The main aim of FOSSASIA Open Event Android App is to give an event organiser the ability to generate the app through a single click by providing the necessary json and binary files. As of late the Android application was tested on Google IO 2017 event. The sample files can be seen here. The data with respect to the event was taken from this site (https://events.google.com/io/). What was astonishing about this application is the simplicity with which we can make an event specific application by giving the vital assets required (json and binary files).
What was needed for generating the Google IO 2017 app?
For generating the app we had to provide the following files:
- images folder containing the necessary images of speaker, the logo of the event etc.
- event json file which has all the event specific information like the name of the event, the schedule of the event, the description of the event etc.
- forms json file having session and speaker form data.
- meta json file having the root url of the event.
- microlocations json file having all the locations where the events are going to happen.
- session_types json file consisting data of all the type of session which will occur in the vent.
- sessions json file consisting session specific data like the title of the session, start time and end time of session, which track that session belongs to etc.
- speakers json file consisting of speaker specific data like the name of the speaker, image of the speaker, social links of the speaker etc.
- sponsers json file consisting list of all sponsers of the event.
- tracks json file consisting of tracks specific data.
- config.json file which consists of the api url, app name.
After providing the required information we go to this site (http://droidgen.eventyay.com/) and the first thing this site asks us is the email id. Then we upload the required files mentioned above in a zip folder and we have a apk which we can test it out on our Android phone.
How did the Google IO sample app look like?
The files for the sample event can be found over here:
Folder Link:
https://github.com/fossasia/open-event/tree/master/sample/GoogleIO17
Zip File Link:
https://github.com/fossasia/open-event/blob/master/sample/GoogleIO17.zip
What were the issues found in the sample app?
There were certain issues which we observed on testing the app with the Google IO event:
- The theme of the app remains the same no matter which event it is. It is important to give the event organiser the ability to customise the theme of the app.
- The support for local speaker images needs to be provided as we want to give the event organiser an option to include the images locally or not.
- The background of the logo needs to be changed because in certain logos, the dark background causes visibility problems.
- Certain information in the app like the event information is hard-coded and needs to be taken from the assets folder instead of strings.xml.
Resources
- This tool makes work a lot easier by generating JSON files for us. (http://www.json-generator.com/)
- This link provides a brief introduction on JSON. (https://www.w3schools.com/js/js_json_intro.asp)