I'm familiarizing myself with the Google Cast SDK by building a small test application, following the Cast SDK for Android guide. I've created a standard ActionBarActivity-based app as the guide suggests (even though ActionBarActivity is deprecated... shrug) I've added all the library dependencies, added the necessary XML to AndroidManifest.xml and menu_main.xml and am using the MediaRouteActionProvider to handle device detection and to show/hide the Cast button in the action bar. All is working well, and the "Connect to device" box appears as it should when I tap the Cast Button.
However, when I tap the Cast button again to disconnect, the "Stop Casting" box appears but it is unusually small.
The box is supposed to be wide enough to show the volume bar -- in my super-small version, the volume slider does in fact show up but it is unusably small. Compare to what it is supposed to look like, for example as in the YouTube app shown below.
Any idea what could be going on here? I am using basically the exact code that the Cast SDK for Android guide uses (the only addition being some custom Buttons with onClick listeners to control the media playback and to start casting several different test streams (both audio and video.)
This is due to changes that were made into the Media Router Support library and will be fixed in future updates to that library. If absolutely needed, the current workaround is to override that dialog.
Related
In the simple Dialog below:
// choice of layout has no impact:
Container cont=new Container(new TextModeLayout(3, 1));
//Container cont=new Container(new BoxLayout(BoxLayout.Y_AXIS));
TextComponent firstName=new TextComponent().label("First Name").text(person.firstname);
TextComponent lastName=new TextComponent().label("Last Name").text(person.lastname);
TextComponent cost=new TextComponent().label("Cost per Session").text(person.getCostString());
cost.getField().setConstraint(TextArea.DECIMAL);
// NOTE HERE
// doesn't work: // works:
cont.add(firstName); // cont.add(firstName.getField());
cont.add(lastName); // cont.add(lastName.getField());
cont.add(cost); // cont.add(cost.getField());
Dialog.show("Edit Client", cont, new Command(CANCEL), new Command(OK));
Nothing appears in the Dialog unless I add the TextField instead of the TextComponent to my container at the NOTE HERE comment. This means I lose the nice appearance of the labelled input fields (yes I know I could label them myself, but they wouldn't look as good on different devices). My choice of layout manager at the top does not affect this issue (I've tried several). I can't find evidence online to conclude there's an incompatibility here, adding TextComponents and other InputComponents works fine on a Form, just not in a Dialog.
I'm having the same problem in another Dialog that uses PickerComponents. The PickerComponent doesn't appear unless I add the Picker itself, and then the Picker spawned from a Dialog looks all wrong. I'm hoping the simpler code question above will answer this quandary as well.
It's worth noting I've made no theme changes and this problem is noted in both the Android and Apple skins as well as on an actual Android phone. Thanks in advance for any help!
You shouldn't do input in a Dialog as it creates a very problematic user experience. If you would like things to look like they are in a dialog you can use styles and layouts to make a Form feel like a Dialog but you shouldn't use a Dialog.
The reason this fails is a bit complicated but here are the high level problems with using a dialog:
Dialogs don't grow implicitly - This is a huge problem for text input as the component needs space to resize with input and even more so for the animated TextComponent which needs to shift things around. The size of a Dialog is determined when it's shown and that's a big problem
This becomes a bigger problem on Android where the screen resizes during input and distorts the dialog completely. It's one of those things you'll only see on the device because it's really hard to simulate the virtual keyboard.
Scrollability is hard in a Dialog and text components need a scrollable parent so you can scroll between the various edit components
Picker component uses a form of Dialog to show input and this can collide with your dialog
Dialogs are hard to get right for suspend/resume behavior. Suspend/resume happens when the app is minimized or sent to the background. E.g. say you have an incoming call while typing in the dialog. When you go back to the app we want to show the last form. If we show the dialog it will block and we won't know which parent form to show anyway. So when an app is suspended dialogs are just disposed in the default code generated in the main class. It makes more sense.
I need to quickly, and on demand, render a Xamarin forms content page, and take a screenshot of this.
The device I'm taking a screenshot of must be able to render custom dimensions, and ideally honor the device type (Android, iOS, Windows).
What is the most efficient way to render this image, and then take a screenshot of this?
Note: I need to do this dynamically and in near real time. Consider this similar to https://appetize.io but for a completely different purpose
1、I want to create a circle and set an image that customized to fill the circle，use this as a marker on the map, not only could change the image but also the color of circle anytime，what can I do to implements this function? Please look at the picture below!
2、Like your CityMaps app show，when I enlarge the map, some business icon that hide are show on the map，which are hide again while shrink the map, How to achieve this effect？
3、After I initialization the Object Marker and called the method marker.setFadeTime(3000)，the software give my tips the method is no exist and I see the class Marker.java but really not find the method，Why is it so？
4、I want to add some stars beside the marker like this:
What can I do to add the stars？the label only can set the text beside the marker.
5、I want to load your maps at the fragment，not the activity that extends FragmentActivity，I found the SupportCitymapsMapFragment is no use，What I can do to complete this requirement?
6、In your apps，it is locate that place after input New York in the search box，What can i do to complete this function whatever i input？
7、During I develop the apps about the Citymaps，I found a serious problem so that your apps had happend too. When I run the apps， the program force flash back all of a sudden and I run your apps Citymaps at this time，the problems are same of the front，I found some error in logical view that is follows：15327-15374/com.map.maplbs A/libc﹕ Fatal signal 11 (SIGSEGV) at 0xdeadbaad (code=1), thread 15374 (Thread-1819).
To solve the problem，I must restart my device. Why is it so？
I am a developer on the Citymaps SDK, I will do my best to answer your questions.
1) I recommend using the Android Canvas API to construct the images, and then use a Marker to display it on the map. See the documentation for details: http://developer.citymaps.com/markers
2) This is built into the Citymaps BusinessLayer. This functionality is not exposed through an API. If you wish to use the Citymaps BusinessLayer, you should create a CitymapsMapView or CitymapsMapFragment/SupportCitymapsMapFragment and it will automatically be added to your map.
3) At this time, there appears to be a known issue with the fadeTime API. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We will fix it in an upcoming release. For now, you can animate the alpha property of the Marker.
4) Once again, the functionality of the BusinessLayer is not directly exposed. If you wish to create similar markers, I recommend you construct the image using Android's Canvas and then adding it as a Marker to the map.
5) If you wish to load the map inside of a fragment, you can accomplish this using child fragments (check Android documentation for more details). You can also accomplish this by instantiating CitymapsMapView or MapView directly and adding it to your view hierarchy either in XML or in code. However if you do this, remember to call the lifecycle methods on your map instance, or else the map will not behave properly.
6) If you wish to have a search in your app, it is up to you to implement this feature. We do not currently provide a search API out of the box.
7) Thank you for the bug report. We will investigate this issue and fix it in a future release.
If you have any more questions, feel free to ask, and thank you for using the Citymaps SDK.
Does MvvmCross support a cross platform solution for displaying alerts or popups?
Searching the code I found MvxDialogActivityView but it has been commented out. Will this remain the case for now?
If there is no direct support how would you suggest this is best done? (Perhaps the ViewModel would change a property and call FirePropertyChanged so that the View would be aware of it and show an alert.)
Edit 16:04 16th June 2012
What I am trying to do for this specific case is as follows:
On the page a button is clicked, which causes a method to run in the ViewModel which does an evaluation to determine which of two messages should be shown to the customer. The message would be shown as an alert or popup (either native, or preferably totally styled by me). The message would fade after (the click of the OK button, or preferably 3 seconds).
After the message has been dismissed a new page will be navigated too (depending on which of the two messages was shown).
How to handle this definitely depends on what the situation is - there's no single best rule (IMHO)
For a general error display pattern, there's one proposal at http://slodge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/one-pattern-for-error-handling-in.html
I've used similar patterns for showing application level notifications - e.g. for when a long running operation completes or when a chat message arrives or...
One interesting post about how to display message boxes was: http://awkwardcoder.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/showing-message-box-from-viewmodel-in.html - I'm not sure I'd completely follow the end solution, but there are definitely some good points there about what not to do.
For your updated scenario, I would consider using a messenger (like TinyMessenger) or using normal C# events exposed by the ViewModel and consumed by its View
On the page a button is clicked, which causes a method to run in the ViewModel
I would implement this using an ICommand bound to the button Click/Tap/TouchDown
which does an evaluation to determine which of two messages should be shown to the customer.
I would definitely implement the logic within a Service
This would be called from the ViewModel - and the result/decision would probably cause some property or private field state change.
How does the View then decide to show a message? I can think of 3 options:
The View could just respond to a Property change (normal Mvvm INPC) - this would be my preference
The ViewModel could expose a normal C# event which it triggers...
The ViewModel could send a Message
This last option (Messenging) is probably the most flexible solution here - it decouples the View and ViewModel in case you later decide to change responsibilities. To implement messenging, either:
implement your own hub (like I do for errors in http://slodge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/one-pattern-for-error-handling-in.html)
or use a generic solution like TinyMessenger
The message would be shown as an alert or popup (either native, or preferably totally styled by me).
This is a View concern - so would be entirely controlled by the View project. I'd use controls like: UIAlert, Toast, ToastPrompt, etc - all of which can be styled
The message would fade after (the click of the OK button, or preferably 3 seconds). After the message has been dismissed...
I'd use some form of Code Behind (or maybe a Behaviour in WP7) in the View. This would detect the click/fade/disappear and would then invoke either an ICommand (my preference) or public method on the ViewModel
a new page will be navigated too
This navigation would be requested from the ViewModel
(depending on which of the two messages was shown).
This would be easy to track through the above flow... presumably the ViewModel already knows what to show.
So that's what I'd do...
it keeps the application flow logic inside the ViewModels (and lower)
it keeps the presentation inside the Views
...but I'm sure there are other options :)
One final note... the fade out and then navigate logic can really get "messed up" by Switching/Tombstoning on WP7 and Android - this may or may not matter for your particular scenario.
if you use the Google Plus App on Android and switch to the Stream, you get a view where you can swipe to the left and right between the All circles/Incoming/Nearby-Stream. What view component is used for this? Is this a standard Android component? Or where can I find democode how i can build such a view component?
You should take a look at the ViewPager from Android Compatibility Package for the desired widget/swipe navigation. Find more about it here
http://developer.android.com/sdk/compatibility-library.html
Also, checkout this recently posted tutorial and some sample code on ViewPager by Richard:
http://geekyouup.blogspot.com/2011/07/viewpager-example-from-paug.html
It is a combination of a ViewPager together with an indicator for where you are currently and where you can go swiping left and right.
A sample of how this can be done along with code you can use in your own apps may for example be found here. I've played with this code a little and it works pretty well.
None of the default widgets/views. I guess, it's some kind of a custom view with swipe functionality.
Honeycomb opens up a few new widgets which seem to have these functionality. Have a look here.
http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-3.0.html (New Widgets)
I used APKTool to take a look at what's going on. Hopefully it is okay to post this here. This is from version 1.0.2 of the G+ APK.
removed google+ app code as per CommonsWare's suggestion
So, it looks like they're using standard views, though perhaps with a good deal of gesture detection and smooth animation magic.
EDIT) If you really want to know about the exact inner-workings of what is going on in the Stream activity, I suggest you use APKTool yourself and examine the .smali code