Develop Reference

Android - Forecast.io icon label to custom font: weather-icons

I'm currently building a weather app using the forecast.io api.
They provide custom font for Forecast.io, as well as for other apis such as Yahoo. I'm not sure about how to proceed to use their API mapping.
For instance, I receive "partly-cloudy-night" and this should render the icon.
I would welcome advices or clues on how to proceed.
Thanks a lot,

You have to use the ttf file il your android project, and convert the css to xml string ressource.
I did it for Web Hosting hub glyph (a bit like font awesome but many more icons).
See https://github.com/neoteknic/whhg-to-android
I can reuse my convertion script an make a repo with these icons.
Edit :
This is for you :
https://github.com/neoteknic/weather-icons-to-android
To use it (I prefer load only once the typeface and make it available globally) :
public class YourAppName extends Application {
public static Typeface weatherIcons;
#Override
public void onCreate(){
YourAppName.weatherIcons= Typeface.createFromAsset(getApplicationContext().getResources().getAssets(), "fonts/weathericons-regular-webfont.ttf");
super.onCreate();
}
}
Then when you wanna use it :
TextView myicon=(TextView) findViewById(R.id.myicon);
myicon.setTypeface(YourAppName.weatherIcons);
myicon.setText(R.string.wi_day_snow_wind);

Best Practices for organizing different code for phone and tablet

I'm adapting an existing phone application for tablets. The problem is that there are some small differences in the UI between the phone and the tablet.
For example, on the phone, there is a landing page and then a login page with a cancel button that goes back too the landing page.
On the tablet, the login fragment is on the landing page and the cancel button is removed. This means that I've made a check to see if the device is a tablet and if it is, I dunno find the view of the cancel button.
This seems hacky to me and i was wondering if there was a better way to do this. Thanks.

Tablet or phone ?
First of all you should know on which device you are. An elegant way (in my opinion) is to declare a resource in config.xml :
values/config.xml
<bool name="isTablet">false</bool>
values-sw600dp/config.xml
<bool name="isTablet">true</bool>
Then extends Application and keep the type of device running the app :
public static boolean IS_TABLET = false;
public void onCreate() {
super.onCreate();
MyApp.IS_TABLET = getResources().getBoolean(R.bool.isTablet);
}
Handling differents view
To handle differents view use the differents folders in /res
/layout for phone view
/layout-sw600dp for 7" tablet (you can just use this folder if there is no difference between 7 et 10")
/layout-sw720dp for 10" tablet
Handling code
Two solutions here :
1- The change between views are minor : keep the same activity/fragment and add some condition like
if(MyAPP.IS_TABLET) {
// DO something on tablet
} else {
// Do something on phone
}
2- If tablet and phone are very different create a new activity/fragment with a suffixe like :
HomeActvity => HomeActivityTablet
And add a condition on the loading of this particular view.
You can also works with differents namespace , depending on what give you best architecture.
Exemple
Have a look on the Google IO app's source code

How to display Sinhala Unicode characters in android app

I,m trying to show Sinhala Unicode characters in android app.
when i am using Samsung tabs or phones Unicode is running it on without problem.but it does not work on other phones or tab.cause there is no Sinhala Unicode.How to do this for an example i run this code on Samsung tab successfully.
Toast.makeText(this, "අන්තර්ජාල සම්බන්දතාවය තිබේ ", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
but other phones or tab does n't work.

You might need to have a Sinhalese font file (say, Sinhalese.ttf) in the directory assets/fonts in the root of your project. You create a dummy text view because it has a method called setTypeface, which sets the font for next code:
import android.graphics.Typeface;
public class FontSampler extends Activity {
#Override
public void onCreate(Bundle icicle) {
super.onCreate(icicle);
setContentView(R.layout.main);
TextView tv=(TextView)findViewById(R.id.custom); // a dummy text view
Typeface face=Typeface.createFromAsset(getAssets(),
"fonts/Sinhalese.ttf");
tv.setTypeface(face);
Toast.setView(tv).makeText(this, "අන්තර්ජාල සම්බන්දතාවය තිබේ ", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
}
}
This way, even if an android phone doesn't have a font installed, then the font embedded in your app will serve. Hope this helps.

If you want to render the Both sinhala and English in same text box then use Iskolapota font file.And do the same as #Nonymous answer says. It works for me.

Typing Urdu/Arabic in TextEdit/TextView in Android

I want to create a database in which i can add and retrieve the Urdu words. for this purpose i installed Inpage 2009 professional and copied its fonts (.ttf) into assets folder but it gave an error i.e
I also installed UrduFonts.exe and copied its font JameelNooriNastaleeq.ttf but it also gave the same error. i need the Urdu font that is compatible to the android , the font that can add and retrieve Urdu to and from the database using android.
this is how i coded foa a Lcd2Mono.ttf and i am having the true experience of that font but i am unsuccessful. here is my piece of code..
private EditText txt,start,urdu;
#Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.main);
urdu=(EditText) findViewById(R.id.urdu);
try
{
urdu.setTypeface(Typeface.createFromAsset(this.getAssets(),"urdu.ttf"));
urdu.setText("ur text");
}
catch(Exception ex)
{
start.setText(ex.toString());
}
i did some with Inpage Fonts and got Exception that Native Font.....

i think JameelNooriNastaleeq.ttf font is very huge, more than 10M (maybe somehow connected to your problem), i recommend to try something much more smaller like: http://www.quran.or.kr/urdu/font/asunaskh.ttf
but still issue with connecting the urdu characters, like in this question:
how to add language support to android
what exception you got?

textStyle for Tamil font?

I'm already working on an Android application that displays RSS feed.
My problem is that this feed has some lines in Tamil(which Android still doesn't support)
I found a font online that displays the text right(without converting to Bamini) but the problem is that textStyle doesn't have any effect on it.
so you know any font that can do the job or any thing i have to do to make textStyling?
thanks in advance

What you need to do is import custom fonts on to the phone before using them.
A good way to do that is to include them in the package - in the APK file
Hence you should be having the font in your project when you build the APK file.
Let me give you an example. Assuming your tamil font's name is Harabara.ttf and you have copied it to /assets/fonts
Use this method (anywhere in your activity)
private void initializeFonts() {
font_harabara = Typeface.createFromAsset(getAssets(), "fonts/Harabara.ttf");
}
and call this API from your onCreate like this
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
initializeFonts();
setContentView(getViewResourceId());
}
Make sure you have declared this class level variable
Typeface font_harabara = null;
Finally, simply use
myTextField.setTypeface(font_harabara);
tada ! tamil font should now start displaying.
nandri vanakkam,
vaidyanathan

There are hundreds of fonts available online. Did you check some TSCII fonts?
I've written some solutions for Tamil and Android issues. Check it out too.