WattDroid GUI Improvements and Settings Added

Recently I talked about adding a settings feature to allow any WattDepot server to be queried for data. This has now been implemented and the settings will be saved once set. Here is a screenshot of this feature:

As you can see the top field is where you type the URL of the WattDepot server and the bottom image is what will pop up if you don't have that set when you first start the application. If the URL in invalid, meaning it does not link to a WattDepot server, then you will get an error message and it will tell you to enter the correct URL.

Beyond those necessary additions, we started to style our application to make it more visually pleasing. Here is a screenshot of a temporary placeholder image. It will change once we go over a few more designs. We have added transparency to each listview item so the background is visible.

We also added a feature where if the menu button is pressed it displays our settings panel. This is useful if the user would like to make changes to the WattDepot URL and also houses a placeholders for future settings.

We still have some pending issues to resolve. These issues are creating test cases and a continuous integration system. We also would like to add locational awareness that will be used to sort the list by closest proximity.

While Android is quite a fun framework to work with, getting to learn the libraries, like any framework, can be quite a task; so I recommend spending a lot of time read others code, it has helped me a lot.

WattDroid with Hudson and Unit Testing

Over the last few days I have been studying all the options for Android Continuous Integration and Unit Testing and well there is a plethora of choices to review.

Here are a few that I have reviewed:

Ant Related:

http://code.google.com/p/autoandroid/wiki/AndroidAnt

Hudson Related:

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=499519075367

JUnit Related:

http://mylifewithandroid.blogspot.com/2008/11/junit-in-android.html

http://marakana.com/tutorials/android/junit-test-example.html

http://code.google.com/p/robotium

What I have found is that Android requires its own unit testing libraries to perform tests that use Android libraries. Normal JUnit testing will work, however, it will not replicate actual functions the user will encounter. For example, it will test that a method returns the correct value given input, but it will not test if the user presses on a certain button and a result is shown in an Activity.

The classes that deal with specific Android testing are:

ActivityUnitTestCase and ActivityInstrumentationTestCase2

(ActivityInstrumentationTestCase is now deprecated)

The android.jar file also contains normal JUnit tests. I'm in the middle of evaluating a tool called Robotium ( http://code.google.com/p/robotium/ ) as well and it provides a simpler way to test Android applications, but this is mainly geared at the blackbox perspective, otherwise the users actions and the applications responses.

Robotium offers some interesting features and members of the Android community also say it is a valuable tool to learn. Here are a few of its features:

• You can develop powerful test cases, with minimal knowledge of the application under test.
• The framework handles multiple Android activities automatically.
• Minimal time needed to write solid test cases.
• Readability of test cases is greatly improved, compared to standard instrumentation tests.
• Test cases are more robust due to the run-time binding to GUI components.
• Blazing fast test case execution.
• Integrates smoothly with Maven or Ant to run tests as part of continuous integration.
• The Syntax is quite easy to understand as you can see in these examples.

Some others have recommended EasyMock as well. I am starting to feel all these extras are becoming a distraction and will stick to learning the standard Android test case classes and look further into Hudson CI after that.

Back to WattDroid...

Currently we are working on GPS integration and theming out application. The book we have doesn't really talk much about these two topics so we ordered a more advanced book Pro Android 2. However, in the meantime I have been trying to decipher and wad my way through some of the documentation and decent progress.

Until next time...

Remy

WattDroid Beta

The first beta of WattDroid is ready to explore. It's bare bones right now, but soon there will be a lot more functionality. Currently the WattDroid application displays information about specific sources when you select the source from a list. For those of you who are wondering, "What's a Source?" well it's just a node or sensor that contains data about anything you desire. WattDroid simply finds the list of sources and displays the XML of that source as of now. We have a lot in store for this application.

Here are some screenshots to give you a good idea:

WattDroid has a Watson Icon, taken from WattDepot.



















WattDroid's old intro screen.
















About WattDroid




















Source List


















Source Info










The next features we have planned are:

Add functionality

• Incorporate GPS (locational awareness for closest dorm)
  
• Add ability for user to specify WattDepot source URL
• Add ability for user to specify refresh interval in settings

Incorporate Android Unit Testing

• Research Android Unit Testing
• Research Integration with Hudson
• Better coding standards
  

Improve the look and feel of the application

• Needs to be more graphically enticing for the target audience (freshman, sophomores)
• Develop Killer Icon (Merge Android with Watson)
• Work with Themes
• Look into transition effects
  

Make the interface more user-friendly

• Add settings when standard menu button is pressed

Check out the project and follow the User Guide or Developer Guide Wiki to Try it out.

Android Ahoy!

After a long time wishing I had the time to develop an Android application, I finally got the chance. We are calling this app "WattDroid." The idea is quite simple, we will be pulling data from WattDepot to display energy usage data from specific dorm floors at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

When the user launches the application he or she will see a main menu where they can enter (through the settings) a URL that the application will pull the data from. Currently this will work only with WattDepot servers. Then the user will see a list of sources to choose from (sources are dorm floors). When they choose a location, the app will display a meter reading with various other data readouts.

The idea here is to keep it intuitive and consistent with other Android applications and of course fun for the users. I see this application as a way to bypass the need for an expensive energy meter as every student can now have their own meter display for free.

So far we have read the first 5 chapters of the excellent book Android and Me (A Pragmatic Bookshelf publication) and are thoroughly enjoying working tidbits of examples into our application. Some of the difficulties we have are the networking aspect, but that should be resolved shortly after this writing. We have already been able to get a list of sources (not from the server yet) into a list that displays a Toast type message. The next step will be to create another activity (Android view) to display the updated readings.

The development cycle is quite fun as well. I simply plug my Android phone into my computer and place it into debug mode, when I hit Run in Eclipse, it sends the APK over to my Android device instead of the AVD (Android Virtual Device/ the emulator), this keeps my Macbook at a lower temperature (sometimes it can get up to 180 degree Fahrenheit).

I will post screenshots next Tuesday of this application.