Entry-Level Android Application

I've been taking a series of classes on Android development in my spare time via UW.  The final project for my 1st class was to build a simple 2-screen application and present it in front of the class.

Lucky for me the presentation was recorded.  Un-lucky for me it was recorded using Adobe Connect, which makes downloading and editing the video extremely annoying.  I figured a way around all the hurdles and you can watch the video below.  I've also posted the slides below with some notes.

Some quick notes:

• Originally I was going to made a tip calculator, but was talked into this idea instead
• The idea for this app came from an idea I had for a Greasemonkey script

The slides from the presentation:

Slide 1

• The presentation was meant to be mostly verbal with just a few points made on the slides themselves.  However, I did modify a couple for this blog post.

Slide 2

• A simple feature allows me to explore the entire end-to-end process

Slide 3

• The first example is simple to allow the audience to quickly follow the gist of the calculation
• The second example shows how the result can be useful: with a 5 month wait, I can plan to read something else while I'm waiting

Slide 4

• The better looking app usually wins
• I found this image of an old-style library checkout card to use as a guide (my apologies if this is your image)

Slide 5

• For the actual presentation, I switched to using a separate overhead projector that displayed my phone on the wall.  I just inserted a screenshot for this version.

Slide 6

• Process button wasn't needed, but works as a visual cue to the user
• I used View elements in the XML layout, with a height/width of 1dip to make the lines
• I repeated those lines at the bottom to complete the look I was trying to achieve
• If I had to do this again, I would calculate the device's resolution and repeat those lines as many times as I needed.  It didn't matter for this project.

Slide 7

• Changing Preferences wasn't supposed to overwrite the current values the user had entered, but upon testing this just confused the user.  I had to change it to just have the preferences always over-write the current values.
• I originally had the result displayed in a TextView (read only), but decided to change it to a EditView so the user could select and copy the result
• The font and background with smudges made a HUGE difference. Smudges were just in the background image I created in GIMP, the aspect ratio didn't matter.
• I don't think anyone noticed, but I used that same background image in the app for this slide. I wanted to show that the image could be re-sized to fit just about anything and still look realistic.

Slide 8

• If you didn't watch the video, the audience had a couple questions and comments about how I did a couple things
• The comment that I remember most was when someone commented on the background image - he said at first he thought the screen on my phone was dirty!