Blocking dialog like construct in android - android

Looking for a blocking,value returning dialog like custom construct in android.
Something like this:
Output outValue = MyPopupBuildingClass.showWindow(inValue, R.layout.my_layout);
Yes that's the all too familiar MessageBox for Windows programmers :) and I think there is JOptionPane in Swing too.
The complexity here is that I don't want a small default android dialog, but more of a popup fragment with some detailed layout and functionality. It accepts an object, pops up a window, lets user do something to it and return it back when user accepts or dismiss.
Any thoughts?

Like #Luksprog said in comments, Blocking dialogs in android are hard to implement and should be avoided.

Related

How to add "show text" in Android(x) password preference dialog

There doesn't appear to be a specific password text dialog in the Androidx (or Android) library.
I want to add a button so that the user can switch between text view and password text view (asterisks instead of letters) for this preference even though, as someone might want to tell me, it's not a fabulous idea to store passwords as preferences. Eventually I'll have a more robust approach but in the meantime this is what I've got.
I'm using the code that Android Studio (generously) offers me for "Preference Activity". In all other respects it seems pretty good, and better than I can manage myself yet. It's just got this (annoying lack of) feature.
This question is a little too old to reference Androidx, and according to the (main) relevant answer to my context, I can't use AndroidX here. However, using the code from the Settings Activity I don't explicitly mention DialogPreference at all.
So, is there a way to slot in a "reveal" button in this situation, or should I either not use the "textPassword" input type, or completely rebuild this activity?
I was messing round with something similar the other day. I didn't use a reveal button, but just got it to never show the password:
input_password.setText(prefs.getYourPassword().toAsterix())
private fun String.toAsterix(): String {
return replace("[.]", "*")
}
With a PreferenceActivity, you would have to make a custom view. It would be an EditText and a Button. Clicking the button would set the text to either prefs.getYourPassword() or prefs.getYourPassword().toAsterix().

How to include suggestions in Android Keyboard

I am working on Android SoftKeyboard. I've created layout for keyboard but dont't know how to include suggestions which appears if we type some word in EditText.
For example if i write "Kn" then "Known" and "Known" are shown in Suggestions.
So my questions are -
1) How to include suggestions in Android Softkeyboard?
2) Is there any way to include our own list of suggestions?
Thanx a lot in advance.
I've already checked this and this but not able to find any proper answer. Any help would be appreciated.
EDIT
I want to include suggestions directly above Keyboard as shown in picture below.
You can use the static method UserDictionary.Words.addWord(....): Link
if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.JELLY_BEAN) {
// On JellyBean & above, you can provide a shortcut and an explicit Locale
UserDictionary.Words.addWord(this, "MadeUpWord", 10, "Mad", Locale.getDefault());
} else if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.CUPCAKE) {
UserDictionary.Words.addWord(this, "MadeUpWord", 10, UserDictionary.Words.LOCALE_TYPE_CURRENT);
}
You will need to add this permission to your manifest:
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_USER_DICTIONARY"/>
Added words will appear in Settings > Language & input > Personal dictionary.
If you are implementing your own soft keyboard, I suggest you go through Creating an Input Method. The suggestions are usually shown in the Candidates View. By default, InputMethodService#onCreateCandidatesView() returns null. You should override this method to return your implementation of the suggestions bar.
Here's a sample project that implements the Candidates view: SoftKeyboard.
More info:
Word and phrase suggestions go in the candidates view. Info about how to create & populate it are in the sample project mentioned above.
As far as I know, the selection of what words/phrases to suggest is developer's responsibility. Android does not provide those for you. You will probably need a set of dictionaries - one for each language/locale you plan on supporting. You may also want to maintain a dictionary of user-specified words.
Android's default keyboard uses these: Link
If you download one of these, unpack it and open with a text editor:
dictionary=main:en,locale=en,description=English,date=1402373178,version=47
word=the,f=222,flags=,originalFreq=222
word=to,f=215,flags=,originalFreq=208
word=of,f=214,flags=,originalFreq=214
word=and,f=212,flags=,originalFreq=212
word=in,f=210,flags=,originalFreq=210
.... 165,635 more lines
As apparent, the frequency plays a pivotal role in determining the suitability of a word as a suggestion. You probably don't want to suggest tachometer when the user types ta. You probably do want to suggest take - frequency helps you there.
Autocorrection:
word=id,f=99,flags=,originalFreq=99
shortcut=I'd,f=whitelist
The flags indicate appropriateness:
word=goddamn,f=0,flags=offensive,originalFreq=62
Even if you decide to use these dictionaries, the code to parse them and obtain meaningful suggestions will have to come from you.
Two articles (both by Peter Kankowski) that talk about predictive text input & spelling correction:
Using DAWG for predictive text input
Using Ternary DAGs for Spelling Correction
CandidatesView:
The first thing you should know about the CandidatesView: it is optional. In fact, LatinIME (android's default soft keyboard) does not use it. Instead LatinIME has its own implementation - SuggestionStripView - which is similar. The default behavior of InputMethodService#onCreateCandidatesView() is to return null. If you choose to provide your own implementation, don't override this method.
You need to decide what your CandidatesView should look like. One possible implementation can be a HorizontalScrollView. After you evaluate your suggestions (for example, user start writing "as", and your suggestion-logic gives you a List<String> containing "has", "was", "assist", "ask", "asked", "asking", "assume"), create & add TextViews holding these strings to the HorizontalScrollView(LinearLayout). This way, user can scroll horizontally and choose the intended word by clicking on it.
It is up to you to decide whether to use the API or handle the CandidatesView yourself. If you want to use the API, override InputMetodService#onCreateCandidatesView(), inflate your custom layout, then return it. Hold a reference to it, so you can update it when required. To control CandidatesView's visibility, use the method setCandidatesViewShown(boolean).
If you are creating a custom keyboard, I suggest you go through Creating Input Method, there is a sample code that you can go over. CandidateView is probably what you are looking for. It is explained in the link above.
If you want to provide inline spell checker, you would want to check out Spellchecker framework
Hope this helps.

Android Graphical UI Builders - Connect event

Maybe this question has been ask already, but could not find any answer for almost 2hours of internet search.
There is a graphical UI designer wich is coming along with the last android SDK.
Looks pretty cool and well done.
Nevertheless I * cannot find how to attach an event to the control through the graphical editor.
Of course I can add it manually into the xml, but in that case, what's the purpose of having such tool without that function ?
I mean all the other SDK I had in other languages always include that function.
I've also not been able to find doc about how to use this tool. Quite sad...
Thanks
If you want to add a click event handler, select the button (widget) in the GUI that you want to listen for, and look for the property onClick. Enter the name of the method you want to call when the user clicks on that widget, like.. onMyButtonClick
Then add the method to your Activity
public void onMyButtonClick(View v) {
// I heard the button click
}
The GUI builder is getting there, and is not yet as easy to use as the one in XCode, but it's not hard when you get used to it.

Is it possible to define a suggestion list in webview applications?

When entering a string in a text type input element in a webview based app, a list of possible words is showed above the virtual keyboard.
In my application the user is not allowed to input arbitrary words, instead only words and phrases from a database are legal.
So, I want to set the list of words from my phonegap app and disable the automatic creation of this list.
Q: Is this possible to create the list - and how?
(This is a phonegap app and I am testing on android, but this might be a problem for webview / text input fields on different platforms)
EDIT:
Just found out (yes, I'm new to android development), that one can disable the suggestion list with: Settings / Language and Keyboard / Android keyboard / Show suggestions.
But of course, this setting should be made only for the app, from inside the app, without user interaction and not changing anything outside the app.
Any chance to get this done?
EDIT 2:
Instead of disabling the suggestion list I tried to use it.
The displayCompletions method of InputMethodManager sounded promising, so I tried the following code:
...
// data member
InputMethodManager mInputMethodManager = null;
...
...
// initialized
mInputMethodManager = (InputMethodManager) context.getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
...
public void showSuggestions(String[] words) {
Log.d(TAG, "showSuggestions (in Java!): " + words.length); // yes, this code is executed
CompletionInfo[] completions = new CompletionInfo[words.length];
for (int i=0; i<words.length; i++) {
completions[i] = new CompletionInfo(i, i, words[i]); // no idea, what the 2 extra integers mean
}
mInputMethodManager.displayCompletions(mView, completions);
}
The method is executed, whenever a new list is available (after the input has changed and the server has answered a request).
However, nothing has changed - the builtin mechanism is still doing its disadvantageous work.
Why don't you use something like the auto complete in jQuery UI.
http://jqueryui.com/demos/autocomplete/
Also, it's not too hard to whip this up yourself in JavaScript.
http://www.javascript-examples.com/autocomplete-demo/
In case there are different variants of virtual keyboard(swype and others) there might be no list of possible words. So, I suppose there is no general solution for not showing this list.
There is a parameter http://developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/TextView.html#attr_android:editorExtras editorExtras which defines parameters passed to input method implementation, but I'm not sure how would you use it in PhoneGap application
Edit:
I suppose you can extend default input method and make it not to show suggestions
inputmethod reference http://developer.android.com/reference/android/inputmethodservice/InputMethodService.html
Providing Custom Software Keyboards
If you are interested in developing your own software keyboards, we highly recommend the following references:
IMEs are implemented as an Android service. Begin by reviewing the Android packages called android.inputmethodservice and android.view.inputmethod, which can be used to implement custom input methods.
The SoftKeyboard sample application in the Android SDK provides an implementation of a software keyboard.
The Android Developer technical articles on onscreen input methods and creating an input method.
found it here http://e-university.wisdomjobs.com/android/chapter-946-288/handling-advanced-user-input.html

Show Yes/No-Dialog instead of OK/Cancel

I hate the OK/Cancel dialogs, because if my application ask somebody if (s)he really want to do something you should never answer with "Cancel".
A little example:
final AlertDialog.Builder b = new AlertDialog.Builder(this);
b.setIcon(android.R.drawable.ic_dialog_alert);
b.setTitle("Hello World");
b.setMessage("Did you do your homework?");
b.setPositiveButton(android.R.string.yes, null);
b.setNegativeButton(android.R.string.no, null);
b.show();
Is it possible that the constants "yes" and "no" really means "yes" and "no" with localization? Or have I do this explicit in my string resource and can't use global constants. So I replace the two lines with:
b.setPositiveButton("Yes", null);
b.setNegativeButton("No", null);
(or the resources instead of constants here)
Sincerely
xZise
Be aware that the contents of these text resources in English are actually "OK" and "Cancel", not Yes and No. So if you need Yes and No, you must use your own string resources. See for example http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=3713 and http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers/browse_thread/thread/30b589fa9aca185a
A quick google search reveals that there are several apps that do exactly that, including Google's own My Tracks app, so I'd say it's safe to use android.R.string.yes.
Example: http://mytracks.googlecode.com/hg/MyTracks/src/com/google/android/apps/mytracks/io/backup/ExternalFileBackup.java?r=5ebff81c1c25d9600efb5d88eecc3e068ec22ae9
What you have provided should work. (An aside, in proper English your question should say "Have you done your homework? Or Did you do your homework?)
I don't think there is any global english standard regarding ok/cancel and yes/no. It really depends on the context. There are certain contexts where one or the other would make more sense. I things it's perfectly OK to use yes/no if that makes more sense for the kinds of things you are asking.

Categories

Resources