For a recent application, I want to provide the ability to subscribe to a calendar feed while staying on the android device. Going to calendar.google.com and manually adding the http link (ics) isn't an option. I can't really find a lot of information on this topic. Since it is a completely new app it doesn't have to be ics. Just anything that works ok on iOS and Android.
On iOS, this is so easy as you can just programmatically make a call with the .ics link and the user will get a question to subscribe. Android ICS also introduced the Calendar API, but I haven't really found any clues on how you can subscribe to a public ics with this. I don't think it's possible as it just seems to be a way to actually make a new calendar or add/change events but not subscribe to a changing .ics feed.
Anyway, I just want to be sure that this is true and just not an option. (This is a defect of Android in 2014 in my opinion.)
There is another question on SO that is related, with an answer by CommonsWare. But making the user install another app together with my app just isn't an option and is much too cumbersome. Only a library of some kind that could make the subscription would really make this process acceptable for use within an app.
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I'm trying to program an app using android studio that receives data (blood sugar levels) from the app tomato (which calculates blood sugar levels automatically every 5 mins or so). The tomato app already exists and is made by a company.
So I was wondering if doing this is possible. if so, how?
I saw this post: Is it possible for an Android app to use data from another app? which is very similar to what im trying to do but i didnt find an exact solution/answer to this.
Any opinions and help are very much needed and welcomed.
You would first need to know how the app is storing the data, you could check your phone's storage using the Device File Explorer in Android Studio. If they have exposed the data then you are able to check and read the files that the app has exposed. However, I have a feeling that they would not be leaving them in plain text for you to take.
Upon some further reading, it seems they read from a device called a MiaoMiao Transmitter. You could ask the producer of this product for a developer kit and see what they say. This would come with documentation as to how you can get data from the product. However, if they do not provide you with any help, you will need to do some investigation as to how the device functions.
Perhaps it sends android broadcasts when it is taking a reading? This is just speculation of course. This is very niche and I believe that is a reason there are only a few apps that use the device - they are trying to lock out "non-verified" developers. However, when there is a will, there is always a way! ;)
Best of luck!
I have seen so many apps that provide auto tapping feature. But they don't provide some specific customization so I decided to create a one. I have seen many tutorials that offers auto tapping, but they are supposed to be used in the same app. But I want to create an auto tapping app that can click on other app's View. I am an intermediate java developer but new to Android studio, so I don't know much about Android APIs. Is there any class or package which can provide this feature. For more clearance, I want to do auto tap, when the color at the specific location on screen, (213, 120) for instance, becomes green.
Thanks in advance!
I am not an expert on the subject, I have experience as a BackEnd developer, I am new to the Android world, just like you I am interested in building an app to automate some farming mechanics in Android games with specific behaviors, so I investigated on the subject and the solution you are looking for is the AccessibilityService API, from Android 8.0 (API level 26) it includes several functionalities to make touches without the need for Root, I leave you links with examples of some open source repos that can guide you.
https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/accessibility/service#continued-gestures (Doc)
https://github.com/nestorm001/AutoClicker (Old and abandoned project, but has the functionality of touches)
https://github.com/pylapp/SmoothClicker (A more mature App but need root, it can be helpful to guide you in how to build the UI)
For the detection in the change of the pixel I still do not have a concrete answer, I keep looking, maybe obtaining a dump of the screen every X time and validate the pixels on that is the way but it is still uncertain if it is the way to go.
Something like How to record screen and take screenshots, using Android API?.
I know that you can get a bitmap dump of the screen if you have the activity, but it's not the case, however some class in the following package may be helpful https://developer.android.com/reference/kotlin/android/graphics/package-summary.
I'm currently working in my own implementation, when I have something to show I will gladly share it.
I want to make an android application which will display an external message (For example: some quotes, proverbs etc) daily.
The message should be retrieved from some place other than the client device and I would like to configure the messages from back end
These messages should also change everyday.
How should the back end be and how can the android application retrieve the configured message ?
Do I need a server at the back end for the same or can avail some cloud services for the same ?
What is the best approach to do?
If you want to avoid having to set up and manage a server on the backend yourself you can take a look at a 'backend as a service' offering.
Two example candidates are:
https://parse.com
http://aws.amazon.com/lambda/
Both Parse and Amazon provide SDK's to allow you interact with the backend from your Android app.
You will likely want to study this a little to decide if you want this type of solution or to build your own server as Brian suggests - I think there are pros and cons to each approach and you'll have to choose which is best for your case.
Yes, you will need a server. You can start building the server software on the same machine as your Android emulator and create them in parallel. You'll need to choose a language and most likely a web server framework that suits your thought process and style.
If you want to use REST, for instance, google some for "best REST server framework". You will get hundreds of answers that don't mean much, but look at the communities that surround the frameworks that come back. Look at the user lists and how many questions about it exist on this site. That will give you a better idea of whether you can ask questions and get answers when they arise. You are making an investment by learning a framework, spend a little time deciding which one you are going to use, possibly by trying a few of them for a very simple site that returns the kind of data you are looking for.
Other than that, you really need to ask specific questions once you've chosen a language and a framework. Hope that helps.
I'm developing an Android app that will do a Google Image Search and return the images to the user in a list. I've looked around on StackOverflow and have run into some problems. First off, I'm a total newbie programmer with only 4 months' worth of programming experience, so I appreciate you guys being patient with me.
I looked through Google Image Search API and I know it's being depreciated and will get shut down someday. Because of this, I don't want to use it. After extensive research on the topic, I don't want to use Bing or another image search service, and I don't want to do a "reverse image search. I just want to use a simple image search via string. I've used this app (https://github.com/tonytamsf/Android-Image-Search) to look at the code, but in all honesty, it's just not helping and it's confusing me more on how to exactly search for an image on Google. Plus, the app won't compile in Eclipse :(
I've also looked around at Google Developer APIs, and I'm not sure if I need to turn on an API key for myself? Still, a bit confused about that. I thought I needed to do a custom search engine, but just by looking at that, I don't think it's exactly what I'm looking for.
Can anyone point me to some resources for this? I would really appreciate it. Thank you!
Just a heads up, but what you're asking is pretty challenging and it sounds like you're just getting started. Here's what I can suggest though:
To get that demo code working in eclipse, I had to right-click the project, click properties, click Android, then check the box for the version of android installed. (I had android 19 installed, and the code was expecting 16, so it was giving up. Tell it to use what you have, which probably is 19). This worked for me after using the git plugin in eclipse to import the project. If you are importing a different way, you may have different issues. * Using git and importing the project is a good skill to have, so if that's unfamiliar territory, take the time to look at that.
Ok, that's the end of what I am sure of. The rest is an educated guess, but I'm sure others can correct me.
Next, if tinkering with that project isn't enough, getting real google image search working will take several skills, especially since the old API is gone. In total you'll need to know:
Java
Android programming
google cloud services
google custom search API
REST
some other libraries to glue the custom search to your app
It's a big chunk there. Currently, it seems the only way to use google's image search is to run a google app engine (you basically set up an online account for google to run a server for you. It does computation and sends messages back and forth for you. You only get a little bit for free each day and then if you want more you have to pay. This is one-way Google earns money. It's not something they let you run on your own computer anymore.). Then you make your android app talk to that server using your new login ID, and the server will take the search term and send back the answers to your android app.
You can get the app engine running and use it in chrome without dealing with android to save yourself time, then add the android part later in the future. Good luck!
I just got done writing an Android Activity that allows other Activities to call it for some result (it's not intended to be a stand-alone Activity). I'm now working on the equivalent iOS application and can't find any resources for how I would enable similar functionality on iOS.
The situation: The tool I'm producing is intended to be used by other applications, rather than as a standalone application. The thing is, the GUI that needs to be presented to the user is rather involved so I'd like to be able to provide the developer with a "all-in-one" package that they can simply launch and get results from. Doing this in Android was very straight forward. I simply wrote an Activity and instructed the developer to launch this Activity for result. I've looked around and can't find a similar functionality to allow an iOS developer to do the same. What would be the best way to go about doing this?
I think part of the problem I'm having in finding resources is that I'm not entirely sure what what I'm making is called. A library? extension? plug-in? I would think a library doesn't have a GUI and it seems extensions and plug-ins are made for an extensible application (that is, one in which the user can install the extension/plug-in).
Your API could be à single call that would pop up a modal view. A target and selector can be specified to receive an answer. Supplying it to other developers means packing it into a "framework". I'm not sure if you can include resources.
There isn't really any equivalent. The closest you can come is having the second application call UIApplication's openURL with a custom scheme that is listened to by your app, and then when your app is done it would do the same with a custom scheme that is listened to by the calling app.
In practice, the iOS app would usually include the entire activity-equivalent as some sort of library, which at the high level would take the form of a UIViewController subclass that is presented modally and then calls a delegate method or completion selector of some sort on completion.
iPhone development is a different design than Android development, so you may need to rethink what it is you are trying to do.
Most likely you will want to look at just including the code in each program, initially, just so you can get it testable, but that may not be the best solution.
But, without knowing more details about what you are trying to do it is hard to give some suggestions as to better solutions.
For example, you may find LocalNotifications as one solution (http://useyourloaf.com/blog/2010/7/31/adding-local-notifications-with-ios-4.html), but again, it depends on what your needs are.
I found that using local notifications to call a REST service, then to process it and decide if I need to inform the user was helpful, as a replacement for how I used Intents in the Android application.