Introducing Photo Collage Creator

I was playing with bitmap manipulations and so was born the idea to make this app. It was started some time ago, and, even if at times I was thinking it will never see the daylight, finally it was released!

Description of the app:
Photo Collage Creator is a simple app that lets you create beautiful collages within seconds and share them with your family, friends or colleagues. To create a collage you just need to select the photos, apply the frames, save, and you are done!

Features:
– Create collages composed from up to 5 photos
– Various frames to create a collage
– Shuffle the photos within the collage
– Save your collages
– Share collages on gmail, facebook, picasa, and other social networking sites.

Hope you will like it!

Google Maps API V2 Android Tutorial

In this tutorial we will walk through the process of integrating Google Maps API V2 into an Android project.

(Source code available on GitHub)

The necessary steps in order to integrate the Google Maps V2 are :

• Install Google Play services
• Get the Google Maps API Key
  • Generate SHA-1 certificate fingerprint
  • Create an API Project
  • Obtain an API Key
  • Add the API key to AndroidManifest file
• Update the AndroidManifest file with other settings
• Display a MapFragment

1. Install Google Play services

The version 2 of Google Maps now is part of the Google Play services SDK, that is why google-play-services lib should be installed first.

Start the Android SDK Manager and choose to install Google Play services from the Extras category:

After the sdk manager completes the installation, go to <android_sdk_folder>/extras/google/google_play_services/libproject and copy the google-play-services_lib to the location where you maintain your Android projects.

Then import the library project into your workspace, and reference it in your Android project.

2. Get the Google Maps API Key

In order to use Google Maps API in your project you need a valid Google Maps API key. The key can be obtained via the Google APIs Console. You will have to provide the SHA-1 fingerprint and the package name of your application.

Please note that if you already hold a map key from the Google Maps Android V1, also known as MapView, you still will need get a new API key, as the old key won’t work with the V2 API.

2.1 Generate SHA-1 certificate fingerprint

To display the SHA-1 fingerprint, first you need to decide for what type of certificate do you need to generate the fingerprint: for the debug certificate, or for the release certificate.
In this example we well consider displaying the fingerprint for the debug certificate.

The file name of debug certificate is called debug.keystore, and it is located on C:\Users\your_user_name\.android\ on Windows, and on ~/.android/ on Linux.

If you are on a Linux, open the terminal and run the following command:
keytool -list -v -keystore ~/.android/debug.keystore -alias androiddebugkey -storepass android -keypass android

If you are on a Windows, open the command prompt and run this:
keytool -list -v -keystore "%USERPROFILE%\.android\debug.keystore" -alias androiddebugkey -storepass android -keypass android

Copy the SHA1 fingerprint and store it somewhere for later use.

(Note that if the command prompt complains that keytool is not a recognizable command, you can find it your java JDK/bin folder. cd there and run the command from that folder.)

2.2 Create an API Project

Navigate to Google APIs Console and create a new project, if you haven’t used Google APIs Console before. Then click on the Services link from the left menu:

and from the presented list of of services toggle Google Maps Android API V2:

(Please make sure you namely select “Google Maps Android API V2”, not Google Maps API v2, nor Google Maps API v3)

2.3 Obtain an API Key

a) From the left menu click on API Access
b) Then click on Create New Android Key
c) In the resulting dialog, enter the SHA-1 fingerprint, followed by a semicolon, and then your application package name.
For example:
95:F7:64:E9:3D:D44:70:EF:CB:F9:D9:14:BF:72:88:B4:E8:D7:11:E9;com.example.mapsv2

As a result the page displays a new section entitled Key for Android apps (with certificates), followed by your API key that looks something like this:
AIzaZyAcQKLEyHsamGpNLHdn8wd5-wuCqBnJ3Rk

2.4 Add the API key to AndroidManifest file

Open the AndroidManifest file and add the following element as a child of application tag:

<meta-data
    android:name="com.google.android.maps.v2.API_KEY"
    android:value="YOUR_API_KEY"/>

replacing the YOUR_API_KEY with your real API key.

3. Update the AndroidManifest file with other settings

In order to use Google Maps Android API we need to declare a few permissions and specify that the application requires OpenGL ES version 2:

<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    //... >

    <uses-feature
        android:glEsVersion="0x00020000"
        android:required="true" />

    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE" />
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />
    <uses-permission android:name="com.google.android.providers.gsf.permission.READ_GSERVICES" />
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION" />
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION" />
    
    //...
</manifest>

4. Display a MapFragment

Displaying the maps is as simple as declaring a fragment in the xml layout with the name com.google.android.gms.maps.MapFragment.
If you would like to make your application compatible with older devices, then you’ll have to use the Android Support Library and reference SupportMapFragment instead of MapFragment. The below example uses the Android Support Library.

The activity_main.xml layout:

<fragment xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:id="@+id/maps_fragment"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:name="com.google.android.gms.maps.SupportMapFragment" />

and the MainActivity.java:

public class MainActivity extends FragmentActivity {

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

If everything was configured correctly, then when running this example you should see a map.

Full source code can be downloaded from GitHub: https://github.com/vgrec/MapsV2Example

ViewPager with Tabs inside SlidingMenu

This started as a question on StackOverflow on how to have tabs inside the SlidingMenu.

Though I would opt for another design decision, for example to put the content of the tabs in separate activities, and then instead of having 3 tabs at the bottom inside the sliding menu, have 3 options menu that will redirect to specific activities, I took this design as a challenge and below is the result:

I order to achieve this, PagerSlidingTabStrip in conjuction with ViewPager was used.

I did not include the ActionBarSherlock, as the question on StackOverflow suggested, but if needed that will be easy to integrate: the MainActivity will be required to extend from SherlockFragmentActivity, and the theme @style/Theme.Sherlock.Light added to manifest file, and that is all.

Here are the steps I took to integrate PagerSlidingTabStrip and ViewPager with SlidingMenu:

1 – Add SlidingMenu library to your project
2 – Add PagerSlidingTabStrip library
3 – Add Android Support Library (and copy the same .jar into SlidingMenu and PagerSlidingTabString libraries, otherwise eclipse might complain that the versions of .jar do not match)
4 – A minimal example of MainActivity:

public class MainActivity extends FragmentActivity  {

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

        SlidingMenu menu = new SlidingMenu(this);
        menu.setTouchModeAbove(SlidingMenu.TOUCHMODE_FULLSCREEN);
        menu.setBehindOffset(50);
        menu.setFadeDegree(0.35f);
        menu.attachToActivity(this, SlidingMenu.SLIDING_CONTENT);
        menu.setMenu(R.layout.left_menu);

        ViewPager pager = (ViewPager) findViewById(R.id.pager);
        pager.setAdapter(new ViewPagerAdapter(getSupportFragmentManager()));

        PagerSlidingTabStrip tabs = (PagerSlidingTabStrip) findViewById(R.id.tabs);
        tabs.setViewPager(pager);
    }
}

5 – The layout of sliding menu, R.layout.left_menu:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:id="@+id/left_menu"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:background="#CCC"
    android:orientation="vertical" xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/org.grec">

    <com.astuetz.viewpager.extensions.PagerSlidingTabStrip
        android:id="@+id/tabs"
        app:shouldExpand="true"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_alignParentBottom="true"
        android:layout_height="48dip" />

    <android.support.v4.view.ViewPager
        android:id="@+id/pager"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:layout_above="@id/tabs" />

</RelativeLayout>

6 – The ViewPagerAdapter:

public class ViewPagerAdapter extends FragmentStatePagerAdapter {

    private final int PAGES = 3;
    private String[] titles={"Tab 1", "Tab 2", "Tab 3"};

    public ViewPagerAdapter(FragmentManager fm) {
        super(fm);
    }

    @Override
    public Fragment getItem(int position) {
        switch (position) {
            case 0:
                return new TabFragment1();
            case 1:
                return new TabFragment2();
            case 2:
                return new TabFragment3();
            default:
                throw new IllegalArgumentException("The item position should be less or equal to:" + PAGES);
        }
    }

    @Override
    public CharSequence getPageTitle(int position) {
        return titles[position];
    }

    @Override
    public int getCount() {
        return PAGES;
    }
}

7 – And an example of fragment, TabFragment1.java (the other 2 are similar):

public class TabFragment1 extends Fragment {
    @Override
    public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container,
            Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        return inflater.inflate(R.layout.fragment_tab_1, container, false);
    }
}

8 – And the layout of the fragment R.layout.fragment_tab_1 which simply displays a TextView:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent" >
 
    <TextView
        android:textColor="#000"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="Fragment tab 1" />
 
</RelativeLayout>

For full source code visit: https://github.com/vgrec/SlidingMenuWithViewpager

Example using ViewPager with ActionBarSherlock tabs

In this post I’m going to show you an example usage of ViewPager in conjunction with ActionBarSherlock tabs.
The final result should look like this:

1. Add the ActionBarSherlock library to your project. (Here’s a short tutorial on how to integrate ABS with a project, in case you need a refresh on this)

2. Change the AndroidManifest file of your project to use one of the predefined themes by ABS:

<application       
        //....
        android:theme="@style/Theme.Sherlock.Light" >
        //.....
</application>

Note that using ActionBarSherlock requires you to use one of these themes: Theme.Sherlock, Theme.Sherlock.Light, Theme.Sherlock.Light.DarkActionBar, or any other derivate, otherwise a RuntimeException exception will be thrown.

3. Create the MainActivity.java:

public class MainActivity extends SherlockFragmentActivity {

	private ActionBar actionBar;
	private ViewPager viewPager;

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

		viewPager = (ViewPager) findViewById(R.id.pager);
		viewPager.setOnPageChangeListener(onPageChangeListener);
		viewPager.setAdapter(new ViewPagerAdapter(getSupportFragmentManager()));
		addActionBarTabs();
	}

	private ViewPager.SimpleOnPageChangeListener onPageChangeListener = new ViewPager.SimpleOnPageChangeListener() {
		@Override
		public void onPageSelected(int position) {
			super.onPageSelected(position);
			actionBar.setSelectedNavigationItem(position);
		}
	};

	private void addActionBarTabs() {
		actionBar = getSupportActionBar();
		String[] tabs = { "Tab 1", "Tab 2", "Tab 3" };
		for (String tabTitle : tabs) {
			ActionBar.Tab tab = actionBar.newTab().setText(tabTitle)
					.setTabListener(tabListener);
			actionBar.addTab(tab);
		}
		actionBar.setNavigationMode(ActionBar.NAVIGATION_MODE_TABS);
	}

	private ActionBar.TabListener tabListener = new ActionBar.TabListener() {
		@Override
		public void onTabSelected(ActionBar.Tab tab, FragmentTransaction ft) {
			viewPager.setCurrentItem(tab.getPosition());
		}

		@Override
		public void onTabUnselected(ActionBar.Tab tab, FragmentTransaction ft) {
		}

		@Override
		public void onTabReselected(ActionBar.Tab tab, FragmentTransaction ft) {
		}
	};
}

Another requirement in order to use Sherlock library is that your activity should extend from SherlockFragmentActivity, and this is what MainActivity does first.
Then it takes a reference to the ViewPager and sets the OnPageChangedListener and the PagerAdapter (implementation will be shown below):

viewPager = (ViewPager) findViewById(R.id.pager);
viewPager.setOnPageChangeListener(onPageChangeListener);
viewPager.setAdapter(new ViewPagerAdapter(getSupportFragmentManager()));

In short, a ViewPager is a layout manager that allows you to swipe left and right through pages of data.
It needs to be supplied with an implementation of PagerAdapter in order to generate the pages that the view shows.

Just below the initialization of ViewPager the action bar tabs are added:

private void addActionBarTabs() {
	actionBar = getSupportActionBar();
	String[] tabs = { "Tab 1", "Tab 2", "Tab 3" };
	for (String tabTitle : tabs) {
		ActionBar.Tab tab = actionBar.newTab().setText(tabTitle)
				.setTabListener(tabListener);
		actionBar.addTab(tab);
	}
	actionBar.setNavigationMode(ActionBar.NAVIGATION_MODE_TABS);
}

For every string in the tabs[] array a new ActionBar.Tab is created and added to the ActionBar.

4. And the layout of MainActivity, R.layout.activity_main, which simply defines the ViewPager container.

<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent" >

    <android.support.v4.view.ViewPager
        android:id="@+id/pager"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent" />

</RelativeLayout>

5. The implementation of ViewPagerAdapter.java:

public class ViewPagerAdapter extends FragmentStatePagerAdapter {

    private final int PAGES = 3;

    public ViewPagerAdapter(FragmentManager fm) {
        super(fm);
    }

    @Override
    public Fragment getItem(int position) {
        switch (position) {
            case 0:
                return new TabFragment1();
            case 1:
                return new TabFragment2();
            case 2:
                return new TabFragment3();
            default:
                throw new IllegalArgumentException("The item position should be less or equal to:" + PAGES);
        }
    }

    @Override
    public int getCount() {
        return PAGES;
    }
}

The PagerAdapter helps represent each page as a Fragment.
By extending FragmentStatePagerAdapter two methods should be overrided:
getCount() – which returns the total number of pages the ViewPager will have, and
getItem() – which returns a new fragment for each page.

6. Bellow follows the fragment classes used for representing each page. The minimalistic implementation is to extend from SherlockFragment, and provide a view for the fragment itself.
TabFragment1.java:

public class TabFragment1 extends SherlockFragment {

	@Override
	public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container,
			Bundle savedInstanceState) {
		return inflater.inflate(R.layout.fragment_tab_1, container, false);
	}
}

TabFragment2.java:

public class TabFragment2 extends SherlockFragment {

	@Override
	public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container,
			Bundle savedInstanceState) {
		return inflater.inflate(R.layout.fragment_tab_2, container, false);
	}
}

TabFragment3.java:

public class TabFragment3 extends SherlockFragment {
	
	@Override
	public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container,
			Bundle savedInstanceState) {
		return inflater.inflate(R.layout.fragment_tab_3, container, false);
	}
}

7. And their corresponding layout files, which in this particular example have just a single TextView element.
fragment_tab_1.xml:

<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent" >

    <TextView
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="Fragment tab 1" />

</RelativeLayout>

fragment_tab_2.xml:

<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent" >

    <TextView
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="Fragment tab 2" />

</RelativeLayout>

fragment_tab_3.xml:

<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent" >

    <TextView
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="Fragment tab 3" />

</RelativeLayout>

Full project can be found on github: https://github.com/vgrec/SherlockActionBarTabs

Caching Objects in Android Internal Storage

Android provides several options for persisting application data, such as SQLite Databases, SharedPreferences, internal and external storage.

In this post we’ll take a look how we can use the internal storage to persist application data. By default, files saved to internal storage are private to the application and they cannot be accessed by other applications. When the application is uninstalled, the files are removed.

To create and write a file to internal storage, openFileInput(); should be used. This opens a private file associated with the Context’s application package for writing. If the file does not already exits, then it is first created.

openFileInput() returns a FileInputStream, and we could use its write() method, which accepts a byte array as argument, to write the data. However, in the below example we will wrap the FileInputStream into an ObjectOutputStream which provides 2 convenient methods  for writing and reading objects: writeObject() and readObject().

So, lets  pretend that we need to save a List of some objects. The model class of our object looks like this:

public class Entry implements Serializable{
   private String name;

   public Entry(String name) {
      this.name = name;
   }

   public String getName() {
      return name;
   }
}

Make sure that the model class implements Serializable, otherwise you may get a java.io.NotSerializableException when attempting to write the object on internal storage.

Below is the utility class that provides 2 methods, one for storing objects to internal storage, and another for retrieving objects from internal storage.

public final class InternalStorage{

   private InternalStorage() {}

   public static void writeObject(Context context, String key, Object object) throws IOException {
      FileOutputStream fos = context.openFileOutput(key, Context.MODE_PRIVATE);
      ObjectOutputStream oos = new ObjectOutputStream(fos);
      oos.writeObject(object);
      oos.close();
      fos.close();
   }

   public static Object readObject(Context context, String key) throws IOException,
         ClassNotFoundException {
      FileInputStream fis = context.openFileInput(key);
      ObjectInputStream ois = new ObjectInputStream(fis);
      Object object = ois.readObject();
      return object;
   }
}

An this is how InternalStorage class can be used to persist and retrieve data from internal storage.

// The list that should be saved to internal storage.
List<Entry> entries = new ArrayList<Entry>();
entries.add(new Entry("House"));
entries.add(new Entry("Car"));
entries.add(new Entry("Job"));

try {
   // Save the list of entries to internal storage
   InternalStorage.writeObject(this, KEY, entries);

   // Retrieve the list from internal storage
   List<Entry> cachedEntries = (List<Entry>) InternalStorage.readObject(this, KEY);

   // Display the items from the list retrieved.
   for (Entry entry : cachedEntries) {
     Log.d(TAG, entry.getName());
   }
} catch (IOException e) {
   Log.e(TAG, e.getMessage());
} catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
   Log.e(TAG, e.getMessage());
}

 

Taking a screenshot of current Activity in Android

In this post I’ll show how you can take a screenshot of your current Activity and save the resulting image on /sdcard.

The idea behind taking a screenshot actually is pretty simple: what we need to do is to get a reference of the root view and  generate a bitmap copy of this view.

Considering that we want to take the screenshot when a button is clicked, the code will look like this:

findViewById(R.id.button1).setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
   @Override
   public void onClick(View v) {
       Bitmap bitmap = takeScreenshot();
       saveBitmap(bitmap);
   }
});

 

First of all we should retrieve the topmost view in the current view hierarchy, then enable the drawing cache, and after that call getDrawingCache().

Calling getDrawingCache(); will return the bitmap representing the view or null if cache is disabled, that’s why setDrawingCacheEnabled(true); should be set to true prior invoking  getDrawingCache().

public Bitmap takeScreenshot() {
   View rootView = findViewById(android.R.id.content).getRootView();
   rootView.setDrawingCacheEnabled(true);
   return rootView.getDrawingCache();
}

 

And the method that saves the bitmap image to external storage:

 public void saveBitmap(Bitmap bitmap) {
    File imagePath = new File(Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory() + "/screenshot.png");
    FileOutputStream fos;
    try {
        fos = new FileOutputStream(imagePath);
        bitmap.compress(CompressFormat.JPEG, 100, fos);
        fos.flush();
        fos.close();
    } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
        Log.e("GREC", e.getMessage(), e);
    } catch (IOException e) {
        Log.e("GREC", e.getMessage(), e);
    }
}

 

Since the image is saved on external storage, the WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission should be added AndroidManifest to file:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />

Using Custom Fonts in Android

By default Android comes with three standard fonts: Droid Sans (default font), Droid Serif, and Droid Sans Mono. They all can be applied to any view that supports styling, such as TextView, Button, by specifying the “android:typeface” attribute in the XML declaration with any of these values: sans, serif, monospace.

<TextView
   android:layout_width="wrap_content"
   android:layout_height="wrap_content"
   android:text="Sans"
   android:typeface="sans" />

<TextView
   android:layout_width="wrap_content"
   android:layout_height="wrap_content"
   android:text="Serif"
   android:typeface="serif" />

<TextView
   android:layout_width="wrap_content"
   android:layout_height="wrap_content"
   android:text="Monospace"
   android:typeface="monospace" />

 

Using custom fonts in Android is pretty straightforward. First find a free font and put it in the assets/fonts directory. (It’s not mandatory to have a /fonts directory, but if I have a lot of stuff in the /assets directory I organize them in separate directories). Then get a reference to your TextView and create a Typeface object specifying the font path. Lastly, apply the typeface to the TextView.

In this particular example I used the font: christmaseve.ttf

TextView textView = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.textView);
Typeface tf = Typeface.createFromAsset(getAssets(), "fonts/christmaseve.ttf");
textView.setTypeface(tf);

 

RuntimeException: Native typeface cannot be made

If you get this exception while trying to integrate the custom font into your application, make sure the path to the font file is correct, and the font name is spelled correctly. I noticed I was getting this exception when my font path was misspelled, for example writing “.tff” instead of “.ttf”, or forgetting to add the “fonts/” prefix to the path.

Custom font used in this example provided by: http://bythebutterfly.com

Integrating Google Analytics SDK (V2) with Android

The Google Analytics SDK for Android makes it easy for developers to collect valuable statics about how the users are using their app.

Here are some features that Android Google Analytics SDK offers:

• The number of active users that are using the application
• Usage of specific features
• The number and type of application crashes
• From where in the world the application is used
• And many other useful metrics.

Just to illustrate the integration process lets create a simple proof of concept application with 2 activities: MainActivity and AboutActivity, and 2 buttons: Rate and Share.

Our mission is to integrate Google Analytics SDK with the application, to:

• track activity views, (MainActivity and About)
• track events (how many times the buttons “Rate”, and “Share” are clicked)

If you are searching for Google Analytics I’m assuming you are already pretty familiar with Android and could create the proof of concept application yourself, so I will skip this step and concentrate solely on integration.

 

1. Downloading the SDK

Go to downloads page and download GoogleAnalyticsAndroid.zip Version 2.0. Extract the archive and add libGoogleAnalyticsV2.jar to your project’s /libs directory.

At the moment of writing this post, Google provides two versions: version 1.5.1 (legacy), and version 2.0 beta. Still if the Version 2 of SDK is beta, I highly suggest you choose this version, over the 1.5.1 (legacy).
The reason not to choose SDK 1.5.1 is that it uses a tracking model that is designed to track visitors to traditional websites and interaction with widgets in traditional web pages.

The new “App” profiles and reports will only accept data from version 2 or higher of the SDK.

 

2. Creating a Google Analytics account

Before starting to use the SDK you first must create an account at: http://www.google.com/analytics/

1. Sign in to your account.
2. Click Admin.
3. Click Account list (just below the menu bar)
4. Click +New Account
5. When asked what you would like to track, select App property.
6. Enter all the necessary information and click Get Tracking ID.
   

Now that you have a Tracking ID, you can begin the integration with the application. The first step is to update the AndroidManifest file.

 

3. Updating AndroidManifest file.

Add folowing permissions to the AndroidManifest file:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE" />

 

4. Creating the analytics.xml file

In version 2 of Google Analytics SDK for Android, the tracking settings are managed from an xml resource file called: analytics.xml. You will need to create this file in res/values directory, and add your tracking ID as well as other settings here.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>

   <!-- Replace placeholder ID with your tracking ID -->
   <string name="ga_trackingId">UA-00000000-0</string>

   <!-- Enable Activity tracking -->
   <bool name="ga_autoActivityTracking">true</bool>

   <!-- Enable debug -->
   <bool name="ga_debug">true</bool>

   <!-- The screen names that will appear in your reporting -->
   <string name="com.testgoogleanalytics.MainActivity">MainActivity</string>
   <string name="com.testgoogleanalytics.About">About</string>

   <!--
   The inverval of time after all the collected data
   should be sent to the server, in seconds.
   -->
   <integer name="ga_dispatchPeriod">30</integer>

</resources>

 

5. Tracking activities.

To track activities add the tracking methods to the onStart() and onStop()  of each of your activities.

// Example of tracking MainActivity
public class MainActivity extends Activity {
   @Override
   public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
      super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
      setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
   }

   @Override
   protected void onStart() {
      super.onStart();
      EasyTracker.getInstance().activityStart(this); // Add this method
   }

   @Override
   protected void onStop() {
      super.onStop();
      EasyTracker.getInstance().activityStop(this); // Add this method
   }
}

One thing to note here is that EasyTraker requires a context before you can use it. If you attempt to call any of its methods but did not pass first a context, you may end up with an IllegalStateException.

In the above example, in  the onStart()  and onStop() methods the context is passed as an argument to activityStart() and activityStop(), but  if you need to make EasyTracker calls in other classes or methods, you’ll need to call EasyTracker’s setContext(Context context) method first:

Context context= this;  // Get current context.
EasyTracker.getInstance().setContext(context);  // Set context
// EasyTracker is now ready for use.

 

6. Tracking events

Tracking events is just as easy as tracking activities, you just need a Tracker object and call the trackEvent(String category, String action, String label, int value) method.

public class MainActivity extends Activity {

   private Tracker tracker;

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

      // Set context
      EasyTracker.getInstance().setContext(getApplicationContext());
      // Instantiate the Tracker
      tracker = EasyTracker.getTracker();

      // Add tracking functionality to "Rate" button
      Button rate = (Button) findViewById(R.id.rate);
      rate.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
         @Override
         public void onClick(View arg0) {
            // The rest of your code
            tracker.trackEvent("Buttons Category", "Rate", "", 0L);
         }
      });

      // Add tracking functionality to "Share" button....
   }
}

In this particular example I don’t need a label nor a value, that is why I set for the last 2 parameters of trackEvent() method, an empty string a 0 (zero), but depending of your needs you may populate them with some data.

 

7. Debugging

Debugging helps you deal with troubleshooting, and make you sure that the data actually is sent to the server. To set the Google Analytics in debug mode, add the following setting in the analytics.xml

<bool name="ga_debug">true</bool>

Once your are in debug mode, you can watch the log information in LogCat:

 

Waiting for the big moment!

If everything is configured correctly, the reports should appear on live. Usually it takes about 24 hours to see the data in your account.

 

 

What happens if my application is used when no network is available?

Just in case you asked this yourself…, all the events are persisted in a local storage, and they will be sent the next time your app is running and dispatch is called.

 

Last but not least

One important thing not to be forgotten: you must indicate to your users, either in the application itself or in your terms of service, that you reserve the right to anonymously track and report a user’s activity inside of your app.

Android Google Analytics SDK offers more than tracking activities and events, see: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/android/v2/ to get the most out of it.

Please visit the Android Tutorials page for more tutorials.

Android Asset Studio – The easiest way to create icons for your android apps!

Android Asset Studio is an online utility that lets you generate all kind of icons you may need for your android applications, starting with launcher icons, action bar and tab icons, notification icons, and menu icons. It even includes a simple 9-patch generator allowing you to create 9-patch images.

One of the trickier parts when creating the icons is that you should create them for all kinds of resolutions: ldpi, mdpi, hdpi, and xhdpi. With Android Asset Studio this is as simple as uploading an image. The tool generates automatically for you all the versions of the icon under all resolutions, and make them available as a downloadable zip archive.

The icons may be generated from an image uploaded, or from a clipart library, or from text. It’s a very convenient tool and I highly recommend using it if you want to have professional, good looking icons on all resolutions.

Android – [APP] Amazing Drunk Detection Scanner

Ready to go to party? Then don’t forget to put Amazing Drunk Detection Scanner in your pocket!

Drunk Detection Scanner is a simple application that helps you make fun with your friends. Make fun of your best friends by scanning their eye, and determine how drunk are they!

Here is how the prank works:
1. Just in the middle of the party open the Drunk Detection Scanner and say something like “Alright gentlemen, time to do some analysis!”
2. Invite one of your friends and tell him that this app will reveal how drunk he is.
3. Aim the camera close to your friend’s eye
4. Focus
5. Press “Start Scanning”
6. Wait till the result is calculated
7. Have fun!

DISCLAIMER:
Amazing Drunk Detection Scanner is a simple application designed for entertainment purposes only. It does not encourage the consumption of alcohol, and it does not take any legal responsibility.