is there any way to change an android device time from a cordova app?
I need to sync the device time with a server.
The app gets the server time from a webapi and if it's different from the device time i'd like to change the device time.
Thanks
You should not try to bend the whole device just to make your app work. What if the server-time is wrong? What if the user wants a different time?
We have the same needs for our app, and what we are doing is to run the app in server-time.
This is native Android in Java, but I think the idea should be clear and should also be possible in Cordova.
So we have this ServerTime class, and whenever we need the current time in our app, we do not use new Date() or System.currentTimeMillis(), but instead use ServerTime.now().
The class looks something like this (written from memory and simplified, make sure to test, maybe the diff-calculations should be + instead of - ...):
public static class ServerTime {
private static long diffMillis;
public static Date now() {
long millis = System.currentTimeMillis() - diffMillis;
return new Date(millis;
}
public static void update(long serverTimeMillis) {
diffMillis = System.currentTimeMillis() - serverTimeMillis;
}
}
The server provides the server's time with every response and additionally we poll the server-time every 15 minutes or so. Whenever we get the server's time, we call ServerTime.update(server's time in millis).
We want to add a reporting feature to our existing application.
For this purpose we are sending Events in JSON via HTTPS to a server application.
We need to remember Event-objects that could not be send to the server (No internet, server not reachable...). We are considering to store the events in a SQLite database and discard all Events that are older than 24 hours to prevent flooding our storage.
Another option would be to write the JSON-objects to a file and concat each new event when it could not be send to the server. The problem with this solution is, that it would be hard for us to discard logs older than 24 hours.
We store the event sin a table with the columns:
| id | json | created_at |
Can anyone recommend best practices for this use case?
Currently we tend to use the sqlite solution but we are wondering if there are any caveats that we are not aware of.
If you don't mind using third-party lib i can recommend android-priority-jobqueue. You can easily achieve what you are trying to do. You can always create job and it will handle itself. You can set if it needs network, if it is persistent (saved into DB when no network) and even you can customize your own retry logic.
Here's little example.
public class PostTweetJob extends Job {
public static final int PRIORITY = 1;
private String text;
public PostTweetJob(String text) {
// This job requires network connectivity,
// and should be persisted in case the application exits before job is completed.
super(new Params(PRIORITY).requireNetwork().persist());
}
#Override
public void onAdded() {
// Job has been saved to disk.
// This is a good place to dispatch a UI event to indicate the job will eventually run.
}
#Override
public void onRun() throws Throwable {
// yours code here
}
#Override
protected RetryConstraint shouldReRunOnThrowable(Throwable throwable, int runCount,
int maxRunCount) {
// An error occurred in onRun.
return RetryConstraint.createExponentialBackoff(runCount, 1000);
}
}
And you call it like this.
jobManager.addJobInBackground(new PostTweetJob("It works"));
use JobService(Android 5+ - lollipop and above) and AlarmManager (for android sdk<21 - pre lollipop) with this solution u can schedule any task and it would be performed. JobService was developed rxactely for tjis purposes(schedule and perform different tasks) maybe you can try JobIntentService it is would work on kitkat(android 4+) devices
P.S.
In that case you didnt need any third party libs and other dependrncies like firebase/google play services(like for FirebaseDispatcher)
I am developing an Android App in Air for Android using Flash Pro CC & I am tired of pushing updates all the time to change a spawn location for an image that needs to move every few days to a specific location. I won't know the location until just minutes before the update needs to be pushed & it would be much faster to simply have the app load the spawn coordinates for the image upon launch from my website in a .txt file. I would need something where I just type the X and Y coordinates in a file & then the information is loaded and AS3 spawns the image at those coordinates. If no coordinates are available in the text file (as 5 days of the week there won't be), I need a different image to be displayed wherever I place it. I will probably just have a separate frame for that though.
Any help is greatly appreciated & I'd prefer it if the image can be used in a motion tween but if not then I will work something out.
NOTE: I am new to AS3 coding but I have Flash itself figured out for animating with the timeline.
Have a look at URLRequest and URLLoader for retrieving the data. For spawning the image at a specific location, consider just moving it instead; Any object on stage is a DisplayObject, and DisplayObjects have properties x and y. For swapping out the images, look at DisplayObjectContainer, specifically the functions DisplayObjectContainer.addChild(child:DisplayObject) and DisplayObjectContainer.removeChild(child:DisplayObject). I have provided links to the documentation for each of the relevant functions.
If the update is on a daily basis, have a look at the Date class too - that will allow you to find out what date it is and whether you need to make an url request to load the textfile to display the image.
If you have any specific questions regarding the use of these classes, I think it's best if you make a new question with a link back to this one for context. You're good with English, not so good with AS3 (as you say), so I could explain the relevant bits where needed, but it would be a long and complex story if I were to explain this entire functionality in one go. ... I think you'll find that these class names will make googling easier too.
I expect that you'll have to use an URLLoader with an URLRequest to load the textfile, then depending on the results, display the image by adding it to stage via addChild if it's not there yet, and then setting its x and y values. You'll have to use the Date class to check whether you need to make a new request every time the user starts the application or does some specific action.
I have the finished code here. loadURL is the Document Class loaded by Flash. Everything works great!
package {
// IMPORTS EVENTS USED
import flash.display.MovieClip;
import flash.net.URLRequest;
import flash.net.URLLoader;
import flash.events.UncaughtErrorEvent;
import flash.events.ErrorEvent;
import flash.events.Event;
// DECLARES VARIABLES
public class loadURL extends MovieClip {
public var Xurl:String = "URL GOES HERE";
public var Yurl:String = "URL GOES HERE";
public var URLloaderX:URLLoader = new URLLoader();
public var URLloaderY:URLLoader = new URLLoader();
public var marker:Marker = new Marker();
public var gone:Gone = new Gone();
public var connectionerr:ConnectionErr = new ConnectionErr();
// CODE EXECUTED UPON LAUNCH
public function loadURL() {
// constructor code
trace("Loaded");
URLloaderX.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, completeHandlerX);
URLloaderX.load(new URLRequest(Xurl));
URLloaderY.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, completeHandlerY);
URLloaderY.load(new URLRequest(Yurl));
loaderInfo.uncaughtErrorEvents.addEventListener(UncaughtErrorEvent.UNCAUGHT_ERROR, onUncaughtError);
}
function completeHandlerX(event:Event):void
{
if(URLloaderX.data == null||URLloaderX.data==(""))
{addChild(gone)}
else{addChild(marker);marker.x = (URLloaderX.data)}
}
function completeHandlerY(event:Event):void
{
if(URLloaderY.data == null||URLloaderY.data==("")){}
marker.y = (URLloaderY.data)
}
private function onUncaughtError(e:UncaughtErrorEvent):void //Checks for no internet connection
{
e.preventDefault(); //leave this
// RESULT OF NO INTERNET HERE
addChild(connectionerr);
}
}
}
I've built an Android app which is now on Play Market. From time to time, I make updates to it, and I'd like to let users know that a new version is available.
How can I send an update notification to the users of the app?
You do not need to do anything specific for this. Since you mentioned that you are using Google Play, the update notification is taken care of by Google Play.
You just need to update the APK with a higher versionCode and Google Play should do the rest.
Update 2020: now you can use in-app updates mechanism
Docs: https://developer.android.com/guide/playcore/in-app-updates
You can do this in a lot of ways, depending on when you want the user to be able to see that there is an update available.
If you want the user to know about the update when the app is started, just create a utility method (inside the onCreate method of your main/first Activity) that checks if a newer version is available in Google Play. If it does, display an alert dialog with a relevant message and an Intent which opens your app in Google Play when the user clicks on the positive button of the alert dialog.
If you are updating the app regularly, the user will keep getting this alert dialog every time the app is started and hence, may get irritated. Thus, this is not the best approach.
If you want the user to get a notification on the phone (and not when the user starts the app), you can use the AlarmManager class to schedule a background service which checks for an update at regular intervals. If the service finds that an upgrade is actually available, publish a notification with an intent that opens your app in Google Play.
Of course, another approach is to leave it to the OS itself. If the user has not set the "Automatically update" preference for your app, the user will get a notification regularly about an update available for your, as well as any other apps.
But not all users enable background data on their devices, so this is not completely reliable.
In the end, you must respect the users preferences. If the user does not want to automatically update the app, or does not want to see a nagging dialog box whenever he/she starts your app, don't alert the user about the update.
In my opinion, you should create a PreferenceActivity that has a preference like "Check for updates regularly", which can be set from within your app. If it is set, do the needful in your own service. May be even give the user an option to select the period after which the service will check for an update.
I hope this helps!
It is up to each phone owner if she wants to be notified on new versions by google play, and it's up to each phone's manufacturer if this is to be enabled by default.
If you however are in a situation where you "require" the user to update to the new version to be compatible with some form of protocol or you have a similar similar use case where you have a server component somewhere, you might want to notify the user of a potential version conflict in the UI based on information about what is the latest version.
This information can be grabbed directrly from google play, however as #Yahel pointed out in this question google play is a closed system with no official API, and you might need to rely on unpredictable undocumented API. There is an unofficial API library here.
This leaves only one option, which is to keep this information on your own server. If you allready have a serverside this might be trivial. Simply put the latest version in an XML file and retreive that at regular intervals from your code. If the version code is outdated, trigger the notification in your UI. Here is an example implementation for doing that.
I hope this was helpful :-)
I know this is an old question but still if people are coming here to check this question, Google is now providing official support for in-app notification for application update the full documentation can be found here
Use this : https://www.push-link.com/
Google Play will notify your users that the app has an update via the notification bar.
If you set up a notification system yourself, the likely result would be that, although the user is notified of an update sooner, when he/she goes to Google Play to install the update it will not yet be available. This is because there is a lag from the time you "publish" an app/update and the time until it appears on Play. Telling your users that there is an update when the update is unavailable would only lead to confusion and frustration.
My advice: stick with Google's update notification system and don't worry about trying to get users an update 15 minutes sooner.
Some people use Android Cloud-to-Device Messaging (C2DM) to notify their users of updates. I don't think I'd bother, since I think Google Play does a pretty good job of notifying me of updates already, and implementing C2DM adds a whole new dimension to writing an app (because it requires a server component). But maybe you want to offer your users a richer update notification than you get from Google Play.
#Davek804's answer above is wrong. android:versionCode is an integer value that represents the version of the application code, relative to other versions, so using "1.5b" there is incorrect. Use "15" (or "150") instead
Found a nice solution for your problem:
Let´s say you want to check for version updates manually on app start and notify your users for the new Update.
Step 1: Download android-market-api (not the .jar file, the full project!)
Step 2: After importing it to eclipse, write in your activity the following code:
MarketService ms = new MarketService(activity);
ms.level(MarketService.REVISION).checkVersion();
now, we need to modify MarketService.java, because it seems to be broken.
Step 3: rewrite callback method and add the following methods
protected void callback(String url, JSONObject jo, AjaxStatus status){
if(jo == null) return;
String googlePlayversion = jo.optString("version", "0");
String smartphone_version = "";
PackageInfo pInfo;
try {
pInfo = act.getPackageManager().getPackageInfo(act.getPackageName(), 0);
smartphone_version = pInfo.versionName;
} catch (NameNotFoundException e) {}
boolean new_version_avaible = compare(smartphone_version, googlePlayversion);
if(new_version_avaible){
showUpdateDialog(jo);
}
}
private static boolean compare(String v1, String v2) {
String s1 = normalisedVersion(v1);
String s2 = normalisedVersion(v2);
int cmp = s1.compareTo(s2);
String cmpStr = cmp < 0 ? "<" : cmp > 0 ? ">" : "==";
System.out.printf("result: "+"'%s' %s '%s'%n", v1, cmpStr, v2);
if(cmpStr.contains("<")){
return true;
}
if(cmpStr.contains(">")||cmpStr.contains("==")){
return false;
}
return false;
}
public static String normalisedVersion(String version) {
return normalisedVersion(version, ".", 4);
}
public static String normalisedVersion(String version, String sep, int maxWidth) {
String[] split = Pattern.compile(sep, Pattern.LITERAL).split(version);
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
for (String s : split) {
sb.append(String.format("%" + maxWidth + 's', s));
}
return sb.toString();
}
If you want to test it, modify googlePlayversion string to a higher version than your local one.
The source comparison method I used is from How do you compare two version Strings in Java?
There is also a very good approach for checking version and give user in app notification or when you want to forcefully update the application if you can decide the first connection of your app with the server.In the response of the first request you can send the current version of app stored on your server and then on client end you can take the appropriate action.
Advantages of this approach-:
1-No extra request for version no.
2-It is also applicable if you are downloading the app other than the google playstore.
3-you can also use this idea if you want to check the version at particular operation of your app ex- transaction(if you add a new payment gateway.)
Don't know if you want to walk extra miles. You can try out google appengine, which serve version number for your app and let you android app check the appengine to see if there is a new version when the application is launched. That way, it does not matter if your app is in google play market nor amazon app store nor if it is installed on the phone without those two via sideloading. It is not very hard to setup appengine just for serving your application version in json. Replace "Hello World" string with your app version name ...
This can be using a simple webservice just this is one of the way to acheive.
i.e., when ever the app launch hit that webservice with the current version of the user app and on the server you need to check whether any new version is available or not(Must maintain the newest version of the app) and send the corresponding response to the user. If any newer version is available prompt the user to download the newest version of the application and if no newest version is available then allow the user to continue.
Hope so atleast something must be useful to you.
There are two models that are basically used to tackle the issue.
Pull Based
Push Based
Its depends on the architecture or design of particular system that determines whether pull based or push mechanism is used.
For pull based model you just make one http request to concerned server regarding the new version of application. The current application version no can be saved in SQLLite in android application. This can be given to server and new version can be checked against it at the server.
For push mechanism you can use C2DM push notification service.. details of which are given at http://code.google.com/android/c2dm/
Generally when you upload a new application to Google play most users get a notification about an update, some will have the app automatically downloaded to their device, depending on the settings they have.
If you seriously want to make a notification from your app to ask them to update (so that everyone gets the notification, whatever their Google play settings are, then you will have to make a web service which returns the number of the newest version. You can then compare that inside your app and post a notification. You could use Google App Engine ( https://developers.google.com/appengine/) because that works with eclipse and java, which you probably already have.
I would not recommend this approach as it creates a lot of work for you to provide something that most users have already got.
i think this is too late but it can be help some one
public enum AppVersionUpgradeNotifier {
INSTANCE;
private static final String TAG = "AppVersionUpdateManager";
private static final String PREFERENCES_APP_VERSION = "pref_app_version_upgrade";
private static final String KEY_LAST_VERSION = "last_version";
private SharedPreferences sharedPreferences;
private VersionUpdateListener versionUpdateListener;
private boolean isInitialized;
public static synchronized void init(Context context, VersionUpdateListener versionUpdateListener) {
if (context == null || versionUpdateListener == null) {
throw new IllegalArgumentException(TAG + " : Context or VersionUpdateListener is null");
}
if (!INSTANCE.isInitialized) {
INSTANCE.initInternal(context, versionUpdateListener);
} else {
Log.w(TAG, "Init called twice, ignoring...");
}
}
private void initInternal(Context context, VersionUpdateListener versionUpdateListener) {
this.sharedPreferences = context.getSharedPreferences(PREFERENCES_APP_VERSION, Context.MODE_PRIVATE);
this.versionUpdateListener = versionUpdateListener;
this.isInitialized = true;
checkVersionUpdate();
}
private void checkVersionUpdate() {
int lastVersion = getLastVersion();
int currentVersion = getCurrentVersion();
if (lastVersion < currentVersion) {
if (versionUpdateListener.onVersionUpdate(currentVersion, lastVersion)) {
upgradeLastVersionToCurrent();
}
}
}
private int getLastVersion() {
return sharedPreferences.getInt(KEY_LAST_VERSION, 0);
}
private int getCurrentVersion() {
return BuildConfig.VERSION_CODE;
}
public void upgradeLastVersionToCurrent() {
sharedPreferences.edit().putInt(KEY_LAST_VERSION, getCurrentVersion()).apply();
}
public interface VersionUpdateListener {
boolean onVersionUpdate(int newVersion, int oldVersion);
}
}
use it on
public class MyApplication extends Application implements AppVersionUpgradeNotifier.VersionUpdateListener {
#Override
public void onCreate() {
super.onCreate();
AppVersionUpgradeNotifier.init(this,this);
}
#Override
public boolean onVersionUpdate(int newVersion, int oldVersion) {
//do what you want
return true;
}
}
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:versionCode="1.5b"
android:versionName="1.5b">
When you re-upload your app to Google Play, if these two attributes have been changed from the previous upload, Google Play will automatically send notifications to users who have installed your app. This is the AndroidManifest file.
I have a app, which sends a lot of SMS messages to a central server. Each user will probably send ~300 txts/day. SMS messages are being used as a networking layer, because SMS is almost everywhere and mobile internet is not. The app is intended for use in a lot of 3rd world countries where mobile internet is not ubiquitous.
When I hit a limit of 100 messages, I get a prompt for each message sent. The prompt says "A large number of SMS messages are being sent". This is not ok for the user to get prompted each time to ask if the app can send a text message. The user doesn't want to get 30 consecutive prompts.
I found this android source file with google. It could be out of date, I can't tell. It looks like there is a limit of 100 sms messages every 3600000ms(1 day) for each application.
http://www.netmite.com/android/mydroid/frameworks/base/telephony/java/com/android/internal/telephony/gsm/SMSDispatcher.java
/** Default checking period for SMS sent without uesr permit */
private static final int DEFAULT_SMS_CHECK_PERIOD = 3600000;
/** Default number of SMS sent in checking period without uesr permit */
private static final int DEFAULT_SMS_MAX_ALLOWED = 100;
and
/**
* Implement the per-application based SMS control, which only allows
* a limit on the number of SMS/MMS messages an app can send in checking
* period.
*/
private class SmsCounter {
private int mCheckPeriod;
private int mMaxAllowed;
private HashMap<String, ArrayList<Long>> mSmsStamp;
/**
* Create SmsCounter
* #param mMax is the number of SMS allowed without user permit
* #param mPeriod is the checking period
*/
SmsCounter(int mMax, int mPeriod) {
mMaxAllowed = mMax;
mCheckPeriod = mPeriod;
mSmsStamp = new HashMap<String, ArrayList<Long>> ();
}
boolean check(String appName) {
if (!mSmsStamp.containsKey(appName)) {
mSmsStamp.put(appName, new ArrayList<Long>());
}
return isUnderLimit(mSmsStamp.get(appName));
}
private boolean isUnderLimit(ArrayList<Long> sent) {
Long ct = System.currentTimeMillis();
Log.d(TAG, "SMS send size=" + sent.size() + "time=" + ct);
while (sent.size() > 0 && (ct - sent.get(0)) > mCheckPeriod ) {
sent.remove(0);
}
if (sent.size() < mMaxAllowed) {
sent.add(ct);
return true;
}
return false;
}
}
Is this even the real android code? It looks like it is in the package "com.android.internal.telephony.gsm", I can't find this package on the android website.
How can I disable/modify this limit? I've been googling for solutions, but I haven't found anything.
So I was looking at the link that commonsware.com posted, and I found that the source had actually changed. And so I might still have a shot.
int check_period = Settings.Gservices.getInt(mResolver,
Settings.Gservices.SMS_OUTGOING_CEHCK_INTERVAL_MS,
DEFAULT_SMS_CHECK_PERIOD);
int max_count = Settings.Gservices.getInt(mResolver,
Settings.Gservices.SMS_OUTGOING_CEHCK_MAX_COUNT,
DEFAULT_SMS_MAX_COUNT);
mCounter = new SmsCounter(max_count, check_period);
This is getting checkPeriod and maxCount from a settings table. But I don't seem to have access to the same table. That source should be Android 1.1, which is the same I'm using. When I try to import android.provider.Settings.Gservices, I get an error saying that the import can't be resolved.
What is going on?
Did you try using "import android.provider.Settings;" instead of "import android.provider.Settings.GServices"? (see line 36 of SMSDispatcher.java)
Also, not sure how much difference it makes, but 3600000 ms is one hour not one day.
Unfortunately I think you only have a few options
1) Get root access and alter the settings table directly by doing:
sqlite3 /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db
sqlite> INSERT INTO gservices (name, value) VALUES
('sms_outgoing_check_interval_ms', 0);
2) Use multiple apps since it's a per app limit
3) Perhaps take out the battery after you reach the limit? It looks like the limit is stored in memory. I haven't tried this yet though.
This appears to be built into the Android source tree, so the only way to push this change down to the users would be the build your own ROM and have them install it.
As for ideas on getting around it, why not check for network connectivity first rather than just assuming it doesn't exist. Even if it is not present on a significant majority of devices today, that certainly won't always be the case. Let SMS be the fall back mechanism. If it is the fall back mechanism, you can then prompt the user letting them know that they will be prompted to confirm the level of SMS activity every 100 messages or so. Who knows, they may roam into a Wifi hotspot and have connectivity part of the day too.
Otherwise, you will get into a game of installing a bunch of other Activities+Intents that can act as silent SMS proxies to get around the limit. Of course, this has its own certain set of undesirable qualities as well and I can hardly believe I just typed/suggested something that evil.