New Baka-Tsuki Android App: Development

[ShadowfoxEX]

What are the "!" next to the (DL) signs?

[Nandaka]

What are the "!" next to the (DL) signs?

Updated content available

[Erakk]

I'm in the proccess of uploading the app. Will update if anything happens (hopefully good things).

EDIT: App published. ETA on the play store itself is about 2 hours.
Download and tell us what you think.

keep im mind that the developer name is not set yet (because i am using my account, thats my name)
But we all know this was a joint effort, especially Nandaka's, so if you have any ideas for the description etc, please do tell.

EDIT2: It's ON!
https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... JlYWRlciJd

[Bloodscythe]

Just downloaded it. I can now get automatic updates, hooray! That only thing that wasn't so good was that I had to uninstall then reinstall thus deleting my novel cache but it's no major issue. Nothing Titanium Backup won't fix. Anyway, congrats on finally releasing the app for the play store.

[Amaranthias]

If you are reading a novel and you press the lock key, you lose your current progress. If you press the home key then lock, you won't lose your progress. Can this be fixed?

[comonad]

I'm a coder looking to help with this, but I can't find the GitHub repository (it was indicated it would be hosted there) with the actual source code (not the apk). I tried looking at the person who originally uploaded it, but their repository list no longer contains it.

Perhaps this should be in the first post? Seems like kind of an important information to me, since source code > apk.

[comonad]

Maybe I'm being a bit too hopeful here on what it would require for everyone to do to make this work, but isn't it duplicating a lot of effort to have to first style the baka-tsuki wiki pages and THEN parse them?

It would be much nicer if the layout was automatically generated by some read-only database on the server end and the remote client could also access this data to avoid having to parse.

The use of what seems to be a fairly generic wiki might make this difficult though.

[Erakk]

The thing is that, not every novel translation here is "styled" the same way, so we have to keep them in one style if you get what i mean.
Also, blame the generic wiki =D

On an important note, It might not hinder the application's use, but because of an Android SDK bug (latest release), opening the watchlist while its empty may caue the loading to hang up. I say this because it wasn't happening before, but i still have to prove that it is solely the SDK's fault.
Fix: The watchlist itsel wont "Hangup". it just never gets the result it expected. Just keep it with some novels watched =D. If you get into the list and nothing happens, touching outside the "loading" dialog will cancel it, then just go back.

EDIT: forgot. Comonad, heres the link for BakaReader EX's github:
https://github.com/calvinaquino/LNReader-Android
"LNReader" was the projects alias

[comonad]

The thing is that, not every novel translation here is "styled" the same way, so we have to keep them in one style if you get what i mean.
Also, blame the generic wiki =D

On an important note, It might not hinder the application's use, but because of an Android SDK bug (latest release), opening the watchlist while its empty may caue the loading to hang up. I say this because it wasn't happening before, but i still have to prove that it is solely the SDK's fault.
Fix: The watchlist itsel wont "Hangup". it just never gets the result it expected. Just keep it with some novels watched =D. If you get into the list and nothing happens, touching outside the "loading" dialog will cancel it, then just go back.

A quick look at the related code: Whether or not this is THE problem, it is glaring

return new AsyncTaskResult<ArrayList<PageModel>>(e);
Line 59 at https://github.com/calvinaquino/LNReade ... k.java#L59

Does that even COMPILE? Returning an Exception in the AsyncTaskResult? My suspicion is that some exception is thrown, and then that happens, which silently fails somewhere. Is there anything in the log when this happens?

[Weaknespase]

When first introduced, AsyncTasks were executed serially on a single background thread. Starting with DONUT, this was changed to a pool of threads allowing multiple tasks to operate in parallel. Starting with HONEYCOMB, tasks are executed on a single thread to avoid common application errors caused by parallel execution.

This explains why single exception in background thread renders all AsyncTasks ineffective. What i may say is "catch exception" without throwing it again.

PS. Also this explains "AsyncTask is targeted for tasks which take up to few seconds to complete."

[Erakk]

New Version in testing
Expect bugs off course.

Version: 20130106

Improvements:
- inverted default VolumeRocker scroll direction.
- Removed annoying sound when using VolumeRocker.
- Database backup/restore implemented
- Novel content downloads, instead of opening a dialog, now show only a small toast and are displayed in a separate Intent (screen) that can be accessed from the main menu.
- Small fixes and code cleanup

NOTE: THIS CODE IS NOT YET ON GITHUB.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/r21v7qm04beat ... tivity.apk

[Bloodscythe]

Downloading test version. Would you like a list of bugs? So far, unless you put your phone into silent mode, there will still be noises when using the volume rocker. The system probably thinks you're changing the volume so it makes the same noise it does when changing the volume.... I don't really notice anything else. Though, this is just a sort of "beta" version after all.

[Erakk]

Soon i'll be posting an update to this test version.

The sound while using volume rocker should be fixed

Yes, i would appreciate a list of bugs =D

EDIT: new version 20130106 b

Differences from release:
- inverted default VolumeRocker scroll direction.
- Removed annoying sound when using VolumeRocker.
- Database backup/restore implemented
- Downloads screen
- keep awake fuinction
- Fix volume buttons when not in scroll mode
- Unit steps for scrolling Volume Rocker 1 = 100 normalized
- Verify clicking mascot in chapter and going to jump to screen.
- make bookmarks accessible in every part of the app
- Download all info make a background task
- Reformatted last update/check text
- Jump to inside content layout fixed
- Bookmarks screen fix layout
- fix novel content headers/titles

Download: https://www.dropbox.com/s/r21v7qm04beat ... tivity.apk

[Bloodscythe]

I haven't really noticed bugs except for... whenever you lock the phone, you'll revert back to the first chapter that you entered, not the chapter you were on. For example, lets say you enter chapter 1, use the NEXT function to go to chapter 2, then lock the phone. When you wake it, you'll be on chapter 1, not 2.
Other than this, there aren't really bugs. Well, none that stops me from how I usually use the app. Also, could you elaborate on the new download feature? Sorry to say, but I haven't really noticed anything new about the downloads and I'm wondering if that's just me. If I spot any other bugs, I'll let you know.

[Erakk]

I haven't really noticed bugs except for... whenever you lock the phone, you'll revert back to the first chapter that you entered, not the chapter you were on. For example, lets say you enter chapter 1, use the NEXT function to go to chapter 2, then lock the phone. When you wake it, you'll be on chapter 1, not 2.
Other than this, there aren't really bugs. Well, none that stops me from how I usually use the app. Also, could you elaborate on the new download feature? Sorry to say, but I haven't really noticed anything new about the downloads and I'm wondering if that's just me. If I spot any other bugs, I'll let you know.

@ the wake bug: I could not reproduce that...
@ the new download feature: All the downloads are already occurring on the background. The problem was how it was presented. We showed a dismissable dialog about the download. The problem is that most people think that if you dismiss the dialog the download stops, which is not the case. What i did is to organize that: Instead of a dialog, it will only show Toasts (small messages on the bottom of the screen) saying what download started, what download finished and if download is already running.
Also i created a downloads list screen so people wont be asking themselves "Is there any download going on" and to check the percentage of completion.
Basically i refined Nandaka's asyncTaskDownloads stuff (well thats kinda my task).

Are you using the test version i put the link??? You can see a "Downloads" button on the main screen.