Develop Reference

AndroidPlot - XYplot doesn't show up on graphical layout in xml

I'm fairly new in the android developing scene, however I have done a few dead simple applications to get an understanding of what the workflow would be like in the environment.
I'm having a difficulty running the example program called SimpleXYPlotExample and here's the code, manifest, main.xml and activity.java, respectively. I know this is a user error of some sort, but it would be great if someone could give me some helpful pointers as to what I'm doing wrong.
At first, all the code was broken, but I realized i forgot to import the library in. Now that I have done so, I try to run the program on my nexus s and it just crashes as it enters it.
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
package="com.example"
android:versionCode="1"
android:versionName="1.0">
<uses-sdk
android:minSdkVersion="6"
android:targetSdkVersion="16"/>
<application android:label="SimpleXYPlotExample"
android:icon="#drawable/icon"
android:debuggable="true"
android:hardwareAccelerated="false">
<activity android:name=".MyActivity"
android:label="#string/app_name">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN"/>
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER"/>
</intent-filter>
</activity>
</application>
</manifest>
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:orientation="vertical"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
>
<com.androidplot.xy.XYPlot
android:id="#+id/mySimpleXYPlot"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="150px"
android:layout_marginTop="10px"
android:layout_marginLeft="10px"
android:layout_marginRight="10px"
andsroidplot.title="A Simple XYPlot Example"
androidplot.ticksPerRangeLabel="4"
androidplot.ticksPerDomainLabel="2"
androidplot.gridPadding="4dp|4dp|4dp|4dp"
/>
</LinearLayout>
package com.example;
import java.util.Arrays;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import com.androidplot.series.XYSeries;
import com.androidplot.ui.AnchorPosition;
import com.androidplot.xy.LineAndPointFormatter;
import com.androidplot.xy.SimpleXYSeries;
import com.androidplot.xy.XLayoutStyle;
import com.androidplot.xy.XYPlot;
import com.androidplot.xy.YLayoutStyle;
public class MyActivity extends Activity
{
private XYPlot plot;
#Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.main);
// initialize our XYPlot reference:
plot = (XYPlot) findViewById(R.id.mySimpleXYPlot);
// add a new series
XYSeries mySeries = new SimpleXYSeries(
Arrays.asList(0, 25, 55, 2, 80, 30, 99, 0, 44, 6),
SimpleXYSeries.ArrayFormat.Y_VALS_ONLY, "series1");
plot.addSeries(mySeries, new LineAndPointFormatter(
getApplicationContext(), R.xml.f1));
// reposition the domain label to look a little cleaner:
plot.position(plot.getDomainLabelWidget(), // the widget to position
45, // x position value, in this case 45 pixels
XLayoutStyle.ABSOLUTE_FROM_LEFT, // how the x position value is applied, in this case from the left
0, // y position value
YLayoutStyle.ABSOLUTE_FROM_BOTTOM, // how the y position is applied, in this case from the bottom
AnchorPosition.LEFT_BOTTOM); // point to use as the origin of the widget being positioned
plot.centerOnRangeOrigin(60);
plot.centerOnDomainOrigin(5);
}
}
This may be contributed by the fact that the plot doesn't even show up on the graphical layout. This is what it looks like with this code:
http://imgur.com/qYl96Zi
As you can see, I have imported the androidplot library. Please advise.

The screenshot appears to be from the eclipse gui editor, which as the exception mentions does not support the setShadowLayer method and thus will not render. That's just a limitation with Eclipse and not a bug in your code or the library.
Normally to be able to answer questions regarding why Androidplot is crashing you'd need to supply the corresponding stack trace. I did however notice this typo in your xml:
andsroidplot.title="A Simple XYPlot Example"
As far as getting a working WYSIWYG editor my personal suggestion would be to give either IntelliJ IDEA or Android Studio (built on the current EAP version IntelliJ IDEA) a try. Both are free and both are in (IMHO) far superior IDE's.

I get "nextRation is null!" error trying to use Adwhirl + AdMob in Android

I've been trying to solve this problem for weeks. There are some other similar questions in StackOverflow, and there are some (apparently solved) similar issues in AdWhirl documentation website (one and two), but this error is still bothering me.
AdWhirl documentation is rather incomplete and confusing. The steps I've followed:
I created an AdMob account and I got the AdMob ID.
I created an AdWhirl account, I put there the AdMob ID and I got the AdWhirl ID.
I added in my Java Build Path the AdMob SDK Jar 4.3.1 and the AdWhirl SDK Jar 3.1.1
In my Manifest file I added the following lines:
.
<manifest>
[...]
<application>
[...]
<activity android:name="com.google.ads.AdActivity"
android:configChanges="orientation|keyboard|keyboardHidden|screenLayout|uiMode|screenSize|smallestScreenSize" />
<meta-data android:value="[AdWhirl ID]" android:name="ADWHIRL_KEY"/>
</application>
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET"></uses-permission>
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_PHONE_STATE" />
</manifest>
In all the layouts I want ads I added the following lines:
.
<com.adwhirl.AdWhirlLayout
android:id="#+id/adwhirl_layout"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="72dip" />
In all the activities related to those layouts I added the following lines:
.
public class XXX extends ListActivity implements AdWhirlInterface {
[...]
#Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.YYY);
initAds();
[...]
}
[...]
private void initAds() {
AdWhirlManager.setConfigExpireTimeout(1000 * 60 * 5);
AdWhirlTargeting.setTestMode(false);
AdWhirlLayout adWhirlLayout = (AdWhirlLayout)findViewById(R.id.adwhirl_layout);
adWhirlLayout.setAdWhirlInterface(this);
}
public void adWhirlGeneric() {
Log.e(AdWhirlUtil.ADWHIRL, "In adWhirlGeneric()");
}
}
Project Build Target: Google API Android 4.0
Emulator: Google APIs 2.1 (API 7)
What am I doing wrong?
I see no ads and all the time I get the "nextRation is null!" error.

This looks like pretty much like the minimalistic AdWhirl implementation. FYI, you don't need the adWhirlGeneric() method.
There are a couple of reasons nextRation may be null.
The AdWhirl servers may have been down during the time you had this issue, or that you misconfigured some settings in the AdWhirl UI. These errors are unlikely.
AdWhirl tried to request an AdMob ad, and it failed for whatever reason (my money is on lack of inventory), and AdWhirl had no next ration, meaning there are no more ad networks to try to request an ad from (and it will try again on next refresh).
NOTE: A Ration in AdWhirl represents an ad network settings, like network name and it's corresponding network id.
Check the logcat output again, and see what leads up to the nextRation is null error. Is it a JSONException? If so, that means you have issue #1. Do the logs say you found an AdMob ration, then AdMob responded with onFailedToReceiveAd, and then you get nextRation is null? Then you have issue #2.

I had the same issue and found a solution following this post:
http://code.google.com/p/adwhirl/issues/detail?id=27
Hope it can help you too.

Failed to find provider info for 'ContentProvider'

I have a problem that I just cannot figure out. I am using Eclipse to create my own Content Provider but keep getting the following error:
[..] ERROR/ActivityThread(1051): Failed to find provider info for
my.package.provider.countrycontentprovider
Code found here: http://codepad.org/Rx00HjHd
Main parts:
public class CountryContentProvider extends ContentProvider {
public static final String PROVIDER =
"my.package.provider.countrycontentprovider";
public static final Uri CONTENT_URI =
Uri.parse("content://" + PROVIDER + "/country");
// ...
#Override
public boolean onCreate() { return true; }
// ...
}
// from my activity
ContentResolver resolver = getContentResolver();
Cursor c = resolver.query(CountryContentProvider.CONTENT_URI,
null, null, null, null);
// AndroidManifest.xml
<provider
android:name="my.package.provider.CountryContentProvider"
android:authorities="my.package.provider.countrycontentprovider" />
I have added the provider to the manifest and return true from the onCreate function. I use the CountryContentProvider.CONTENT_URI in my activity to get the Content from my provider, but I just keep getting that error message. I have removed and added the code three times (in case of eclipse melt down) to no avail.
I must be missing something. Can someone point me in the right direction?

I was able to reproduce your problem when I moved <provider> out of the <application>...</application> tag. Eclipse didn't say anything like error or warning.
Fortunately this issue is detected by Android Lint starting from ADT 20.

It worked for me only after specifying full path in Authorities tag in manifest file (see SearchableDictionary sample code in SDK).
<provider android:name=".DictionaryProvider"
android:authorities="com.example.android.searchabledict.DictionaryProvider">

Inside your B-app which has the contentresolver, add this in the AndroidManifest.xml, outside application-tag
<queries>
<provider android:authorities="com.authoritiesname.in.contentprovider.app" />
</queries>

Setting the exported attribute to true in the provider tag in the manifest worked for me :
android:exported="true"
According to the documentation(http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/manifest/provider-element.html#exported), export is required only if the provider is to be available for other applications. But this is the only solution that worked for me.

The android:authorities= in the XML file is the content authority that is located in the contract class that you probably built. The content authority is added to the scheme to make the base content URI. Plain English, the reverse domain you used to make your app no caps here com.domain.sub.appName.
The android:name is the folder plus class your provider is named, do not forget the dot .folder.ProviderClassContentAuthorityIsIn.
Hope this helps :)

you have a capital letter and on the other line, one lowercase letter.
android:name= "my.package.provider.-C-ountryContentProvider"
android:authorities="my.package.provider.-c-ountrycontentprovider"
it must be the same everywhere.
public static final String PROVIDER =
"my.package.provider.countrycontentprovider";

Register your provider in the Android Manifest
<provider
android:authorities="your_content_authority"
android:name="yourProviderClass"/>

Trouble running simple app.

I'm new at this. Go easy.
My code so far looks like this.
package com.example.helloandroid;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.widget.TextView;
import android.hardware.Camera;
public class HelloAndroid extends Activity {
/** Called when the activity is first created. */
#Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
String fmode = "Not Supported";
Camera cam = Camera.open();
Camera.Parameters p = cam.getParameters();
if (p.getFlashMode() != null)
{fmode = p.getFlashMode();}
TextView tv = new TextView(this);
tv.setText(fmode);
setContentView(tv);
}
}
When I run the program, I get the message stating that The application has stopped unexpectedly. Please try again. If I comment out these four lines...
//Camera cam = Camera.open();
//Camera.Parameters p = cam.getParameters();
//if (p.getFlashMode() != null)
//{fmode = p.getFlashMode();}
then the code runs fine and I get the "Not Supported" message. Then if I uncomment the first line where I declare the Camera object, it crashes again.
Feel free to be verbose, I'm in learning mode and would like all the information I can get. Thanks in advance.

Any chance you missed adding the camera permission in your AndroidManifest?
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
package="com.example"
android:versionCode="1"
android:versionName="1.0">
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.CAMERA"></uses-permission>
<application ...>
.
.
.
</application>
</manifest>
If that's not the case:
Why does the android emulator camera stop unexpectedly?

I'm not very familiar using a camera in apps but I found you a great tutorial that can help you on your way towards your solution.
http://developer.android.com/resources/samples/ApiDemos/src/com/example/android/apis/graphics/CameraPreview.html
I hope this is helpful for you and may you find what you need :) if not, I'll make a test app myself and help you further
And like someone else stated above, some permissions must be added to use the camera, you can find those here:
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/hardware/Camera.html

Permissions are needed to allow access to certain features in android. Did you put <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.CAMERA" /> in your android manifest to have access to the camera.

When to use which constructor for ComponentName in Android?

I am a little bit confused about the ComponentName class in Android.
There are different ways to get to a component name object, but I don't know when to use which... and why!
Example:
Application package is de.zordid.sampleapp
but widget provider class is de.zordid.sampleapp.widget.WidgetProvider
Using
ComponentName cn = new ComponentName("de.zordid.sampleapp.widget",
"WidgetProvider");
I got this component info: ComponentInfo{de.zordid.sampleapp.widget/WidgetProvider}, but I could not use this - the component is unknown!
But the JavaDoc says I should give the package and the class within that package - and that is what I did, didn't I??
Using
ComponentName cn = new ComponentName(context, WidgetProvider.class);
yields ComponentInfo{de.zordid.sampleapp/de.zordid.sampleapp.widget.WidgetProvider} - and that works fine!!
There is even another way to get a ComponentName - by context and a string.
Which one should be used where and when??
Thanks!

The ComponentName constructor taking two Strings can be used to refer to a component in another application. But, the first argument is not the package name of the class; it is the package name of the application---the package attribute of the manifest element in that application's AndroidManifest.xml. So your first example should be
ComponentName cn = new ComponentName("de.zordid.sampleapp",
"de.zordid.sampleapp.widget.WidgetProvider");
That constructor could certainly be used to refer to components in your own application, but since you already have hold of a Context from your own application you might as well use it and use one of the other constructors. In my opinion, the one taking a Class should be preferred whenever usable. You could use the one taking a String if you only know the class dynamically for some reason; in that case, it should take the fully-qualified class name as above.

Robert Tupelo-Schneck's answer is right about preferring objects against Strings. Here's how I see it with details on how all the different prefixes work.
To refer to your own components, use:
new ComponentName(getApplicationContext(), WidgetProvider.class);
To refer to some dynamically referenced component in your own app, use:
// values/strings.xml: <string name="provider">de.zordid.sampleapp.widget.WidgetProvider</string>
String fqcn = getResources().getString(R.string.provider);
new ComponentName(getApplicationContext(), fqcn);
This is useful when you want to use Android's resource qualifiers to decide which component to use, you can override the default string in values-*/strings.xml.
To refer to another application's component, use:
int componentFlags = GET_ACTIVITIES | GET_PROVIDERS | GET_RECEIVERS | GET_SERVICES;
PackageInfo otherApp = context.getPackageManager().getPackageInfo("com.other.app", componentFlags);
ComponentInfo info = otherApp.activities[i]; // or providers/receivers/...
new ComponentName(info.packageName, info.name);
#About .Names and <manifest package="
There may be some confusion here because I think historically Robert's statement was true:
it is the package name of the application---the package attribute of the manifest element in that application's AndroidManifest.xml
but not any more. Since the new Gradle build system was introduced there has been some changes around here, and then they changed it again in AGP 7.3, and made it mandatory in AGP 8.0.
If you have an android.defaultConfig.applicationId specified in your build.gradle that'll be the app package name, and then package attribute in manifest (or later namespace in build.gradle) is a separate thing when building your app. The first argument of ComponentName now refers to applicationId + applicationIdSuffix. The tricky thing is that after the final manifest merge and packaging the APK will have <manifest package=applicationId + applicationIdSuffix and all the .Names will be expanded to FQCNs.
Example app for learning name resolution
Here's an example structure based on the structure of one of my apps. Consider the following classes in a hypothetical app called "app":
net.twisterrob.app.android.App
net.twisterrob.app.android.GlideSetup
net.twisterrob.app.android.subpackage.SearchResultsActivity
net.twisterrob.app.android.subpackage.Activity
net.twisterrob.app.android.content.AppProvider
on the server side backend of the app and/or some shared model classes:
net.twisterrob.app.data.*
net.twisterrob.app.backend.*
net.twisterrob.app.web.*
in my Android helper library:
net.twisterrob.android.activity.AboutActivity
other libraries:
android.support.v4.content.FileProvider
This way everything is namespaced in net.twisterrob.app. The android app being just a single part of the whole inside it's own subpackage.
AndroidManifest.xml (irrelevant parts omitted)
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
package="net.twisterrob.app.android">
<!--
`package` above defines the base package for .Names
to simplify reading/writing the manifest.
Notice that it's different than the `applicationId` in build.gradle
and can be independently changed in case you want to refactor your packages.
This way you can still publish the same app with the same name.
-->
<!-- Will be expanded to net.twisterrob.app.android.App in the manifest merging phase. -->
<application android:name=".App">
<!-- meta-data needs FQCNs because the merger can't know if you want to expand them or not.
Also notice that name and value both can contain class names, depending on what you use. -->
<meta-data android:name="net.twisterrob.app.android.GlideSetup" android:value="GlideModule" />
<meta-data android:name="android.app.default_searchable" android:value="net.twisterrob.app.android.subpackage.SearchResultsActivity" />
<!-- Will be expanded to net.twisterrob.app.android.subpackage.Activity in the manifest merging phase. -->
<activity android:name=".subpackage.Activity" />
<!-- Needs full qualification because it's not under the package defined on manifest element. -->
<activity android:name="net.twisterrob.android.activity.AboutActivity" />
<!-- Will be expanded to net.twisterrob.app.android.content.AppProvider in the manifest merging phase. -->
<provider android:name=".content.AppProvider" android:authorities="${applicationId}" />
<!-- Needs full qualification because it's not under the package defined on manifest element. -->
<provider android:name="android.support.v4.content.FileProvider" android:authorities="${applicationId}.share" />
</application>
<!-- ${applicationId} will be replaced with what's defined in `build.gradle` -->
</manifest>
build.gradle
android {
defaultConfig {
// this is what will be used when you upload it to the Play Store
applicationId 'net.twisterrob.app'
// in later AGP versions, move manifest's package here:
// namespace 'net.twisterrob.app.android'
}
buildTypes {
debug {
// The neatest trick ever!
// Released application: net.twisterrob.app
// IDE built debug application: net.twisterrob.app.debug
// This will allow you to have your installed released version
// and sideloaded debug application at the same time working independently.
// All the ContentProvider authorities within a system must have a unique name
// so using ${applicationId} as authority will result in having two different content providers.
applicationIdSuffix '.debug'
}
}
}
To check out what your final manifest will look like after all the merging open build\intermediates\manifests\full\debug\AndroidManifest.xml.

Or you can use like this inside BroadcastReceiver :
ComponentName smsReceiver = new ComponentName(this, SMSReceiver.class);