What could be a suitable UI element for map radius? - android

The android app that I am building contains a map activity. In that activity I need the user to specify a circle around its location.
And the radius of this circle needs to be provided by user. So what could be the best UI element to let the user specify the radius.
Best option that comes to my mind is a seek bar. One sliding it to one end, radius increases and vice versa.
Any thoughts?

A plus and minus button (like google maps has for zooming)
A gesture (2 finger to the edges of the screen for increasing the size e.g.) [no real UI element, but maybe more user-friendly]
A vertical or horizontal slider

Related

Create KenBurns with minimum possible zoom

I am using this library
I am trying to create app with minimal possible zoom.
In my application I have small area where the images are presented as slide show. But the images are big so when kenburns effect starts it it zoomed too much.
How can I set the zoom level ?
You need to create your own TransitionGenerator. If you want the keep the random movement and control the zoom, a good place to start is to base your custom TransitionGenerator off this one. The highlighted line (120) uses a random zoom factor. Hardcoding it will do what you need.

Adding gestures and making an image interactive

I'm trying to make an image more interactive by adding gestures (currently I'm thinking about only zoom, might add later depending on the requirement). It's a parking app by the way.
By interactive I mean that user can tap on a part of an image, let's say it's area A and labelled "A", and then a new interactive image will pop up for that area.
I'm pondering whether I should break down the image part by part in order to detect user's tapping location, or should I take the X, and Y coordinate? And if I should take the coordinate, does that mean I have to alter the code so that it'll cover different screen sizes?
Another question is.. I'm thinking of using Djikstra's algorithm for best route to be taken by user, does the algorithm need the image to be whole?
I'm also planning to add marks for vacant and occupied slots, but it is trivial for whether I should split the image to parts or not, right?

Android - Using AChartEngine, is it possible to zoom in to a specific point upon displaying the graph?

I have a bar graph with 100+ bars and want to zoom in to a specific range upon displaying the graph. For example, when the graph is displayed on the screen I want only the bars 44-49 to be showing. It is important that the users will be able to zoom out to see all 100+ bars as well.
GraphicalView.zoomIn() would work if it allowed me to specify a point to zoom in to.
Thanks!
You can set the visible range on the X axis:
renderer.setXAxisMin(44);
renderer.setXAxisMax(49);

Implementing wheel shaped interface navigation tool

I am interested in implementing a user interface navigation control mechanism based on a wheel shaped device (or pie chart shaped or circle shaped) in my Android app.
I would like only half of the wheel to be visible at any time. That is, only the top half of the wheel should be visible since the bottom half should be below the border of the screen. The user can then turn the 'half wheel' to show options hidden by the screen border. The visible top half should then be divided into three parts like a pie chart, so the user can press either one of them to invoke some action. The following pic should explain (it is an example with seven (A-G) options).
http://imgur.com/lNu1F
The rotation itself should not be hard, but I am having a hard time understanding how to position the wheel so that half of it is outside the actual screen. I am thinking that loading the entire wheel (but hiding half of it) is best, since that is that graphics I have and it will also allow a smooth animation when the user swipes to show some other options. How can I make Android show the wheel in this way?
Also. Any comment on how to implement the 'swipe along the wheel shape' would be appreciated.
Thank you.
So for the wheel - you are hving trouble knowing how to position the wheel because you are using XML to align you objects and would like to use something like "Align Object Center To Bottom" which does not exist.
Here is one approach that might work fine: Mask the wheel view.
Is it possible to mask a View in android?
As for swipe the wheel along, I would register the wheel to take touche events, and use only the horizontal componenet of move events to apply to the rotation of the wheel. This setup is common in audio software that uses knobs.
However if you want to have it stick to the users finger in a more realistic fashion, you will need to do the following:
When the user first touches the wheel, calculate the angle from the wheel center to the finger.
Every time the finger moves, check the angle from the wheel center to the finger - and rotate the wheel the amount that the angle has changed from the last touch event.
The formula for getting the angle between two points is this:
Float angleInRadians = Math.atan2(point1.y-point2.y, point1.x-point2.x);

Android Dynamically-Drawn, Clickable Map Overlay?

I'm trying to write an Android app that will allow a user to search for a generic destination (e.g., "gas station") and be presented with up to ~5 nearby locations to choose from. The screen results would display the user location in the center, and possible destination options would be indicated by markers.
The trick is that I don't want to rescale the map from its starting scale, and so some of the possible destinations may not be visible on the screen. I want to dynamically draw a clickable direction indicator (such as an arrow) that emanates from the user location and points to any off-screen destination. If there are multiple off-screen destinations, I'd probably want to scale the arrow lengths to indicate relative distances. If the user clicks on the arrow, they should be "teleported" to the off-screen location.
Any thoughts on how to best implement this? The only information I've found on overlays uses static files (Most overlays seem to be just .PNG files for markers; one example had a route that was drawn from an XML file). I'd need to calculate the arrow based on direction
to the destination (direction the arrow points) and the relative distance to that location (arrow length), so the overlay is something I'd have to come up with at run time.
I think the main challenge is drawing the clickable arrows, but another question that comes to mind is, should I search using the Google Maps API, or is this job more suited to the Google Places API?
Thanks!
I guess we should put the teleportation on hold until the problem of a dynamically-drawn, clickable overlay is solved then!
A dynamically-drawn, clickable overlay is merely a subclass of Overlay. You will override one or both of the draw() methods to render your arrows using the Canvas 2D drawing API. You will override onTap() to be notified of taps on the map, to see if they tapped on an arrow. You add the overlay to the MapView via addOverlays().add().
Most overlays seem to be just .PNG files for markers
Those are usually ItemizedOverlay classes. That's much simpler to implement, particularly if you are one of those developers (like me) who is all thumbs when it comes to Canvas. However, you cannot achieve what you want with an ItemizedOverlay, in all likelihood.
I'd need to calculate the arrow based on direction to the destination (direction the arrow points) and the relative distance to that location (arrow length), so the overlay is something I'd have to come up with at run time.
Correct. You can use a Projection to help convert between pixel space and geo-space (latitude and longitude), if needed.
Note that this all assumes you are trying to use MapActivity and MapView. You are also welcome to use WebView or a plain browser to bring up your own JavaScript-based maps, if you prefer.

Categories

Resources