MotoDEVStudio4Android Customization

Customization of MotoDESStudio4Android  first starts with come correct information.

Other than MotoDEvStudio4android the plugins pictured are the only ones you can install. You cannot install rest of eclipse that Moto took out which means you have to download the Eclipse Memory analyzer to use with android as an RCP download to use a separate application.

I still do not why MotoDevStudio4andoid staff would continue to indicate that you install plugins from eclipse that they took out as its an underlying MotoDevStudio limitation that has always been present in MotoStudio IDE products. That does not mean that the tools are not useful, its just that I believe the greater sum of parts can be gained by incorporating MototDevStudio additions on top of a full Eclipse install.

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D-pad Behavior MB200-Motorola Add-on

Some of you in the many developer email lists were asking about the MB200 Motorola emulator D-pad behaviour. The post about the bug is here. As Anas of Motorola has mention you could use:

 public void whatsAvailable() {

          Configuration myConfig = new Configuration();

          Context context = getApplicationContext();

          int duration = Toast.LENGTH_SHORT;

          CharSequence text = "";

          myConfig.setToDefaults();

          myConfig = getResources().getConfiguration();

          switch (myConfig.orientation){

             // test for Configuration.<direction>

             // and display a toast

          }

..to get the values as you cannot depend on model numbers, see the post here.

An Apology to MotoDEV Studio Team

Image via Wikipedia

My intention was to see if I would be able to use the MotoDev Studio for Android  in producing Android Applications for several book proposals that I am submitting to Apress. But due to everal short-sighted decisions that are evidently part of the core MotoDev Studio philosophy I cannot accomplish that feat. Let me explain.

Part of the Android OS Mobile Platform design philosophy has been  applications without limits. Imagine you as the Star Trek Captain character named James(Jim) T Kirk. You do not want to be told by your engineer that you cannot have full power. By limiting the whole MototDev Studio series both in JavaMe and Android to not including CVS and SVN, Mylyn, TPTP and WTP for such things as the Eclipse Memory Analyser Tool to analyse Android heap dumps..Motorola has effectively told mobile developers that  you do not want full power.

That is not to say that the other additions ot MototDev Studio in term sof emulator/device control, code templates, SQLite view(in Android’s case)..are not important additions to making it easier fro first time developers. However, it is too much of a sacrifice to ask that first-time mobile developer that  they give up their right to be able to go to full developmental power for those features. Yeah, it is probably why both my interviews at Motorola both ‘sucked’. I cannot help it, I have a full blown user(in this case user is the mobile developer both beginner and advanced) full power ethics bent and it is somewhat impossible to turn it off.

I am sorry that all that hard work by the MotoDev Studio team cannot be appreciated by those who want both the beginner and advanced mobile developer to have full power at their finger tips in their mobile IDE. Due to the limitations to MotoDev Studio for Android I will not be using it in the development of the Android Programming WebView Web code using Goolge Web Toolkit book. I certainly hope that a ‘re-tooling’ of MototDev Studio addressing  these issues occurs as it would be a huge win for both the beginning developer and the advance developer.

MotoDev Studio for Android 1.6

A short note, I just checked the MotoDev Studio for Android download page and version 1.0 supporting Android 1.6 is still not up yet.  I have been told to expect it either on Friday or Monday. However, I still do not have a new features list for hat version and they normally release the Linux version several weeks after the Windows and Mac Versions. At this time I do not know if the MB200 SDK add-on will be updated for Android 1.6 at the same release time period. You might want to tweet @MotoDev and ask. As far as MotoBlur in the emulator form my information I understand that you may get get access to MotoBlur functionality through the Virtual Dev Lab through Motorola’s App Acceleration program.

Motorola MB200 Add-on

It is not bad as Motorola’s version 2 of the MB20 handset add-on for the Android emulator. However, no Motoblur enabled this time and no search enabled. I guess we might have to wait for October or November for those features to be enabled in the emulator add-on. Here is hoping that other handset OEMs follow up with their own Android Emulator Ad-ons soon.

Is ANT support Broken in Android SDK?

As you know if you read my posts on Android SDK customization that I customize the Android SDK to supply better ANT scripts upon executing the create project command. Here is what I mean by broke, mobile development is different in that we have more one-person-shops than say in enterprise development. Thus, having default build scripts to  handle most user cases in android development becomes more of a priority for getting developer s to the platform as these developers will  not become Apache ANT experts just to use the platform.

And the Android SDK set-up is such that one cannot easily make changes ot the android_rules.xml file to fix the ANT support becasue that would break other things. Sure, I could  suggest that we intentionally break the build.template in order to get better build scripts in the Android SDk but that fix/enhancement will never get approval not because it gives more stuff to application developers but it is  how android_rules.xml and build.template in the SDK were originally setup as far with other components having dependencies on those files.

The most obvious potential supporter of this movement towards better ANT support for Android Developers  would be Motorola as the current release of MotoDveStudio for Android  shows. I am not sure how to crack that ‘wall’ at this time as I run into too many ‘oh Motorola is so big we do not know where to ask your question’ response from any Motorola employee I ask(You should have seen how long it took to get Moto HQ staff to change from going my old blog to this one, shakes head..sheesh!)

So what does an example user case look like indicating broken ANT support? The continued  every new Android Developer getting Proguard settings in their ANT task wrong, perhaps? The question now appears on the developers lists more than once a week. That is just one example, as the questiosn about ANT have gone up from only one per month when Google started the android Dev lists to several per week.

According to Fadden(Proguard), here is how obfuscation task should look:

<target name="-obfuscate" depends="compile.incremental">
			<!-- In versions prior to 4.4 Peephole optimization was turned off
			     however in 4.4beta is now on and thus we
			     have turn off with the command of
			     -optimizations !code/simplification/cast
			     per Fadden also use
			     -allowaccessmodification -->
<proguard>
			  -libraryjars ${android.jar}: ${external-libs-folder}
			  -injars      ${out-classes-location}
			  -outjars     ${obfuscate-location}/classes.min.jar
			  -keep public class * extends android.app.Activity
			  -optimizations !code/simplification/cast
			  -allowaccessmodification
			</proguard>

		</target>

Notice that there are now two new settings and that is updated per Fadden’s notes from this week. That is just a sample of the areas of ANT support where the Android developers do not want to become ANT experts or build engineer experts but they need to know or have a basic default set of build scripts that is specific to Android development.

If we do not tackle this now, when 9 million Android devices hit the market it will ‘bite’ the whole development community in the ass.

MotoDevStudio for Android Questions

Image via CrunchBase

Motorola has a preview release of MotoDevSyudio for Android. My key questions are:

1. Eclipse  3.4 is used which means it has the bug prone ant 1.7.0 release preventing you from using col stuff like taskdef resoruce loading ot use Jdepend and et in a Android app build script. will MotoDevStduio for Andorid be updated to Eclipse 3.5 soon since ECF will not be releasing an Eclipse 3.4 fix to upgrade Eclipse 3.4 to ANT 1.7.1?

2. Does M0otoDevStudio for Android have build script support to suport webview web coding tasks such as obfuscationof javascript in assets folder files and javascript analysis say via lint for java and say support javascript javadoc generation?

3. Does MotoDevStudio for Android support java preprocessign to target one code base for multiple SDK  versions?

4. Many Android developers use Linux Oes, when is the MotoDevStudio for Android Linux version being released?

Working With An Evolving Android SDK

Image by netzkobold via Flickr

Finishing up hacks and testing those with AndCooper 0.1 The problem with the Android SDK is it  is evolving so we have things that change form release to release and so I have had to ot hacks to get around those changing items such as the value of the target value in default.properties changing syntax and etc.

The whole idea here is that say Google and OHA pulbish a new relase of Android SDk called 2.0 on Firday.  Than I should as a developer be able to take the AndCooper Build Toool and with no changes or avery few adjustments be able to build projects right-away using the AndCooper tool. I as an Android Developer should not hav to wait for the p;roject lead of AndCooper to adjust and ix things, it should alrady work with the new SDK release.

It is a very different approach than say an OEM, say Motorola,  would take on building an Android Application Development ANT-based build tool as my target audience is both beginning Android  Developers and Advanced Andorid Application Developers. It is importna ot get this right as we will see Four SDK releases per year. Through today I expect to be posting some videos of final AndCooper 0.1 testing to apologize for the delays in the 0.1 release.

Motorola’s SideKick Killer

Now this a device Motorola device I would buy.  Obviously while it may hit RIM somewhat it has broader audience of say its Danger Sidekick Device competitors, certainly. You can read the full Gizmodo post about this Motorola device and when it might be expected to arrive. Given the slim foot-print and stlying I certainly coudl se Hollywood elite like Paris Hilton buying such social-online-focused devices.

Edit, changed title..still not awake yet..sorry.