Tabs as fragments? Easy! Well, not really.

So, Android 4.0 brings a suite of fantastic apps with it, all of them with consistent horizontal swipe gestures that make navigation simple, intuitive, and fun. It also brings it's stunningly beautiful theme, Holo. Holo is really simple to implement. I'm going to portmanteau and call it simplementable. You only need one line of code (android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Holo" in the manifest), which they provide along with tutorials on how to make it jive with older devices that don't have ICS.
The swipe gestures, however, are not easy to implement. I've spent a week or so now attempting to figure it out, but there's no documentation I can find, no examples (well, I found one, but couldn't get it to work, and it wasn't from Google). In API level 14, Google deprecated TabActivity, saying it had been replaced with fragments. They didn't explain, however, how to use fragments in place of tabs. I'm lost.

Could someone who is down with how to use tabs as fragments please give me a hand? I'm currently trying to extract the source code from the Google+ app to figure it all out, and I'm not even sure that'll work!

My Android Plan

As a novice developer, obviously, I don't fully know my way around the Android system as well as I'd like. My first app, Timetablr, is steadily pushing towards completion (I want to have an open beta by next week), but it's pretty basic, so I won't, perhaps, learn as much as I want. So, here's what I have in store for the next year or so:

1. Finish Timetablr

Timetablr has come quite a way from the bloated crap I made in Titanium Studio. Even though it's very basic at the moment, it's going really well, and I plan to release it at version 0.7 before January 30th.

2. Unity Launcher for Android
I'm excited for this - my second project will be Unity Launcher, an Android launcher designed like Unity for Ubuntu. I have made substantial plans for where I will take this project. It will be more than just a home screen - it's going to be a whole new way of multitasking for Android. The launcher itself is not the main aspect of Unity - it's a simple, vertically scrollable array of widgets. The dock is the main part - swiping from the right at any point in Android will reveal the dock, where you can have any app icons, and direct access to the app drawer, or 'dash'. Pressing the "Workspace Switcher" icon will bring you to a Mango-style multitasking area, but with apps in a grid of four rather than only one at a time. The dash will be an improved version of the Unity dash, with four 'lenses', apps (the default, of course), music (which will play in the default player), images (which will open in the gallery), and widgets. I'm really looking forward to starting this project, but I suspect I won't be done until late 2012.
If it were completed now, it would be the first third-party launcher for Android that works brilliantly on a tablet. Frankly I hope it isn't, Android tablets really need good third-party launchers.

3. Unity OS
After completing Unity Launcher, I'm going to start work on a project I really hope will teach me about the inner workings of Android - a custom ROM based around the Unity Launcher. It will be based on CyanogenMod 9, or more likely 10, since it will be late 2012, and will initially be for whatever phone (and tablet, possibly) I have, and then I'll expand to any other devices I have access to, which will probably only be the Desire and Galaxy S.
I haven't thought through the changes I'm going to make to CM9/10 for Unity OS. I'm probably going to change the style and make it unified, and integrate thoroughly the Unity Launcher. Make it a bit more like Ubuntu.

Exciting stuff. You can find some mockups for Unity Launcher here and here, if you're interested.

Don't use Titanium Studio

Not for Android, at least.

Last week I changed Timetablr's development schedule substantially - I left Titanium Studio in favour of Eclipse, coding in Java, like you're meant to. It was a scary transition - I know Javascript (because of the several months of development of Timetablr), and I don't know any  Java. Didn't, I should say - I'm picking it up slowly.
So now, rather than finishing the app in Titanium THEN switching to Eclipse, I'm doing it now. And I've decided to add no new features until Timetablr 0.4.X, the new version, is up to par with, or exceeding, Timetablr 0.3.X, the Titanium version. So far (and it has been five days) I'm literally one feature from reaching that goal - but on top of that, I've also got a more attractive UI and a decrease in file size by over 4MB.

Don't use Titanium Studio. Dive straight in to Eclipse. It's easier and superior in every way.

Timetablr, my first Android app

For a while I have been meaning to create an Android app. I've also been meaning to find a way to get my timetable on my phone. So I killed two birds with one stone a couple of days ago, and started making an app, which I am calling Timetablr, that displays a school timetable.

It's pretty basic so far, because I don't have any experience making apps, so my skills are lacking and I don't know how to implement all the features I want. In fact, it actually only does one thing right now...

I'll be posting change logs, among other things, here, in time, but for now I'll just be happy that I am at version 0.2.5-alpha and there are absolutely no bugs :P

Forget dir - use ls in Windows!

Here is the way all the cool kids use the ls command in Windows.
 1. Create a batch file called ls.bat in C:\Windows\System32
 2. Right-Click -> Edit
 3. The contents should be:
   @echo off
   dir /b
 4. Save.


You may need admin rights. This is by FAR the best way to do it. It gets rid of both the "dir" command being visible (which is annoying) and the crappy date/time stuff (which is infuriating).


This is really simple and also awesome.