Phimpme

Read more about the article Preparing for Automatic Publishing of Android Apps in Play Store

Preparing for Automatic Publishing of Android Apps in Play Store

I spent this week searching through libraries and services which provide a way to publish built apks directly through API so that the repositories for Android apps can trigger publishing automatically after each push on master branch. The projects to be auto-deployed are:

I had eyes on fastlane for a couple of months and it came out to be the best solution for the task. The tool not only allows publishing of APK files, but also Play Store listings, screenshots, and changelogs. And that is only a subset of its capabilities bundled in a subservice supply.

There is a process before getting started to use this service, which I will go through step by step in this blog. The process is also outlined in the README of the supply project.

Enabling API Access

The first step in the process is to enable API access in your Play Store Developer account if you haven’t done so. For that, you have to open the Play Dev Console and go to Settings > Developer Account > API access.

If this is the first time you are opening it, you’ll be presented with a confirmation dialog detailing about the ramifications of the action and if you agree to do so. Read carefully about the terms and click accept if you agree with them. Once you do, you’ll be presented with a setting panel like this:

Creating Service Account

As you can see there is no registered service account here and we need to create one. So, click on CREATE SERVICE ACCOUNT button and this dialog will pop up giving you the instructions on how to do so:

So, open the highlighted link in the new tab and Google API Console will open up, which will look something like this:

Click on Create Service Account and fill in these details:

Account Name: Any name you want

Role: Project > Service Account Actor

And then, select Furnish a new private key and select JSON. Click CREATE.

A new JSON key will be created and downloaded on your device. Keep this secret as anyone with access to it can at least change play store listings of your apps if not upload new apps in place of existing ones (as they are protected by signing keys).

Granting Access

Now return to the Play Console tab (we were there in Figure 2 at the start of Creating Service Account), and click done as you have created the Service Account now. And you should see the created service account listed like this:

Now click on grant access, choose Release Manager from Role dropdown, and select these PERMISSIONS:

Of course you don’t want the fastlane API to access financial data or manage orders. Other than that it is up to you on what to allow or disallow. Same choice with expiry date as we have left it to never expire. Click on ADD USER and you’ll see the Release Manager created in the user list like below:

Now you are ready to use the fastlane service, or any other release management service for that matter.

Using fastlane

Install fastlane by

sudo gem install fastlane

Go to your project folder and run

fastlane supply init

First it will ask the location of the private key JSON file you downloaded, and then the package name of the application you are trying to initialize fastlane for.

Then it will create metadata folder with listing information excluding the images. So you’ll have to download and place the images manually for the first time

After modifying the listing, images or APK, run the command:

fastlane supply run

That’s it. Your app along with the store listing has been updated!

This is a very brief introduction to the capabilities of the supply service. All interactive options can be supplied via command line arguments, certain parts of the metadata can be omitted and alpha beta management along with release rollout can be done in steps! Make sure to check out the links below:

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Read more about the article Using Firebase Test Lab for Testing test cases of Phimpme Android

Using Firebase Test Lab for Testing test cases of Phimpme Android

As now we started writing some test cases for Phimpme Android. While running my instrumentation test case, I saw a tab of Cloud Testing in Android Studio. This is for Firebase Test Lab. Firebase Test Lab provides cloud-based infrastructure for testing Android apps. Everyone doesn’t have every devices of all the android versions. But testing on all of them is equally important.

How I used test lab in Phimpme

  • Run your first test on Firebase

Select Test Lab in your project on the left nav on the Firebase console, and then click Run a Robo test. The Robo test automatically explores your app on wide array of devices to find defects and report any crashes that occur. It doesn’t require you to write test cases. All you need is the app’s APK. Nothing else is needed to use Robo test.

Upload your Application’s APK (app-debug-unaligned.apk) in the next screen and click Continue

Configure the device selection, a wide range of devices and all API levels are present there. You can save the template for future use.

Click on start test to start testing. It will start the tests and show the real time progress as well.

  • Using Firebase Test Lab from Android Studio

It required Android Studio 2.0+. You needs to edit the configuration of Android Instrumentation test.

Select the Firebase Test Lab Device Matrix under the Target. You can configure Matrix, matrix is actually on what virtual and physical devices do you want to run your test. See the below screenshot for details.

Note: You need to enable the firebase in your project

So using test lab on firebase we can easily test the test cases on multiple devices and make our app more scalable.

Resources:

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Read more about the article Adding Voice Recognition in Description Dialog Box in Phimpme project

Adding Voice Recognition in Description Dialog Box in Phimpme project

In this blog, I will explain how I added Voice Recognition in a dialog box to describe an image in Phimpme Android application. In Phimpme Android application we have an option to add a description for the image. Sometimes the description can be long. Adding Voice Recognition text to speech will ease the user’s experience to add a description for the image.

Adding appropriate Dialog Box

In order to take input from the user to prompt the Voice Recognition function, I have added an image button in the description dialog box. Since the description dialog box will only contain an EditText and a button will have used material design to make it look better and add caption on top of it.

 

<LinearLayout
   android:id="@+id/rl_description_dialog"
   android:layout_width="match_parent"
   android:layout_height="wrap_content"
   android:orientation="horizontal"
   android:padding="15dp">
   <EditText
       android:id="@+id/description_edittxt"
       android:layout_weight="1"
       android:layout_width="fill_parent"
       android:layout_height="wrap_content"
       android:padding="15dp"
       android:hint="@string/description_hint"
       android:textColorHint="@color/grey"
       android:layout_margin="20dp"
       android:gravity="top|left"
       android:inputType="text" />
   <ImageButton
       android:layout_width="@dimen/mic_image"
       android:layout_height="@dimen/mic_image"
       android:layout_alignRight="@+id/description_edittxt"
       app2:srcCompat="@drawable/ic_mic_black"
       android:layout_gravity="center"
       android:background="@color/transparent"
       android:paddingEnd="10dp"
       android:paddingTop="12dp"
       android:id="@+id/voice_input"/>
</LinearLayout>

Function to prompt dialog box

We have added a function to prompt the dialog box from anywhere in the application. getDescriptionDialog() function is used to prompt the description dialog box. getDescriptionDialog() returns EditText which can be further be used to manipulate the text in the EditText. Please follow the following steps to inflate description dialog box in the activity.

First,

In the getDescriptionDialog() function we will inflate the layout by using getLayoutInflater function. We will pass the layout id as an argument in the function. 

public EditText getDescriptionDialog(final ThemedActivity activity, AlertDialog.Builder descriptionDialog){
final View DescriptiondDialogLayout = activity.getLayoutInflater().inflate(R.layout.dialog_description, null);

Second,

Get the TextView in the description dialog box. 

final TextView DescriptionDialogTitle = (TextView) DescriptiondDialogLayout.findViewById(R.id.description_dialog_title);

Third,

Present the dialog using cardview to make use of the material design. Then take an instance of the EditText. This EditText can be further used to input text from the user either by text or Voice Recognition. 

final CardView DescriptionDialogCard = (CardView) DescriptiondDialogLayout.findViewById(R.id.description_dialog_card);
EditText editxtDescription = (EditText) DescriptiondDialogLayout.findViewById(R.id.description_edittxt);

Fourth,

Set onClickListener when the user clicks the mic image icon. This onClicklistener will prompt the voice Recognition in the activity. We need to specify the language for the speech to text input. In the case of Phimpme its English so “en-US”. We have set the maximum results to 15.  

ImageButton VoiceRecognition = (ImageButton) DescriptiondDialogLayout.findViewById(R.id.voice_input);
VoiceRecognition.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
   @Override
   public void onClick(View v) {
       // This are the intents needed to start the Voice recognizer
       Intent i = new Intent(RecognizerIntent.ACTION_RECOGNIZE_SPEECH);
       i.putExtra(RecognizerIntent.EXTRA_LANGUAGE_MODEL, "en-US");
       i.putExtra(RecognizerIntent.EXTRA_MAX_RESULTS, 15); // number of maximum results..
       i.putExtra(RecognizerIntent.EXTRA_PROMPT, R.string.caption_speak);
       startActivityForResult(i, REQ_CODE_SPEECH_INPUT);

   }
});

Putting Text in the EditText

After Voice Recognition prompt ends the onActivityResult function checks to see if the data is received or not. 

if (requestCode == REQ_CODE_SPEECH_INPUT && data!=null) {

We get the spoken text from intent data.getString() and store it in ArrayList. To store the received data in a string we need to get the first string from the ArrayList. 

ArrayList<String> result = data
       .getStringArrayListExtra(RecognizerIntent.EXTRA_RESULTS);
voiceInput = result.get(0);

Setting the received data in the the EditText

editTextDescription.setText(voiceInput);

Conclusion

Using Voice recognition is a quick and simple way to add a long description on the image. It’s Speech to Text feature works without many mistakes and is useful in our Phimpme Android application.

Github

https://github.com/fossasia/phimpme-android

Resources

Tutorial for speech to Text: https://www.androidhive.info/2014/07/android-speech-to-text-tutorial/

To add description dialog box: https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/dialogs.html

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Read more about the article Google Authentication and sharing Image on Google Plus from Phimpme Android

Google Authentication and sharing Image on Google Plus from Phimpme Android

In this blog, I will be explaining how I implemented Google Authentication and sharing an Image on GooglePlus from Phimpme Android application.

Adding Google Plus authentication in accounts activity in Phimpme Android

In accounts Activity, we added Google Plus option. This is done by adding “Googleplus” in accountName.  

public static String[] accountName = { "Facebook", "Twitter", "Drupal", "NextCloud", "Wordpress", "Pinterest", "Flickr", "Imgur", "Dropbox", "OwnCloud", "Googleplus"};

Add this to your Gradle Build. Please note that the version of Google:play-services in the grade should be same. In the case of Phimpme the version is 10.0.1, so all the services from Google should be 10.0.1. 

compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-auth:10.0.1

In onCreate we need to make the object of the GoogleSignInOptions. This is required to call methods: requestEmail() and build. 

GoogleSignInOptions gso = new GoogleSignInOptions.Builder(GoogleSignInOptions.DEFAULT_SIGN_IN)
       .requestEmail()
       .build();

Building GoogleApiClient with access to the Google Sign and the option specified by the gso. 

mGoogleApiClient = new GoogleApiClient.Builder(this)
       .enableAutoManage(this , AccountActivity.this)
       .addApi(Auth.GOOGLE_SIGN_IN_API, gso)
       .build();

Signing in Google Authentication can take place through intent which calls logged in users on the phone. The user will choose an option to select the account he or she wants to authenticate the application. 

private void signInGooglePlus() {
   Intent signInIntent = Auth.GoogleSignInApi.getSignInIntent(mGoogleApiClient);
   startActivityForResult(signInIntent, RC_SIGN_IN);
}

Adding Google Plus account in the Realm Database

HandleSignInResult() function is used to handle Sign in result. This result includes:

Storing the received data in the Realm Database. Showing the appropriate username in the Accounts activity and handling login failed.

Checking if login is successful or not

If the login is successful a Toast message will pop up to show the appropriate message.  

private void handleSignInResult(GoogleSignInResult result) {
   if (result.isSuccess())
       GoogleSignInAccount acct = result.getSignInAccount();//acct.getDisplayName()
       Toast.makeText(AccountActivity.this, R.string.success, Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();

Creating Object to store the details in Realm Database.

First, we need to begin realm transaction.Then add logged in username in the database.

To display the username we will create the function setUserName(acct.getDisplayName()). And then finally commit everything to Realm database.  

       realm.beginTransaction();
       account = realm.createObject(AccountDatabase.class,
       accountName[GOOGLEPLUS]);
       account.setUsername(acct.getDisplayName());
       realm.commitTransaction();
   }

Adding Google Plus option in Sharing Activity.

To add Google Plus option in the sharing Activity we first added Google Plus icon in the resource folder.

The Google Plus icon is SVG(scalable vector) format so that we can manipulate it to apply any colour and size. 

<vector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
   android:width="24dp"
   android:height="24dp"
   android:viewportHeight="32.0"
   android:viewportWidth="32.0">
   <path
       android:fillColor="#00000000"
       android:pathData="M16,16m-16,0a16,16 0,1 1,32 0a16,16 0,1 1,-32 0" />
   <path
       android:fillColor="#000000"
       android:pathData="M16.7,17.2c-0.4,-0.3 -1.3,-1.1 -1.3,-1.5c0,-0.5 0.2,-0.8 1,-1.4c0.8,-0.6 1.4,-1.5 1.4,-2.6c0,-1.2 -0.6,-2.5 -1.6,-2.9h1.6L18.8,8h-5c-2.2,0 -4.3,1.7 -4.3,3.6c0,2 1.5,3.6 3.8,3.6c0.2,0 0.3,0 0.5,0c-0.1,0.3 -0.3,0.6 -0.3,0.9c0,0.6 0.3,1 0.7,1.4c-0.3,0 -0.6,0 -0.9,0c-2.8,0 -4.9,1.8 -4.9,3.6c0,1.8 2.3,2.9 5.1,2.9c3.1,0 4.9,-1.8 4.9,-3.6C18.4,19 18,18.1 16.7,17.2zM14.1,14.7c-1.3,0 -2.5,-1.4 -2.7,-3.1c-0.2,-1.7 0.6,-3 1.9,-2.9c1.3,0 2.5,1.4 2.7,3.1C16.2,13.4 15.3,14.8 14.1,14.7zM13.6,23.2c-1.9,0 -3.3,-1.2 -3.3,-2.7c0,-1.4 1.7,-2.6 3.6,-2.6c0.4,0 0.9,0.1 1.2,0.2c1,0.7 1.8,1.1 2,1.9c0,0.2 0.1,0.3 0.1,0.5C17.2,22.1 16.2,23.2 13.6,23.2zM21.5,15v-2h-1v2h-2v1h2v2h1v-2h2v-1H21.5z" />
</vector>

Sharing Image on Google Plus from Sharing Activity

After creating the appropriate button, we need to send the image to Google Plus. We need to import the PlusShare files in the SharingActivity. 

import com.google.android.gms.plus.PlusShare;

Share Image function

To share the image on Google Plus we have used PlusShare function which comes in Google Plus API. In the function shareToGoogle() we will send the message and the image on Google Plus.

To send the message: share.setText(“Provide the message you want to pass”) .

To send the Image:share.addStream(Uri of the Image to be sent). 

private void shareToGoogle() {
   Uri uri = getImageUri(context);
   PlusShare.Builder share = new PlusShare.Builder(this);
   share.setText(caption);
   share.addStream(uri);
   share.setType(getResources().getString(R.string.image_type));
   startActivityForResult(share.getIntent(), REQ_SELECT_PHOTO);
}

Show appropriate message after uploading the image

After uploading the image on Google Plus there can be two possibilities:

  1. Image failed to upload
  2. Image uploaded successfully.

If the image uploaded image successfully an appropriate message is displayed in snackbar.

If the image upload fails an error message is displayed. 

if (requestCode == REQ_SELECT_PHOTO) {
   if (responseCode == RESULT_OK) {
       Snackbar.make(parent, R.string.success_google, Snackbar.LENGTH_LONG).show();
       return;
   } else {
       Snackbar.make(parent, R.string.error_google, Snackbar.LENGTH_LONG).show();
       return;
   }
}

Conclusion

This is how we have implemented image share on Google Plus in Phimpme. Following this method, it will provide an easy way to upload an image on Google Plus without leaving or switching between the Phimpme application.

Github

https://github.com/fossasia/phimpme-android

Resources

 

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Read more about the article Displaying an Animated Image in Splash Screen of Phimpme Android

Displaying an Animated Image in Splash Screen of Phimpme Android

A splash screen is the welcome page of the application. It gives the first impression of the application to the user. So, it is very important to make this page a better-looking one. In Phimpme Android, we had a normal page with a static image which is very common in all applications. So, in order to make it different from the most applications, we created an animation of the logo and added it to the splash screen.

As the splash screen is the first page/activity of the Phimpme Android application, most of the initialization functions are called in this activity. These initializations might take a little time giving us the time to display the logo animation.

Creating the animation of the Phimpme logo

For creating the animation of the Phimpme Android application’s logo, we used Adobe After Effects software. There are many free tools available on the web for creating the animation but due to the sophistic features present in After Effects, we used that software. We created the Phimpme Android application’s logo animation like any other normal video but with a lower frame rate. We used 12 FPS for the animation and it was fine as it was for a logo. Finally, we exported the animation as a transparent PNG formatted image sequence.

How to display the animation?

In Phimpme Android, we could’ve directly used the sequence of resultant images for displaying the animation. We could’ve done that by using a handler to change the image resource of an imageview. But this approach is very crude. So, we planned to create a GIF with the image sequence first and then display the GIF in the image view.

Creating a GIF from the image sequence

There are many tools on the web which create a GIF image from the given image sequence but most of the tools don’t support transparent images. This tool which we used to create the transparent GIF image supports both transparent and normal images. The frame rate and loop count can also be adjusted using this free tool. Below is the GIF image created using that tool.

Displaying the GIF in Phimpme

GIF image can be displayed in Phimpme Android application very easily using the famous Glide image caching and displaying library. But glide library doesn’t fulfill the need of the current scenario. Here, in Phimpme Android, we are displaying the GIF in the splash screen i.e. the next page should get displayed automatically. As we are showing an intro animation, the next activity/page should get opened only after the animation is completed. For achieving this we need a listener which triggers on the loop completion of the GIF image. Glide doesn’t provide any listener of this kind so we cannot Glide here.

There is a library named android-gif-drawable, which has the support for a GIF completion listener and many other methods. So, we used this for displaying the Phimpme Android application’s logo animation GIF image in the splash screen. When the GIF completed function gets triggered, we started the next activity if all the tasks which had to get completed in this activity itself are finished. Otherwise, we added a flag that the animation is done so that when the task gets completed, it just navigates to next page.

The way of the implementation described above is performed in Phimpme Android in the following manner.

First of all, we imported the library by adding it to the dependencies of build.gradle file.

compile 'pl.droidsonroids.gif:android-gif-drawable:1.2.7'

Then we added a normal imageview widget in the layout of the SplashScreen activity.

<ImageView
   android:id="@+id/imgLogo"
   android:layout_width="match_parent"
   android:layout_height="wrap_content"
   android:scaleType="fitCenter"
   android:layout_centerInParent="true"
   />

Finally, in the SplashScreen.java, we created a GifDrawable object using the GIF image of Phimpme Android logo animation, which we copied in the assets folder of the Phimpme application. We added a listener to the GifDrawble and added function calls inside that function. It is shown below.

GifDrawable gifDrawable = null;
try {
   gifDrawable = new GifDrawable( getAssets(), "splash_logo_anim.gif" );
} catch (IOException e) {
   e.printStackTrace();
}
if (gifDrawable != null) {
   gifDrawable.addAnimationListener(new AnimationListener() {
       @Override
       public void onAnimationCompleted(int loopNumber) {
           Log.d("splashscreen","Gif animation completed");
           if (can_be_finished && nextIntent != null){
               startActivity(nextIntent);
               finish();
           }else {
               can_be_finished = true;
           }
       }
   });
}
logoView.setImageDrawable(gifDrawable);

Resources:

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Read more about the article UI Espresso Test Cases for Phimpme Android

UI Espresso Test Cases for Phimpme Android

Now we are heading toward a release of Phimpme soon, So we are increasing the code coverage by writing test cases for our app. What is a Test Case? Test cases are the script against which we run our code to test the features implementation. It is basically contains the output, flow and features steps of the app. To release app on multiple platform, it is highly recommended to test the app on test cases.

For example, Let’s consider if we are developing an app which has one button. So first we write a UI test case which checks whether a button displayed on the screen or not? And in response to that it show the pass and fail of a test case.

Steps to add a UI test case using Espresso

Espresso testing framework provides APIs to simulate user interactions. It has a concise API. Even, now in new Version of Android Studio, there is a feature to record Espresso Test cases. I’ll show you how to use Recorder to write test cases in below steps.

  • Setup Project Directory

Android Instrumentation tests must be placed in androidTest directory. If it is not there create a directory in app/src/androidTest/java…

  • Write Test Case

So firstly, I am writing a very simple test case, which checks whether the three Bottom navigation view items are displayed or not?

Espresso Testing framework has basically three components:

ViewMatchers

Which helps to find the correct view on which some actions can be performed E.g. onView(withId(R.id.navigation_accounts). Here I am taking the view of accounts item in Bottom Navigation View.

ViewActions

It allows to perform actions on the view we get earlier. E.g. Very basic operation used is click()

ViewAssertions

It allows to assert the current state of the view E.g. isDisplayed() is an assertion on the view we get. So a basic architecture of an Espresso Test case is

onView(ViewMatcher)       
 .perform(ViewAction)     
   .check(ViewAssertion);

We can also Use Hamcrest framework which provide extra features of checking conditions in the code.

Setup Espresso in Code

Add this in your application level build.gradle

// Android Testing Support Library's runner and rules
androidTestCompile "com.android.support.test:runner:$rootProject.ext.runnerVersion"
androidTestCompile "com.android.support.test:rules:$rootProject.ext.rulesVersion"

// Espresso UI Testing dependencies.
androidTestCompile "com.android.support.test.espresso:espresso-core:$rootProject.ext.espressoVersion"
androidTestCompile "com.android.support.test.espresso:espresso-contrib:$rootProject.ext.espressoVersion"

  • Use recorder to write the Test Case

New recorder feature is great, if you want to set up everything quickly. Go to the Run → Record Espresso Test in Android Studio.

It dumps the current User Interface hierarchy and provide the feature to assert that.

You can edit the assertions by selecting the element and apply the assertion on it.

Save and Run the test cases by right click on Name of the class. Run ‘Test Case name’

Console will show the progress of Test case. Like here it is showing passed, it means it get all the view hierarchy which is required by the Test Case.

Resources

Continue ReadingUI Espresso Test Cases for Phimpme Android
Read more about the article Upload Images to OwnCloud and NextCloud in Phimpme Android

Upload Images to OwnCloud and NextCloud in Phimpme Android

As increasing the stack of account manager in Phimpme Android. We have now two new items OwnCloud and NextCloud to add. Both are open source storage services. Provides complete source code of their official apps and libraries on Github. You can check below

OwnCloud: https://github.com/owncloud

NextCloud: https://github.com/nextcloud

This requires a hosting server, where you can deploy it and access it through their web app and Mobile apps. I added a feature in Phimpme to upload images directly to the server right from the app using their android-library.

Steps (How I did in Phimpme)

  • Add library in Application gradle file

Firstly, to work with, we need to add the android-library they provide.

compile "com.github.nextcloud:android-library:$rootProject.nextCloudVersion"

Check the new version from here and apply over it: https://github.com/nextcloud/android-library/releases

  • Login from Account Manager

As per our Phimpme app flow, User first connect itself from the account manager and then share image from app using these credentials. Added a new Login activity for OwnCloud and NextCloud both.

          

  • Saved credentials in Database

To use that further in android-library, I store the credentials in Realm database.

account.setServerUrl(data.getStringExtra(getString(R.string.server_url)));
account.setUsername(data.getStringExtra(getString(R.string.auth_username)));
account.setPassword(data.getStringExtra(getString(R.string.auth_password)));

  • Uploading image using library

As per the official guide of OwnCloud, used Created an object of OwnCloudClient. Set the username and password.

private OwnCloudClient mClient;
mClient = OwnCloudClientFactory.createOwnCloudClient(serverUri, this, true);
mClient.setCredentials(
       OwnCloudCredentialsFactory.newBasicCredentials(
               username,
               password
       )
);

Passed the image path which we are getting in the SharingActivity. Modified with adding the separator.

File fileToUpload = new File(saveFilePath);
String remotePath = FileUtils.PATH_SEPARATOR + fileToUpload.getName();

Used the UploadRemoteOperation Class and just need to pass the path, mimeType and timeStamp. The library have already defined functions to execute the upload operations.

UploadRemoteFileOperation uploadOperation =
       new UploadRemoteFileOperation(fileToUpload.getAbsolutePath(), remotePath, mimeType, timeStamp);
uploadOperation.execute(mClient, this, mHandler);

  • Setup Account using Docker and Digital Ocean

I have already a previous blog post on how to setup NextCloud or OwnCloud account on server using Digital Ocean and Docker.

Link: https://blog.fossasia.org/how-to-use-digital-ocean-and-docker-to-setup-test-cms-for-phimpme/

Resource:

  1. NextCloud Developer Mannual: https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/9/developer_manual/index.html
  2. OwnCloud Library installation: https://doc.owncloud.org/server/9.0/developer_manual/android_library/library_installation.html
  3. Examples: https://doc.owncloud.org/server/9.0/developer_manual/android_library/examples.html
Continue ReadingUpload Images to OwnCloud and NextCloud in Phimpme Android
Read more about the article Common Utility classes Progress Bar and Snack Bar in Phimpme Android

Common Utility classes Progress Bar and Snack Bar in Phimpme Android

As the Phimpme Android is scaling very fast on its features, code gets redundant sometimes. Some of the widely used design widgets in Android are Progress Bar and Snack Bar. Progress Bar is shown to user when some process is happening in the background. Snackbar is a feedback operation to user of its recent process. In other words we can say Snackbar is the new toast in Android with a cool feature of setting action on them. So that User can interact with the feedback received on the process.

As In Phimpme lots of account Login and Logout progress happens. Uploading success and failure required Snackbar to show to the Users. So to remove the redundancy of the boilerplate of these codes, I added two Utilities class one is Phimpme ProgressbarHandler and other is SnackbarHandler in the app. Below is one by one code and explanation of both.

Progress Bar Handler

In the constructor I passed Context as parameter. Created a ViewGroup object and set view of android. Setting the progress bar style and length using Android core attributes such as progressBarStyleLarge and duration to setIndeterminate true.

private ProgressBar mProgressBar;

public PhimpmeProgressBarHandler(Context context) {
   ViewGroup layout = (ViewGroup) ((Activity) context).findViewById(android.R.id.content)
           .getRootView();

   mProgressBar = new ProgressBar(context, null, android.R.attr.progressBarStyleLarge);
   mProgressBar.setIndeterminate(true);



   RelativeLayout.LayoutParams params = new
           RelativeLayout.LayoutParams(RelativeLayout.LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT,
           RelativeLayout.LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT);

   RelativeLayout rl = new RelativeLayout(context);

   rl.setGravity(Gravity.CENTER);
   rl.addView(mProgressBar);

   layout.addView(rl, params);

   hide();

}

Next is used dynamically created Relative Layout object and setup the parameters for width and height as MATCH_PARENT. Setting gravity of the layout to center and added the progress bar view on it using the addView method. So basically we have a progress bar ready and we dynamically created a relative layout and added the view over it.

The function used in setting up the views and progress bar are from AOSP only.

After that a Progressbar is set, we now need functions to show and hide the progress bar in the code. Created two functions show() and hide().

public void show() {
   mProgressBar.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
}

public void hide() {
   mProgressBar.setVisibility(View.INVISIBLE);
}

These functions set the visibility of the the progress bar.

Usage:

Now in any class we can create object of our Progressbar handler class pass the context on it and use the show() and hide() methods wherever we want to show this and hide. Below is the code snippet to show the illustration.

phimpmeProgressBarHandler = new PhimpmeProgressBarHandler(this);

phimpmeProgressBarHandler.show();

phimpmeProgressBarHandler.hide();

Snackbar Handler

To do this, I created a separate class as Snackbar Handler. What we can do is to create a static function show() and inside the declaration, we can create an object of Snackbar and apply the styles to that.

As you can see in the code snippet below, I Created a static function with parameters such as View (to take the view instance), String (to show the message) and duration  of the Snackbar. Set Up the text, textsize and action on the snackbar. An “OK” action is predefined in the function only.

public static void show(View view, String text, int duration) {
   final Snackbar snackbar = Snackbar.make(view, text, duration);
   View sbView = snackbar.getView();
   TextView textView = (TextView)sbView.findViewById(android

.support.design.R.id.snackbar_text);
   textView.setTextColor(Color.WHITE);
   textView.setTextSize(12);
   snackbar.setAction("OK", new View.OnClickListener() {
       @Override
       public void onClick(View view) {
           snackbar.dismiss();
       }
   });
   snackbar.show();
}

Usage:

To use this directly call the show method pass the view and String of the message which you want to show on Snackbar. There are overloaded methods as well in which you can pass the durations. See the below code as example.

SnackBarHandler.show(parentLayout, getString(R.string.no_account_signed_in));

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Read more about the article Sharing Images on Twitter from Phimpme Android App Using twitter4j

Sharing Images on Twitter from Phimpme Android App Using twitter4j

As sharing an image to the social media platform is an important feature in Phimpme android. In my previous blog, I have explained how to authenticate the Android application with Twitter. In this blog, I will discuss how to upload an image directly on Twitter from the application after successfully logging to Twitter.

To check if the application is authenticated to Twitter or not.

When the application is successfully authenticated Twitter issues a Token which tells the application if it is connected to Twitter or not. In LoginActivity.java the function isActive returns a boolean value. True if the Twitter token is successfully issued or else false.  

public static boolean isActive(Context ctx) {
        SharedPreferences sharedPrefs = ctx.getSharedPreferences(AppConstant.SHARED_PREF_NAME, Context.MODE_PRIVATE);
        return sharedPrefs.getString(AppConstant.SHARED_PREF_KEY_TOKEN, null) != null;
    }

We call isActive function from LoginActive class to check if the application is authenticated to Twitter or not. We call it before using the share function in sharingActivity:

if (LoginActivity.isActive(context)) {
                try {
                    // Send Image function
} catch (Exception ex) {
                    Toast.makeText(context, "ERROR", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
 }

We have saved the image in the internal storage of the device and use saveFilePath to use the path of the saved image. In Phimpme we used HelperMethod class where our share function resides, and while the image is being shared an alert dialog box with spinner pops on the screen.

Sending the image to HelperMethod class

First,

We need to get the image and convert it into Bitmaps. Since, the image captured by the phone camera is usually large to upload and it will take a lot of time we need to compress the Bitmap first. BitmapFactory.decodeFile(specify name of the file) is used to fetch the file and convert it into bitmap.

To send the data we used FileOutStream to the set the path of the file or image in this case. Bitmap.compress method is used to compress the image to desired value and format. In Phimpme we are converting it into PNG.  

Bitmap bmp = BitmapFactory.decodeFile(saveFilePath);
                    String filename = Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory().toString() + File.separator + "1.png";
                    Log.d("BITMAP", filename);
                    FileOutputStream out = new FileOutputStream(saveFilePath);
                    bmp.compress(Bitmap.CompressFormat.PNG, 90, out);

                    HelperMethods.postToTwitterWithImage(context, ((Activity) context), saveFilePath, caption, new HelperMethods.TwitterCallback() {

                        @Override
                        public void onFinsihed(Boolean response) {
                            mAlertBuilder.dismiss();
                            Snackbar.make(parent, R.string.tweet_posted_on_twitter, Snackbar.LENGTH_LONG).show();
                        }

Post image function

To post the image on Twitter we will use ConfigurationBuilder class. We will create a new object of the class and then attach Twitter consumer key, consumer secret key, Twitter access token, and twitter token secret.

  • setOAuthConsumerKey() function is used to set the consumer key which is generated by the Twitter when creating the application in the Twitter development environment.
  • Similarly, setOAuthConsumerSecret() function is used to set the consumer secret key.
  • Specify the token key which generated after successfully connecting to twitter in setOAuthAcessToken() fuction and Token secret in setOAuthAcessTokenSecret() function.  
ConfigurationBuilder configurationBuilder = new ConfigurationBuilder();       configurationBuilder.setOAuthConsumerKey(context.getResources().getString(R.string.twitter_consumer_key));
configurationBuilder.setOAuthConsumerSecret(context.getResources().getString(R.string.twitter_consumer_secret));
configurationBuilder.setOAuthAccessToken(LoginActivity.getAccessToken((context)));
configurationBuilder.setOAuthAccessTokenSecret(LoginActivity.getAccessTokenSecret(context));
        Configuration configuration = configurationBuilder.build();
final Twitter twitter = new TwitterFactory(configuration).getInstance();

Sending Image to twitter:

  • The image is uploaded to twitter using statusUpdate class specified in Twitter4j API.
  • Pass the image file name in status.setMedia(file).
  • Pass the caption in status.updateStatus(caption).
  • updateStatus is used to finally upload the image with the caption. 
final File file = new File(imageUrl);

        new Thread(new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                boolean success = true;
                try {
                    if (file.exists()) {
                        StatusUpdate status = new StatusUpdate(message);
                        status.setMedia(file);
                        twitter.updateStatus(status);
                    }else{
                        Log.d(TAG, "----- Invalid File ----------");
                        success = false;
                    }
                } catch (Exception e) {
                    e.printStackTrace();
                    success = false;
                }

 Conclusion:                                                                                                                      Using Twitter4j API allows sharing image on Twitter without leaving the  application and opening any additional view.

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