I'm posting here. The Xda forum is an invaluable resource, and I've learned a lot lurking and reading thru some of the incredibly long threads.
Any help for my 2 requests would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
No response?
I'm surprised there isn't any response or interest.
Well, I found battclock, Zuinige's excellent program, to take care of the day on
the taskbar, but nothing for on the Titanium Today screen.
There is canalog clock, but it's way too big fot my blackberry sized screen on my wm samsung intrepid.
I was hoping someone would have some suggestions, or maybe develop a cclock panel alternative not as huge as canalog, or digital like cclock with thday and date thrown in.
I found coding suggestions for modifying the titanium.cpr, but they're all different and 2 are for the Hero, so that's a deadend.
I know there are a lot of developers on this board; I'm just surprised no one's come up with an "enhanced" cclock.
Anyway, just a request, if anyone'd care to help. Thanks

[Q] Noob needs help to create event calendar app

Hi all,
I'm a noob app developer trying to do it for the first time. I'm trying to create an event calendar app for company's internal purposes. So that everyone in the company (which uses a lot of android phones) can be updated on company events that are coming up.
My approach is to create a database with MySQL for events input, and to use PHP to connect the database which is in a server and to push it to the android devices that are used in the office as that's how I found it in a tutorial from HelloAndroid.
My questions are:
1. is this the best approach to create such app?
2. Can I use Android's default calendar to input these events? if not is there some kind of calendar template that I can use to display the information to the users.
Probably will have more questions as I progress, but please help if anyone is more experienced in these matters than I am.
Thank you very much, and really appreciate the inputs that I'm gonna get
A simple solution would be to use Google Calendar.
By using GC you can add/edit events either from a PC (work or home) or your Mobile anywhere in the World.
All that is required is for someone to first set up the calendar on Google and push it out to all those who you want to see it.
This way you are not isolating anyone who does not have an Android Phone.
that's a really good point. Especially in a closed environment like an office. I didn't think of that before. THank you very much.
However, if let's say I want to try to build an app for that for public use, not just confined to limited numbers of people in a company.
Would that be the best approach or if there's any better way to approach it. I may decide to build the app after all just to learn and gain experience in app development.
thanks again for the feedback, really appreciate it.
I can't really give you advice on developing an App sorry.
All I can say is the method I mention is the one which I use to keep all my Operational Team (Surgeons/Doctors/Nurses/Admin/etc) updated and advised.
There's nothing short in you developing your own Calendar App but you would have to ensure it would be available to all and that includes anyone anywhere regardless of the fact they are at work, home, holiday, with Android or not, have a Phone, PC, Mac, etc... etc...
For that there's already a stable tool by the name of Google Calendar.
If you do develop one I'd still be interested in seeing what ideas you could bring into practice that would have a benefit over GC.
I understand your point of view, and actually you got me thinking, maybe if I really want to do the apps, I can create an app that calls the Gcalendar events, and display it from the app. I can find out the API to do that, and that would be much simpler.
Thank you again for your input, really appreciate i
racdyn said:
I understand your point of view, and actually you got me thinking, maybe if I really want to do the apps, I can create an app that calls the Gcalendar events, and display it from the app. I can find out the API to do that, and that would be much simpler.
Thank you again for your input, really appreciate i
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No problem.... I wish you well on your venture.
Do please let us all know how you get on.. You never know, if it becomes that good I may even use it myself over the stock calendar App or any of the other's that already link to GC.

[Q] security for android - beginner friendly how to?

hi all!
please note: i am nothing near a professional user or even coder! i rooted my phone and i install custom roms on it, and thats about it. in addition to that i am concerned about my privacy. for me it started with the LBE Privacy Guard from the play store, it was quite nice until it stopped working, and made my phone stuck in a boot loop...
i have read and searched a lot of stuff before i decided to write this. but i havent found an easy and understandable how to. maybe that is because there no easy way to this. please go easy on me if there is already a thread for this...
i just installed openpdroid on my samsung galaxy s+ (i9001) and that is just because user bululu has made a patch for the rom i am using (cm10.1 from user davidteri) - thanks to both of them! i installed the patch with cwm (clockworkmod) and afterwards i was wondering there is no privacy setting in my menu or anything that would let me set up permissions. but from all the stuff i was reading before i figured i will need some kind of gui (not sure this is the right word - that goes for most of the stuff, but please correct me where u can, i will try and learn) so i installed 'pdroid manager' from the play store. that would finally let me set permissions for the apps! so far, so good. i am now using openpdroid...
should be all good at this point u might think, but this is where my questions begin ^^ f.ex:
is this the best solution atm? are there more solutions? what are the differences? what can u recommend?
furthermore i try to figure out how to encrypt email on android. most things i read point to k9 mail and using agp (or apg? is this the same?). i did some research on that topic an it seems to be the 'android privacy guard'. more questions here too...
it seems to be out of development, since the last changes are from 25.12.2010. is there a newer alternative for that or something i missed? or maybe it is still the thing to use or it is quite finished in its current state?!? but i dont wanna clog my device with old or unsupported software until i am 99% sure on what to do...
so basically i am asking if there is a nice and user friendly (with images) 'how to' for this kind of stuff i was just missing or is it just impossible (at the current state) to do such thing? if both answers are 'no' i'd like to start something like that, of course with your help that is...
because it seems the info i found is not coherent, its all bits and pieces one needs to bring together (in the right order and with compatible software). at least thats what it feels like for me as non-professional user and linux noob. i have no problem with puzzling stuff together but i also would like to help others who would like to do increase their security and get different opinions on whats the best way to do some things...
so if any of u got an opinion to any of the above please let me know! and help or links would be greatly appreciated! lets see if we can bring some things together and make our devices, our communication and our data more secure! and please note: this should not be device specific, my device and rom was just for information and for better understanding my starting point. this should be as broadly defined and open minded as possible. so everybody could partake and make use of it...
thanks for reading!
kind regards
bad1080

Categories

Resources