Android Enthusiasts - 2013-05-14

« first day (928 days earlier) ← previous day next day → last day (3990 days later) »

2:34 AM

@GAThrawn I've only tried the Air Gestures for browsing the websites and going through gallery pictures. However, it's rather tiring, and not really that accurate. So, I disabled everything, including eye gestures. I'm pretty sure all these eat up battery. As it stands, my S4 is like a crippled S3. Haha. I'm still looking around to get an extended battery for the S4.

6 hours later…

8:50 AM

Why was this question migrated here?

4

Q: Is there a way to output content via HDMI independent from what's displayed on the device's screen?

I am looking to ust a tablet to output content (via the HDMI port on the tablet) onto an HDTV separate from what is displayed on the tablet's screen. From what I can tell, Android does not have this ability built in and it is up to the API provided by the tablet manufacturer. Is there any way for...

It sounds like he was trying to make an app, which would be a programming question.

9:20 AM

@DanHulme +1, telling from the second paragraph. I just flagged it for the mods to check with the SO mods -- makes no sense to simply migrate it back, ping-pong doesn't do any good. I'd say our SO brothers and sisters thought it a generic question of whether that capability exists on Android -- as usually, a HDMI connection does a 1:1 mirror.

@Izzy Indeed. At the time he wrote it, there wasn't a way to do that, but now there is. But the answer to the question is basically a link to the docs on developer.android.com.

9:32 AM

As our mods monitor our chat room, I hope they've got that detail to hand it to their SO collegues (right, @eldarerathis ? ;)

10:19 AM

hello

any one can give me a sample for facebook integeration

Hello. This room (and the android.stackexchange.com site) are for users of Android, so we can't help you with programming questions. You might get more help in the Android room on chat.stackoverflow.com, which is for programmers.

But I think to get any help you'll have to ask a more specific question. Nobody there is going to write your app for you or be your personal Google search.

oks///////////

10:43 AM

"facebook integeration" is easy: ((int) facebook)

11:12 AM

LOL Dan takes things quite literally #D

I just checked out that guy's profile on SO. Turns out he's already asked the same thing there and got no answers. He also asked another question (which is a "why doesn't this work? here's all my code" question) four times.

12:05 PM

Yupp. Those things rise your humor, I know :) Well, I suppose some people never learn (not you -- I mean those "I don't want to think, please do it for me" types).

that's the sad thing

No matter how ineffective is pestering the whole internet to write his app for him, it's still his best hope.

Aside from hiring a dev, you mean...

Also Googling Android Facebook Integration has "Getting Started With the Facebook SDK for Android" as the first hit, which has a selection of samples linked from that first page! How little research do you have to do to miss that?

@GAThrawn he's left already. And as I just discussed with Dan: it's the type of "I don't want to think, please do the job for me" :(

@Izzy I know, I just can't understand the mind-set of someone who hasn't even done the most basic of research before asking someone else for help. I normally put loads of time into finding information before asking someone else for help, mainly because I don't want to end up looking like a fool

1:01 PM

-1

Q: Gcm not being Recivied

I am working on a project that notifies an android application using push notifications using Google Cloud Messaging. I have implemented the application server in PHP. When i run the android application, the device gets the registration id from the GCM server and it sends the registration id to t...

Someone needs to have a word with the mods from the Sharepoint site, and let them know that we're not a site for developers

Also there's no option on the Close vote on this question to suggest migrating to SE (which is probably the most likely home for it) I'm guessing because it's already been through one migration, so I think a mod probably needs to take a look

@GAThrawn Those people also make it hard for me to keep my tone. Sometimes you could simply copy-paste the question title to Google Search, hit "I feel lucky", and copy-paste what turns up -- question answered... #/

@GAThrawn there seem to be some questions migrated here which do not belong. We even had a dev question coming from SO today :(

1:14 PM

I thought questions could only be migrated with the agreement of the mods on the receiving site?

Maybe one of the canned comments should generate links to lmgtfy.com

@DanHulme As funny (and tempting!!!) as LMGTFY is - I guess that would be considered rude.

1:36 PM

0

Q: No inbox notification for new answer

This answer was added to a question of mine a few hours ago. However, there is no evidence of it in the universal Stack Exchange inbox. (I wouldn't have seen it if it hadn't been in the flag queue, in fact.) Seems like a bug to me. Note that the comment posted to that answer did show up in my i...

bug notifications

2 hours later…

4:01 PM

woo, guess who became an "established user" today

@DanHulme Congrats, use your powers of showing the Up and Down votes wisely!

4 hours later…

7:42 PM

Let me join the congrats, @DanHulme \o/

7:56 PM

@DanHulme a question on your edit of Force link to open in app not my default browser -- are you sure "receivers" need to be replaced by "intents"?

As far as I understood, both ways are possible: If I know exactly which activity of what app I want to trigger, i use its intent. If I rather want to leave the choice to the user, I take a broadcast -- so each app supporting the intended action (and having a receiver registered) can pick up the task.

Hm -- according to your "edit comment", there's something like an "intent filter" -- which must fulfil a task comparable to "broadcast management"?

@DanHulme Maybe you'd better put it in a comment with a short explanation -- rather than doing an edit? Just asking, as that way people might even learn the difference (and know there is more than one system).

8:17 PM

OK, here's the long explanation. There are three things you can do with an intent: broadcast it (which means broadcast receivers will see it), start an activity, or start a service. The sender of the intent (in this case the browser app) chooses which one of these things it will do, because it knows what it expects to happen.

When you open a link in the browser, it asks for an activity: neither of the other options would make sense. Clicking a link should open a new screen, not do some unspecified background task with no user feedback.

All three of these things use intent filters to declare what kinds of intent they can handle, but the intent filters stay separate. Even if a broadcast receiver has an intent filter for ACTION_VIEW on an URL, it will never be started when the browser calls startActivity, even if the intent would match the filter.

Even if the browser (or whatever app) wants to let the user choose which activity to start, it still calls startActivity, and that only starts activities, not broadcast receivers.

@DanHulme Well, that's the point I overlooked: activity = own screen...

So an "intent filter" would be involved regardless of whether it was starting an activity or a broadcast receiver (or a service), but a broadcast receiver isn't involved at all in this case.

so in "easy words": Want to do something in the foreground => startActivity. Run something in background => broadcast. Pick something specific => pick the intent directly?

I don't fancy putting all of that in a comment, TBH, and it's not information that users need to know. I only suggested the edit because what's there now is incorrect.

For the last: If I know an app's intent, I could call it directly, as far as I understood...

8:25 PM

Umm, you're still thinking of two separate things as the same thing.

@DanHulme Agreed, that's a little technical for the average user :D

there are two completely separate choices

@DanHulme Forgive me -- I'm not a dev :D

So which two did I mess up?

The raw idea should suffice, I'm not going dev #D

The first choice is whether you know the name of the app component you want to start or not. You can either put in the name, or you can let the intent filters sort it out.

The second choice is whether you want to start an activity, a service, or a broadcast receiver. You have to choose one of those three.

@DanHulme Ah -- already thought that. So in "easy terms" and simplified: I either say startActivity(VIEW_WEBPAGE,xxx) to let the filters sort out -- or startActivity(com.whatever.specificBrowser.webview,xx) to use a specific browser's intent directly?

8:30 PM

yes, essentially

OK, so now I got that fine -- thanks a lot!

I got close to that idea a couple of times, but never did the final step :)

So that leaves the second part: "activity" means, again in easy terms, to "open a new window in foreground", right?

the only missing detail is that the "view webpage" or "com.specificbrowser" business is all stored inside an intent, and you pass that intent to startActivity

yes, an activity is a window, pretty much

OK, so only one remaining part: service versus broadcast?

a service is something that runs in the background, like a downloader, or an mp3 player

@DanHulme Yepp, that was what I meant.

@DanHulme yupp, that's clear.

8:34 PM

broadcasts are meant for events, so you almost never name a particular broadcast receiver when you send a broadcast

But I always thought when I send a broadcast, a service could pick that up as well as anything else which has established a listener?

things like "hey guys, the battery is low"

@DanHulme That's an event -- like boot_completedetc.

oh.

@Izzy exactly

A broadcast doesn't pass an object?

8:36 PM

you can pass lots of things in an intent

Just tells "it's time to eat" -- but nothing about what's available? ;)

for example, when a network connection comes up, there's a broadcast which includes lots of details of what kind of network it is

they're all stored inside the intent which is broadcast

@Izzy Strictly speaking, a service or activity can't receive a broadcast. But a service or activity can dynamically register a broadcast receiver which will receive broadcasts while the service or activity is running.

Yepp. Where I'm stuck is the part where the "service" comes into play -- versus a broadcast.

For example, the 'wifi settings' activity registers a broadcast receiver for 'network state changed' broadcasts, so the activity can update its display when the wifi connection state changes. When the activity stops running, that broadcast receiver is unregistered.

@DanHulme Yepp, that's what I meant (just used the term "listener" where it should read "receiver"). So when I broadcast an event, whatever has placed a receiver for that event -- regardless of service or activity -- gets notified and can decide whether it has to act and how.

ploink

(That was the dime)

Makes no sense to broadcast a webpage to be shown #D

8:41 PM

Generally a service is for a specific task in one app. You don't usually start a service in another app, and you usually specify the service by name. startService(new Intent(my mp3 service, play, foo.mp3)).

Each and every receiver would act on that (like many apps start on boot_completed, and not just one a "filter" selected).

@DanHulme and if you do that for a second time, it drops the first mp3 and plays the new :)

OTOH, a broadcast is for sending one event to potentially many receivers, and you usually don't specify the receiver by name, so that anyone can hear about the event. sendBroadcast(new Intent(sd card inserted))

@Izzy that depends on how the service is written. The service can put new requests on a queue or whatever.

@DanHulme Yepp, that's what I meant to say (with "why it makes no sense to broadcast a webpage to be shown") ;)

@Izzy Yes, that's exactly right. You can only start one activity or service, but lots of broadcast receivers.

@DanHulme Sure -- was just an example. One could even design it to "overlay" (or mix) the sources :)

@DanHulme \o/ Guess I got it finally. Must have been a brain-blocker -- as I at least new those details on "event broadcasts" all along. Don't know where the "blocker" was -- thanks a lot for your help to get rid of that :D

8:48 PM

No problem.

Now your edit makes perfect sense :) Just approved it.

1 hour later…

9:50 PM

Blog - Stack Exchange: Podcast #47 – Do You Even Twitter Bro?

Alex Miller on May 14, 2013

We’re Back! It’s been a while since our last podcast (why you ask – listen to find out!) but we’re back now and “stronger” than ever. It’s Joel, David and Jay (plus producer Alex and Abby) coming to you from the brand new SE Podcast Studio (check out the picture below)

News of the day: we’re finally in our new office (and podcast studio). We’ve got hexagonal offices (and therefore crooked hallways), and a cool café area. AND HEATED TOILET SEATS. And a kitchen with a giant walk-in refrigerator, for our interns (which we don’t have). …

« first day (928 days earlier) ← previous day next day → last day (3990 days later) »

Transcript for

May '1314

Android Enthusiasts

Welcome to the main chat room for android.stackexchange.com! H...

join this room
about this room

00:00

06:00

12:00

18:00

all times are UTC

site design / logo © 2024 Stack Exchange Inc; legal

mobile