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Forum responses (None or too complicated)

Hello everybody on XDA developers,
I found a lot of useful information on this site, don't get me wrong BUT.
More and more I'm getting under the impression that new topics often get no or little replay because the user is either a newbie or he asked a question which has been asked before. Now, I'm no newbie although I'm not an expert either. I asked several questions and the responses are poor.
There is so much information (most of the time too complicated for non computer specialists) that it is often easier to launch a new topic. However, if one doesn't talk or know about, changing .nbf files, writing Batch files replacing HimaUpgradeUT.exe files and only God knows what else, you get little or no response.
The day somebody asks me, in some aviation forum, about the pressure changes in a JET engine which is going from SUBSONIC to SUPERSONIC flight or the aerodynamic effects on a helicopter rotor which is going into autorotation or other pilot related stuff, will get an answer adapted to his knowledge so he will understand what I'm saying. What else is the use of a forum?
Maybe XDA-developers should add a forum for the "less gifted" in the Forum index.
Anyway, Happy New Year to all of you.

well maybe if the problem is that the specialists have little patience or problems transfering their knowlage into something mear humans can understand the new forum would just have a pile of unanswered threads
i think the problem you address are really 2 problems
1
general pocketpc questions mainly i think from people who are used to cellphones and cant call themselfs superusers on normal pc's they need it explained in a cellphone kinda way. these are questions like
how do i make IE stop displaying pictures and stuff like that
2
people who dont really know that much about complex stuff like changing their rom and manualy intering all the grps settings, in the new rom
and adding things to their extented rom and such
these people often would mostly benefit from a guide with pictures and possible a list of the most used cellphone company settings

I'm not sure I understand your first point, but I do agree on your second one.
Now we only need someone with lots of time and motivation to make such guidelines with step by step instructions and pictures...
Greetings

[Q] How to get the ball moving on becoming an app developer

Hey guys,
I realize this might not be a correct section but there's not a Q&A section on android as a whole. I've had a G1 since it's release date, and since then am now on a vibrant, so i've experienced Android for a considerable amount of time. Over this time, I've flashed a lot of roms, and used a lot of mods that come through these forums. I'd say I have well above average knowledge on android and how to utilize the devices to their fullest potential over anyone who simply buys a phone and uses it.
That said, I've become interested in taking this passion to a new level and joining app, and maybe even ROM developers in the future. Now I know there's a lot to read on these forums about particular problems and solutions, but I'm looking for direction on where I can find sources to kind of introduce me to app development and explain the Android OS on a much deeper level, whether it be a huge guide, website, whatever. I want to take this head on and not half ass so simply searching through the forums for thousands of things just doesn't seem like the most efficient way to truly understand how everything comes together as a whole on app development. Truthfully, I really don't know any details on the process of signing up etc etc. It's also not like I can look up a class to take (which I would actually prefer) so I can really get a grasp and not have to come crying to these forums every time something tedious gets in my way, ya know?
So any app devs, I'd greatly appreciate any guidance to how you got started. I'm not a total geek by nature so it's not like I really understand things that some people might call common sense about linux/android. Whether you copy and paste a link, or give me some advice, I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks guys.

droid / forum newbie

ive had a droid for a month or so. i was a big blackberry guy and have heard all the great things about droid so i used my upgrade for a droidx. ive been told this is the forum to really get the most out of you droid. i am semi literate with this phone (not nearly as much so as my blackberry) but won't the most out of it ... how should i start, what should i do / download. i want a fast different look that my otr droid friends will be envious of
thanks for the help
new member,
jgo113

Hi, welcome to the forum!
It can be massively overwhelming for new users here to know what is acheivable and what isn't, especially if you're not too familiar with the OS on the device you are using.
I would suggest getting to know the forum and learning which sections are relevant to you first. Browse around for a while and read some guides. What really helped me was to focus on the 'Post your Home Screen', screenshot type threads where people showed what they had done with their own phones. This way you can see what is acheivable and start leaning how to get there yourself.
FAQ/Guides/Wiki stickies are a good resource and are found in most of the forums.

Well for starters decide if you want to root your phone or not - read about what's that about, how does it "liberate" your device (AND YOU) from the tyranny of evil phone produces, just how badly you can break your device (the warnings), etc. After that you can begin trying different ROMs (custom firmwares) for your device, until you find the one, that suits your needs. Then learn BASH and begin writing scripts, hacking the living hell out of your device...
...or just use a custom "launcher" app, if you literally want your phone to look different. You can find some at the Market.
PS: Either way remember, the search bar is your friend. Before posting check if anybody has asked the same question - at least 95% of cases you'll find more about your problem/question, just by searching.

[Q] Is it possible to install android on a phone that doesn't have it?

I know this question should be obvious but I am not a developer so I don't know for sure. I am wanting to get a lg 800g for my dad and put android on it. The os it has on it looks like android but it isn't. I was wondering if it would be possible to put android on it so the phone could be more compatible possibly.

The most likely answer is 'no'. The device doesn't appear to be nearly powerful enough to support Android. Even if it were, you'd need massive community support to port Android over, and it doesn't appear that that exists for this device.
To answer your subject-line question more generally, in the vast majority of cases, this is not possible. The rare exceptions usually involve devices that use derivatives of Android, like the Nook Color.

We have great android ports on our hp touchpad including cm7 and miui . I'd say this device definitely would not be easy, but hey, its android so you never know what magic will happen. I hope you are able to find a community of people willing to help you with that phone. Not sure what kind of experience you have, but why not see where you can get on a port for yourself and then ask some recognized developers what direction you need to head. If you paid, im sure a few devs would do it for you

Please use the Q&A Forum for questions Thanks
Moving to Q&A

[Q] how can i help and get involved?

i want to get involved in the community and help bring great things to this device and any other that i can. i have a degree in computer information systems, do systems imaging, and know enough to get by, tweak, and customize, but linux was never taught to me . it is pretty straight forward. i understand the concept, language, and most of the commands, but i am not a programmer by trade. i do know that you don't even have to actually know a lot of languages because, in many cases, there is another program that you can tell what you want to happen and it will write the base language for you. if somebody can point me in the right direction and/or give me a task to help them with, i would love to do so.
thank you
don't mean to sound ignorant. just wanna help.

That's a fantastic attitude, and welcome to the doubleshot forums.
The MT4G Slide Compendium is a sticky at the top of general here, and is a great starting point to familiarize yourself with the doubleshot forums. It has links to a lot of the relevant threads scattered around here, as well as some explanations of terminology and so forth. It's designed to help orient you with everything we have going on here.
Here is a link to my Guide Index, which is a collection of tutorials and such i've put here and is also in my sig. The bottom of the post has links to a lot of information about the device off-site, manufacturer and so forth.
One of the best things you can do if you aren't contributing code is to contribute documentation. How to do basically anything you want to do is spread out all over XDA as a whole. If information can be referenced and concentrated here into the MT4GS sub-forums, it would make it easier for people to develop for the device.
Not having to scour XDA at large to figure out how to do something, and someone taking the time to explain how to do it here and provide links to track down more information is always helpful.
I know in searching XDA to learn how to do these things, it's been helpful for others to have been making summaries and guides on how to do them - sharing it here paves the way for others who come behind you and want to learn how to do what you're learning.
And if you aren't interested in posting guides on how to do the things you've learned, then just taking the time to answer questions people ask on the board about the device if you know the answer is a way to be helpful. The longer you hang out here, the more you learn, and the people coming behind you are curious too.
The longer you hang out here, too, you come to learn where information is and in what threads - you can direct newer people by answering questions with links to the relevant threads or posts since you already know what they are. It only takes a few minutes to track down the information if you have a good idea of where it is.
Because XDA is pretty much where we figure out a lot of the new stuff, the board grows randomly, and information gets scattered with pieces here and there in threads to solve problems and such. When people ask questions you can link to the scattered pieces and by doing so it helps index everything we are learning.
Basically, the desire to help is all that you need and these are some ways people can do so without in-depth technical knowledge. You're probably combing the boards learning things anyway, so when people have similar questions explaining what you know helps us all.
We all have different ways of learning, so sharing how you did can teach others new methods and ways of doing beyond just how to do the specific thing itself.
It sounds like you are as excited about all this as some of us are here, and with a device like the doubleshot in your hands I don't blame you.
Any questions just ask, as long as you aren't posting random questions in the dev sections it's all good.
Once again, welcome to the MT4GS forums, you'll have a blast with us here.
Edit:
Kernel stuff is in C flavor language, Android stuff itself is mostly Java, and if you don't have the program Notepad-plus-plus you should pick that up for making mostly all of your general coding edits on the computer with.

Thank you. I am excited. My first device that I toyed with was an htc leo 1024 (us), so I had an edasy entry into the world just because there are so many resources available for it. I will start by posting a couple of guides about things that I know were difficult to grasp/follow when I first started. Thank you very much for the directions and taking the time to post them and reply to me. Time to study...
Sent from my myTouch_4G_Slide using XDA App

That's fantastic.
This is my second Android device, first phone - the other one is a Nook Color.
Much like how you say having a lot of dev interest in the device you came from helped you (and man, does it ever) the advantage the Nook Color had was it's unbrickable. It boots from the MicroSD first, before internal memory, and you can run a self-contained copy of Android from the MicroSD card.
I got a chance to break it in so many different ways, (who needs a build.prop ... let's just delete that) and all I had to do was pop out the memory card and flash a fresh copy of CM7 onto it.
The internal memory is still the stock Barnes & Noble skinned operating system, hasn't been rooted or anything, yet I was still able to get the full-on Android experience in a safe play zone.
Coming to this phone, it's taught me ahead of time what I can and can't mess with before bad things start to happen, and it's a lot easier to play with this stuff if you know where the lines are. The ones you get in trouble if you cross.
It really wasn't until I got my hands on this device that I started to get into a lot of dev work on Android - but now i'm having an absolute blast with it and this device is pretty impressive.
I can't wait to read about what tricks you've picked up along the way, i'm always looking for an opportunity to be educated. Take some time and see what we've got laid out here, in some cases you may be able to add to existing threads instead of making new ones for duplicate topics.
The MT4GS is what, 6 months old now? We'll keep getting more people in here as they come to their upgrades or get warrantied up to this device. I'm eagerly awaiting more devs to end up in our corner of the forums, i'm curious to see what kind of cool things people can make the device do.
The more information we have organized and mapped out about the device and how to do things with it, the easier it gets for people who come behind because they don't have to re-invent the wheel just to get something done.
It's mind boggling to me how much i've learned in the past year here at XDA, especially in the last few months. It's all because people take the time to sit down and explain how they've done the things they've done and are excited to share their discoveries.
Having this device since before root was viable, i've watched this section of XDA grow from literally just a handful of threads into what it is now - pretty soon we'll have a majority of the resources right here for people to just show up and get work done with minimal fuss.
I know my dev time is hit or miss, sometimes I have days on end, other times not - one way i've been trying to help when i'm not around is leaving how-to's and guides behind me that people can reference while i'm gone.
There's still a whole lot that I haven't even gotten into yet, and i'm very appreciative of people taking the time to share some cool discovery or trick that's made their life a lot easier.
(sometimes I ramble a bit, especially when on boring conference calls)
I came to XDA to learn how to do some fun stuff with my Nook Color, and maybe learn how to write apps for the market. Here I am writing ROMs and nowhere close to putting any apps in the market. With the library of knowledge that XDA is everytime I sit down at the keyboard I learn something new, I wish i'd found this place a long long time before I did - it feels like home.

that's pretty cool about the nook color. i may have to pick one up to play with. i'm sure there are all kinds of neat things to be figured out (and easily implemented) with a device that boots from an external source before the internal.
i got pretty lucky with my hd2. as soon as i saw that there was a way to do it, i had to figure it out (of course). however, instead of reading all of the instructions and bulletins on correct procedure, like an intelligent person... you can probably guess where i'm going with that... and VIOLA! an expensive paperweight.
i was very lucky that phone is setup the way it is and for resources like you and some of the other devs and especially the others that learned by trial and error and took the time to post their experiences.