Making Bottomsheet responsive using Custom Gesture Detector in PSLab Android App

In the previous blog Creating Instruction Guide using Bottomsheet, I have created the Bottom Sheet guide in instrument activities in PSLab Android app. But simply adding the Bottom Sheet in the layout is not enough as it could lead to some UI issues like no proper way to show or hide the Bottom Sheet, therefore, he/she will find it difficult to work with Bottom Sheet that could degrade User Experience.

We need to make the Bottom Sheet responsive and interactive which we can do by capturing swipe gestures done by the user and overriding their functionality i.e. when the user slides up with the finger then the Bottom Sheet will reveal itself and when the user slides the finger down the Bottom Sheet will hide.

For this Android provides a class GestureDetector which is used with another class SimpleOnGestureListener which acts as a listener to capture Gesture events like swipe, pinch, scroll, long press etc.

In this blog, I will create a custom gesture listener that will listen to the swipe events and according to the gestures it will show/hide the Bottom Sheet.

I will start by creating a gesture listener class called “SwipeGestureListener” extending the class ‘GestureDetector.SimpleOnGestureListener’ and also as I need swipe gestures to control the Bottom Sheet, so I will pass the reference of the Bottom Sheet as a parameter in the constructor.

public class SwipeGestureListener extends GestureDetector.SimpleOnGestureListener{
   private  BottomSheetBehavior bottomSheet;

   public SwipeGestureDetector(BottomSheetBehavior bt) {
       bottomSheet = bt;
   }  
}

Now in this listener class as we are concerned with the swipe events so will only override the below method provided by ‘GestureDetector.SimpleOnGestureListener’ interface

public boolean onFling(MotionEvent e1, MotionEvent e2, float velocityX, float velocityY)

This method is called whenever the user swipes its finger in any direction.

In the above code, we can see that the method provides with object e1 and e2 of type MotionEventThe MotionEvent class is used to report movements in terms of Action Codes like ACTION_DOWN, ACTION_UP and also contains other information about the touch like the pressure of the touch, x and y coordinate, orientation of the contact area etc. 

The e1 object will have the attribute values relating to the point when the swipe started and the e2 object will have attribute values relating to the point when the swipe has ended.

Now, the main thing we need to determine if the direction of the swipe which is not directly available using the MotionEvent object.

So, to determine the direction of the swipe I will fetch the coordinates of the initial point and terminal point of the swipe using the objects initial and final point i.e., e1 and e2.

//Initial Point
float x1 = e1.getX(), y1 = e1.getY();

//Final Point
float x2 = e2.getX(), y2 = e2.getY();

Then, using these coordinates to calculate the angle of the swipe and based on the angle I will return the direction of the swipe as shown in the code below

private Direction getDirection(float x1, float y1, float x2, float y2) {

       Double angle = Math.toDegrees(Math.atan2(y1 - y2, x2 - x1));

       if (angle > 45 && angle <= 135)
           return Direction.TOP;
       if (angle >= 135 && angle < 180 || angle < -135 && angle > -180)
           return Direction.LEFT;
       if (angle < -45 && angle>= -135)
           return Direction.DOWN;
       if (angle > -45 && angle <= 45)
           return Direction.RIGHT;

       return null;     // required by java to avoid error
   }

As of now, I have the direction of the swipe so I will apply switch case and handle the swipe up and swipe down gesture as below:

  1. When the user slides up:-  Show the Bottom Sheet by changing the state of the Bottom Sheet from STATE_HIDDEN to STATE_COLLAPSED(partially viewable).
                                          
  2. When the user slides down: – Hide the Bottom Sheet by changing the state of the Bottom Sheet to STATE_HIDDEN.

For doing this, we will modify the onFIing()’ method as shown below

@Override
public boolean onFling(MotionEvent e1, MotionEvent e2, float velocityX, float velocityY) {
   switch (getDirection(e1.getX(), e1.getY(), e2.getX(), e2.getY())) {
       case TOP:
           bottomSheet.setState(BottomSheetBehavior.STATE_COLLAPSED);
           return true;
       case LEFT:
           return true;
       case DOWN:
           if(bottomSheet.getState()==BottomSheetBehavior.STATE_COLLAPSED){
               bottomSheet.setState(BottomSheetBehavior.STATE_HIDDEN);
           }
           return true;
       case RIGHT:
           return true;
       default:
           return false;
   }
}

Now, the custom gesture listener is implemented but it cannot start listening to the touch event on its own, so we need to resolve this by performing the following steps:

  1. Firstly, we need to create an object of class GestureDetector and pass the current activity context and the object of class ‘SwipeGestureListener’ as parameters. Also while creating the listener for ‘SwipeGestureListener’ we need to pass the object of the Bottom Sheet in it as a parameter.

    GestureDetector gestureDetector = new GestureDetector(this, new SwipeGestureListener(bottomSheetBehavior)); 
  2. Then we need to override the ‘onTouchEvent()’ method of our Activity and pass the event which is received as a parameter to the GestureDetector.
    Doing this will pass the touch event that it received to the GestureDetector for it to handle.

    @Override
    public boolean onTouchEvent(MotionEvent event) {
       gestureDetector.onTouchEvent(event);                
       return super.onTouchEvent(event);
    }
    

The Bottom Sheet is now responsive to the gestures on the screen and this will improve the User Experience.

Resources

  1. Detect Common Gestures – Android Developer Article –  Android documentation
  2. Choreographic animations with Android’s Bottom Sheet – Blog by Orkhan Gasimli

 

Continue ReadingMaking Bottomsheet responsive using Custom Gesture Detector in PSLab Android App

Filtering List with Search Manager in Connfa Android App

It is a good practice to provide the facility to filter lists in Android apps to improve the user experience. It often becomes very unpleasing to scroll through the entire list when you want to reach a certain data point. Recently I modified Connfa app to read the list of speakers from the Open Event Format. In this blog I describe how to add filtering facility in lists with Search Manager.

First, we declare the search menu so that the widget appears in it.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <item android:id="@+id/search"
        android:title="Search"
        android:icon="@drawable/search"
        android:showAsAction="collapseActionView ifRoom"
        android:actionViewClass="android.widget.SearchView" />
</menu>

In above menu item the collapseActionView attribute allows your SearchView to expand to take up the whole action bar and collapse back down into a normal action bar item when not in use. Now we create the SearchableConfiguration which defines how SearchView behaves.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<searchable
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:label="@string/app_name"
    android:hint="Search friend">
</searchable>

Also add this to the activity that will be used with <meta-data> tag in the manifest file. Then associate searchable configuration with the SearchView in the activity class

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
    MenuInflater inflater = getMenuInflater();
    inflater.inflate(R.menu.search_menu, menu);

    SearchManager searchManager = (SearchManager)
                            getSystemService(Context.SEARCH_SERVICE);
    searchMenuItem = menu.findItem(R.id.search);
    searchView = (SearchView) searchMenuItem.getActionView();

    searchView.setSearchableInfo(searchManager.
                            getSearchableInfo(getComponentName()));
    searchView.setSubmitButtonEnabled(true);
    searchView.setOnQueryTextListener(this);

    return true;
}

Implement SearchView.OnQueryTextListener in activity, need to override two new methods now

@Override
public boolean onQueryTextSubmit(String searchText) {
  
  return true;
}

@Override
public boolean onQueryTextChange(String searchedText) {

   if (mSpeakersAdapter != null) {
       lastSearchRequest = searchedText;
       mSpeakersAdapter.getFilter().filter(searchedText);
   }
   return true;
}

Find the complete implementation here. In the end it will look like this,

 

References

Android Search View documentation – https://developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/SearchView.html

Continue ReadingFiltering List with Search Manager in Connfa Android App
Read more about the article Automatic handling of view/data interactions in Open Event Orga App
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Automatic handling of view/data interactions in Open Event Orga App

During the development of Open Event Orga Application (Github Repo), we have strived to minimize duplicate code wherever possible and make the wrappers and containers around data and views intelligent and generic. When it comes to loading the data into views, there are several common interactions and behaviours that need to be replicated in each controller (or presenter in case of MVP architecture as used in our project). These interactions involve common ceremony around data loading and setting patterns and should be considered as boilerplate code. Let’s look at some of the common interactions on views:

Loading Data

While loading data, there are 3 scenarios to be considered:

  • Data loading succeeded – Pass the data to view
  • Data loading failed – Show appropriate error message
  • Show progress bar on starting of the data loading and hide when completed

If instead of loading a single object, we load a list of them, then the view may be emptiable, meaning you’ll have to show the empty view if there are no items.

Additionally, there may be a success message too, and if we are refreshing the data, there will be a refresh complete message as well.

These use cases present in each of the presenter cause a lot of duplication and can be easily handled by using Transformers from RxJava to compose common scenarios on views. Let’s see how we achieved it.

Generify the Views

The first step in reducing repetition in code is to use Generic classes. And as the views used in Presenters can be any class such as Activity or Fragment, we need to create some interfaces which will be implemented by these classes so that the functionality can be implementation agnostic. We broke these scenarios into common uses and created disjoint interfaces such that there is little to no dependency between each one of these contracts. This ensures that they can be extended to more contracts in future and can be used in any View without the need to break them down further. When designing contracts, we should always try to achieve fundamental blocks of building an API rather than making a big complete contract to be filled by classes. The latter pattern makes it hard for this contract to be generally used in all classes as people will refrain from implementing all its methods for a small functionality and just write their own function for it. If there is a need for a class to make use of a huge contract, we can still break it into components and require their composition using Java Generics, which we have done in our Transformers.

First, let’s see our contracts. Remember that the names of these Contracts are opinionated and up to the developer. There is no rule in naming interfaces, although adjectives are preferred as they clearly denote that it is an interface describing a particular behavior and not a concrete class:

Emptiable

A view which contains a list of items and thus can be empty

public interface Emptiable<T> {
   void showResults(List<T> items);
   void showEmptyView(boolean show);
}

Erroneous

A view that can show an error message on failure of loading data

public interface Erroneous {
   void showError(String error);
}

ItemResult

A view that contains a single object as data

public interface ItemResult<T> {
   void showResult(T item);
}

Progressive

A view that can show and hide a progress bar while loading data

public interface Progressive {
   void showProgress(boolean show);
}

Note that even though Progressive view can only be the one which is either ItemResult or Emptiable as they are the ones containing any data, but we have decoupled it, making it possible for a view to load data without progress or show progress for any other implementation other than loading data.

Refreshable

A view that can be refreshed and show the refresh complete message

public interface Refreshable {
   void onRefreshComplete();
}

There should also be a method for refresh failure, but the app is under development and will be added soon

Successful

A view that can show a success message

public interface Successful {
   void onSuccess(String message);
}

Implementation

Now, we will implement the Observable Transformers for these contracts

Erroneous

public static <T, V extends Erroneous> ObservableTransformer<T, T> erroneous(V view) {
   return observable ->  observable
             .doOnError(throwable -> view.showError(throwable.getMessage()));
}

We simply call showError on a view implementing Erroneous on the call of doOnError of the Observable

Progressive

private static <T, V extends Progressive> ObservableTransformer<T, T> progressive(V view) {
   return observable -> observable
           .doOnSubscribe(disposable -> view.showProgress(true))
           .doFinally(() -> view.showProgress(false));
}

Here we show the progress when the observable is subscribed and finally, we hide it whether it succeeded or failed

ItemResult

public static <T, V extends ItemResult<T>> ObservableTransformer<T, T> result(V view) {
   return observable -> observable.doOnNext(view::showResult);
}

We call showResult on call of onNext

 

Refreshable

private static <T, V extends Refreshable> ObservableTransformer<T, T> refreshable(V view, boolean forceReload) {
   return observable ->
       observable.doFinally(() -> {
           if (forceReload) view.onRefreshComplete();
       });
}

As we only refresh a view if it is a forceReload, so we check it before calling onRefreshComplete

 

Emptiable

public static <T, V extends Emptiable<T>> SingleTransformer<List<T>, List<T>> emptiable(V view, List<T> items) {
   return observable -> observable
       .doOnSubscribe(disposable -> view.showEmptyView(false))
       .doOnSuccess(list -> {
           items.clear();
           items.addAll(list);
           view.showResults(items);
       })
       .doFinally(() -> view.showEmptyView(items.isEmpty()));
}

Here we hide the empty view on start of the loading of data and finally we show it if the items are empty. Also, since we keep only one copy of a final list variable which is also used in view along with the presenter, we clear and add all items in that variable and call showResults on the view

Bonus: You can also merge the functions for composite usage as mentioned above like this

public static <T, V extends Progressive & Erroneous> ObservableTransformer<T, T> progressiveErroneous(V view) {
   return observable -> observable
       .compose(progressive(view))
       .compose(erroneous(view));
}

public static <T, V extends Progressive & Erroneous & ItemResult<T>> ObservableTransformer<T, T> progressiveErroneousResult(V view) {
   return observable -> observable
       .compose(progressiveErroneous(view))
       .compose(result(view));
}

Usage

Finally we use the above transformers

eventsDataRepository
   .getEvents(forceReload)
   .compose(dispose(getDisposable()))
   .compose(progressiveErroneousRefresh(getView(), forceReload))
   .toSortedList()
   .compose(emptiable(getView(), events))
   .subscribe(Logger::logSuccess, Logger::logError);

To give you an idea of what we have accomplished here, this is how we did the same before adding transformers

eventsView.showProgressBar(true);
eventsView.showEmptyView(false);

getDisposable().add(eventsDataRepository
   .getEvents(forceReload)
   .toSortedList()
   .subscribeOn(Schedulers.computation())
   .subscribe(events -> {
       if(eventsView == null)
           return;
       eventsView.showEvents(events);
       isListEmpty = events.size() == 0;
       hideProgress(forceReload);
   }, throwable -> {
       if(eventsView == null)
           return;

       eventsView.showEventError(throwable.getMessage());
       hideProgress(forceReload);
   }));

Sure looks ugly as compared to the current solution.

Note that if you don’t provide the error handler in subscribe method of the observable, it will throw an onErrorNotImplemented exception even if you have added a doOnError side effect

Here are some resources related to RxJava Transformers:

Continue ReadingAutomatic handling of view/data interactions in Open Event Orga App

Advanced configurations in Yaydoc’s Web UI

Yaydoc’s User Interface consists of a form with three required fields; the user’s email address, git repository’s URL, and a theme for the generated website. Specific values of these fields are the minimum requirement to generate documentation for a project. There are certain other configuration variables for whom we assumed default values. Among these, we assumed `docs/` directory or the directory specified in the `yaydoc.yml` configuration file as the default path for the documentation. Also, `Default Branch` is assumed as the branch to generate documentation website. However, this cannot guarantee the generation of docs for every other project. These configurations can have different values based on a project.

Thus, there was a need to include certain input values for advanced configuration. The addition of these configurations in the UI doesn’t compel the user to specify them. In our attempt to improve user’s experience, we show the default values to the user when they are specifying custom values for these configurations.

If the user doesn’t specify a value for the repository’s branch, a default value is retrieved from Github’s Repository Components API, taking repository’s URL from the required input as the input URL.

/**
 * Setting the branch name with `default_branch` attriburte from
 * Github’s Repository Components API
 * @param gitUrl: URL of the github repository
 */
setDefaultBranchName: function (gitUrl) {
  var owner = gitUrl.split(“/”)[3] || ‘’;
  var repository = gitUrl.split(“/”)[4] || ‘’).split(‘.’)[0] || ‘’;
  $.get(‘https://api.github.com/repos/’ + owner + ‘/’ + repository, {
    headers: {“User-Agent”: “Yaydoc”}
  }).complete(function (data) {
    $(“#target_branch”).val(data.responseJSON.default_branch);
  });
}

There are certain cases in which the design of the Web User Interface could have been confusing. Since we are displaying all the advanced configurations at once, it could’ve appeared to the users that they are specifying empty values for the other. Thus to handle this, inputs were enabled on toggle when a checkbox beside them was checked. This was achieved making following changes in the front end of the code.

/**
 * Toggle editing of Branch Name input
 */
$(“#btnEditBranch”).click(function () {
  styles.toggleEditing(“target_branch”);
  ....
  ....
});

/**
 * Toggle Enabling/Disabling an input tag
 * @param id: `id` attribute of input tag
 */
toggleEditing: function (id) {
  const input = $(‘#’ + id);
  if (input.attr(‘disabled’)) {
    input.removeAttr(‘disabled’);
    $(‘#checkbox_’ + id).removeClass(‘glyphicon-unchecked’).addClass(‘glyphicon-check’);
  } else {
    input.attr(‘disabled’, ‘disabled’);
    $(‘checkbox_’ + id).removeClass(‘glyphicon-check’).addClass(‘glyphicon-unchecked’);
  }
}

Introducing advanced configurations to the User Interface has opened the possibility for even more projects to generate and deploy docs with much lesser constraints. One of our main aim for this project is to have a fairly simple UI and UX and we hope to bring further updated to achieve that.

Resources:

  1. Github’s Repository API: https://developer.github.com/v3/repos/
  2. jQuery’s AJAX Requests: https://api.jquery.com/jquery.get
Continue ReadingAdvanced configurations in Yaydoc’s Web UI

Implement Marker Clustering in the Open Event Android App

Markers are an integral part of any map based service. In the Open Event Android App for samples like Mozilla All Hands 2017, there are a lot of microlocations that the organizers want to integrate into the app’s map fragment. Due to the presence of large number of markers, the map fragment clutters, thereby harming the user experience. As an example, imagine yourself as the user and you see the map as in the image given below!

Therefore to tackle problem like this, the markers are grouped into clusters. On click of the cluster, the markers get declustered and fall into their respective locations with the map zoomed in.

Implementation

First and foremost, define the libraries to be used by the utilities in the build.gradle of your app module. Make to import the latest versions.

// Googleplay Variant
googleplayCompile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-maps:10.2.6'
googleplayCompile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-location:10.2.6'
googleplayCompile 'com.google.maps.android:android-maps-utils:0.4'

 

Implement the ClusterItem interface in your location POJO which will house a marker’s location. The POJO will therefore override the getPostion() method of the ClusterItem interface where you will return the LatLng.

public class MicrolocationClusterWrapper implements ClusterItem {

@Override
public LatLng getPosition() {
   return latLng;
}

}

 

Create a custom Cluster Renderer class that will extend the default cluster renderer with you location POJO as parameter. Implement ClusterManager’s onClusterItemClickListener to listen to marker clicks and add custom colors to them. Set the custom marker properties before the marker items are rendered with the markerOptions inside the onBeforeClusterItemRendered().

@Override
   protected void onBeforeClusterItemRendered(MicrolocationClusterWrapper item, MarkerOptions markerOptions) {
       super.onBeforeClusterItemRendered(item, markerOptions);

       markerOptions.title(item.getMicrolocation().getName());
       if (microlocationClusterWrapper != null && item.equals(microlocationClusterWrapper)) {
           markerOptions.icon(ImageUtils.vectorToBitmap(context, R.drawable.map_marker, R.color.color_primary));
       } else {
           markerOptions.icon(ImageUtils.vectorToBitmap(context, R.drawable.map_marker, R.color.dark_grey));
       }
   }

   @Override
   protected void onClusterItemRendered(final MicrolocationClusterWrapper clusterItem, Marker marker) {
       super.onClusterItemRendered(clusterItem, marker);
       clusterItem.setMarker(marker);
  }

   @Override
   public boolean onClusterItemClick(MicrolocationClusterWrapper item) {
       if (microlocationClusterWrapper != null) {
           getMarker(microlocationClusterWrapper).setIcon(ImageUtils.vectorToBitmap(context, R.drawable.map_marker, R.color.dark_grey));
       }
       microlocationClusterWrapper = item;
       getMarker(item).setIcon(ImageUtils.vectorToBitmap(context, R.drawable.map_marker, R.color.color_primary));
       return false;
   }
}

 

Finally in your map fragment, initialize your map, cluster manager class and your custom cluster renderer you just created. Implement the MapReadyCallback so that the Google Map object is not null. Remember to pass the cluster renderer as a listener for the cluster manager’s cluster item click listener. Use the setOnClusterClickListener to zoom the map on the click of cluster.

private void handleClusterEvents() {
   clusterManager.setOnClusterItemClickListener(clusterRenderer);

   clusterManager.setOnClusterClickListener(cluster -> {
               mMap.animateCamera(CameraUpdateFactory.newLatLngZoom(
                       cluster.getPosition(), (float) Math.floor(mMap
                               .getCameraPosition().zoom + 2)), 300,
                       null);

               return true;
           });

   mMap.setOnMapClickListener(clusterRenderer);
}

 

Conclusion

Maps are an integral part of any event based apps and marker clustering undoubtedly enhances the user experience in Maps.

Resources

  • Marker Clustering Android documentation

https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/android-api/utility/marker-clustering

  • Complete Code Reference

https://github.com/fossasia/open-event-android/pull/1777

  • Marker Customization in the case of Clustering

https://github.com/googlemaps/google-maps-ios-utils/issues/21

Continue ReadingImplement Marker Clustering in the Open Event Android App

GlobalSearchAdapter Setup in Open Event Android App

In this blog post I describe how the GlobalSearchAdapter in Open Event Android was made which enabled users to search quickly within the app. This post also outlines how to create Recycler Views with heterogenous layouts and explains how to write ViewHolders.

Adapter Logic

A custom adapter was built for the population of views in the Recycler View in the SearchActivity.

private List<Object> filteredResultList = new ArrayList<>();
//ViewType Constants
private final int TRACK = 0;
private final int SPEAKER = 2;
private final int LOCATION = 3;
private final int DIVIDER = 4;

The DIVIDER constant was assigned to the Result Type Header View.

In a gist all the item types such as Speaker, Track, Location, Divider etc have been designated some constants.

Getting the ItemViewType

@Override
public int getItemViewType(int position) {

   if(filteredResultList.get(position) instanceof Track){
       return TRACK;
   }
   else if(filteredResultList.get(position) instanceof String){
       return DIVIDER;
   }
   ...Similarly for other ItemTypes such as Session or Location
   else{
       return 1;
   }
}

As the filteredResultList is of type Object we can insert objects of any type into the list as Object is a superclass of all classes. We would want a view which represents a TRACK if we have an object of type Track in the filteredResultList. And similarly for the other result types we could insert objects of type LOCATION, SPEAKER types in this list. getItemViewType() basically determines the type of the item that is visible to us. If the list consists of an item of type SPEAKER, in the RecyclerView.

Speaker Item Type
Track Item Type
Divider Item Type
Location Item Type

Code for onCreateViewHolder in GlobalSearchAdapter for the Recycler View

@Override
public RecyclerView.ViewHolder onCreateViewHolder(ViewGroup parent, int viewType) {

   RecyclerView.ViewHolder resultHolder = null;
   LayoutInflater inflater = LayoutInflater.from(parent.getContext());

   switch(viewType) {
       case TRACK:
           View track = inflater.inflate(R.layout.item_track, parent,   false);
           resultHolder = new TrackViewHolder(track,context);
           break;
       case SPEAKER:
           View speaker = inflater.inflate(R.layout.search_item_speaker, parent, false);
           resultHolder = new SpeakerViewHolder(speaker,context);
           break;
       //Similarly for other types
       default:
           break;
   }
   return resultHolder;
}

Depending upon the the viewType returned the desired layout is inflated and the desired ViewHolder is returned.

Code for onBindViewHolder in GlobalSearchAdapter for the Recycler View

@Override
 public void onBindViewHolder(RecyclerView.ViewHolder holder, int position) {
 
    switch (holder.getItemViewType()){
        case TRACK:
            TrackViewHolder trackSearchHolder = (TrackViewHolder)holder;
            final Track currentTrack = (Track)getItem(position);
            trackSearchHolder.setTrack(currentTrack);
            trackSearchHolder.bindHolder();
            break;
         //Similarly for all the other View Types
        default:
            break;
    }
 }

These functions are being used to bind the data to the layouts that have been inflated already in the earlier snippet of code of onCreateViewHolder.

The bindHolder functions of each ViewHolder type are being used to do the view binding i.e converting the information in the Object Track into what we see in the TrackViewHolder as seen in TrackViewFormat.

All ViewHolders have been defined as separate classes in order to enable re usability of these classes.

ViewHolder Implementation

There are 4 main ViewHolders that were made to enable such a search. I’ll be talking about the TrackViewHolder in detail.

public class TrackViewHolder extends RecyclerView.ViewHolder {
    
    @BindView(R.id.imageView)
    ImageView trackImageIcon;
    @BindView(R.id.track_title)
    TextView trackTitle;
    @BindView(R.id.track_description)
    TextView trackDescription;
 
    private Track currentTrack;
    private Context context;
    private TextDrawable.IBuilder drawableBuilder = TextDrawable.builder().round();
 
    public void setTrack(Track track) {
        this.currentTrack = track;
    }
 
    public TrackViewHolder(View itemView,Context context) {
        super(itemView);
        ButterKnife.bind(this, itemView);
        this.context = context;
    }
    public void bindHolder(){
 
        //Set all Views to their correct configurations
        itemView.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
            @Override
            public void onClick(View v) {
                Intent intent = new Intent(context,   TrackSessionsActivity.class);
                intent.putExtra(ConstantStrings.TRACK,   currentTrack.getName());
 
                // Send Track ID to Activity to leverage color cache
                intent.putExtra(ConstantStrings.TRACK_ID,   currentTrack.getId());
                context.startActivity(intent);
            }
        });
} }

Those @BindView annotations that we can see are the result of a library called as Butterknife which is used to reduce standard boilerplate findViewById lines.

@BindView(R.id.imageView) ImageView trackImageIcon;
IS THE SAME AS THIS  
ImageView trackImageIcon = (ImageView)findViewById(R.id.imageView);

The advantage of such a ViewHolder is that it knows what kind of data it stores as compared to traditional ViewHolders which do not know the kind of data it stores.

By making ViewHolders separate from the RecyclerViewAdapter we are essentially decoupling classes and are enabling reusability of code. Also we make the ViewHolder a bit more intelligent by storing the object it binds in the ViewHolder itself. In the above example we are storing an object of Track which is bind to the ViewHolder. We also see that we do the view binding inside the viewholder itself. All this helps us to reduce code inside the adapter class.

A recent addition to the app was custom colors for all TRACKS in the app that improved the visual feel of the app. So basically, for example if a SESSION has been associated with the track of Blockchain it would be given a color such as purple. onClickListeners are also being set with some extras which are self-descriptive in nature. Similarly the other ViewHolders have been implemented.

Resources

Continue ReadingGlobalSearchAdapter Setup in Open Event Android App

Adding Global Search and Extending Bookmark Views in Open Event Android

When we design an application it is essential that the design and feature set enables the user to find all relevant information she or he is looking for. In the first versions of the Open Event Android App it was difficult to find the Sessions and Speakers related to a certain Track. It was only possible to search for them individually. The user also could not view bookmarks on the Main Page but had to go to a separate tab to view them. These were some capabilities I wanted to add to the app.

In this post I will outline the concepts and advantages of a Global Search and a Home Screen in the app. I took inspiration from the Google I/O 2017 App  that had these features already. And, I am demonstrating how I added a Home Screen which also enabled users to view their bookmarks on the Home Screen itself.

Global Search v/s Local Search

Local Search
Global Search

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If we observe clearly in the above images we can see there exists a stark difference in the capabilities of each search.
See how in the Local Search we are just able to search within the Tracks section and not anything else.
This is fixed in the Global Search page which exists along with the new home screen.
As all the results that a user might need are obtained from a single search, it improves the overall user-experience of the app. Also a noticeable feature that was missing in the current iteration of the application was that a user had to go to a separate tab to view his/her bookmarks. It would be better for the app to have a home page detailing all the Event’s/Conference’s details as well as display user bookmarks on the homepage.

New Home

Home screen
Home screen with Bookmarks

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Home screen with Bookmarks               
Home screen Demo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The above posted images/gifs indicate the functioning and the UI/UX of the new Homescreen within the app.
Currently I am working to further improve the way the Bookmarks are displayed.
The new home screen provides the user with the event details i.e FOSSASIA 2017 in this case. This would be different for each conference/event and the data is fetched from the open-event-orga server(the first part of the project) if it doesn’t already exist in the JSON files provided in the assets folder of the application. All the event information is being populated by the JSON files provided in the assets folder in the app directory structure.

  • config.json
  • sponsors.json
  • microlocations.json
  • event.json(this stores the information that we see on the home screen)
  • sessions.json
  • speakers.json
  • track.json

All the file names are descriptive enough to denote what do all of them store.I hope that I have put forward why the addition of a New Home with Bookmarks along with the Global Search feature was a neat addition to the app.

Link to PR for this feature : https://github.com/fossasia/open-event-android/pull/1565

Resources

 

 

Continue ReadingAdding Global Search and Extending Bookmark Views in Open Event Android

Creating Dynamic Footer with Popover

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  • Post category:FOSSASIA

In Open-Event Webapp generator, the track page height varies according to the popover that appears on hovering the tracks. The problem with this design was the footer of the page that always remains static and produce a bad UI to user.

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So, I have decided to make footer dynamic so that it varies it’s position according to the popover appeared on hover. The approach was a bit tricky but the diagram below will make it easy to understand.

Dynamic footer

The following code will work on hovering the track.

//popover.js 

var outerContheight= $('.main').offset().top + $('.main').outerHeight();
var tracknext= $(track).next();
var tracktocheck= track.offset().top + track.outerHeight() + 
 tracknext.outerHeight() + 15;
 var shift= tracktocheck - outerContheight;
 if(shift > 0){
 
 $('.footer').css({
 'position':'absolute',
 'top': outerContheight + shift,
 'width':'100%',
 'z-index': '999'
 })
 }

If shift > 0 which is calculated as shown in the above code it means that the footer needs to be shifted and hence we shift the footer by setting absolute position in CSS. Else we set position: static for footer.

 $('.footer').css({
 'position':'static'
 })

After following the above approach the footer position changes according to the popover. Here is the screencast for the approach.

 

Continue ReadingCreating Dynamic Footer with Popover

Working with Absolute Positioning

During the past week, I have done a lot of work for making the feature that allow the users to view the schedule of events according to track and time. The toughest part was to have a headstart to think of the mockup that fulfills this criterion.

After the mockup, I started coding it and realized that I have to add CSS by using Javascript. The frontend needs to calculate the top of each pop-up that appears when the track is hovered and to append the box just below it.

a

The interesting part was to calculate the top each time the element is hovered and to place the box at the right position by using jQuery.

Position Absolute 

The difficulty becomes maximum when we use “position : absolute “. As, it takes the element out of the layer. The element with absolute positioning is difficult to handle when it comes to responsiveness. Here also the pop-overs showing the speakers are to be made with absolute positioning.

The code snippet shows the calculation for exact position of the pop-up box.

$(document).ready(function(){

 $('.pop-box').hide();
 $('.item').hover(function (event) {

 event.preventDefault();
 event.stopPropagation();
 var track = $(event.target);
 var link = track.children(0);
 var offset =$(link).offset();

 var position= offset.top-link.height()-30;
 if( $(window).width()<600){
 var position= offset.top-link.height()-48; 
 }
 if(offset.top){
 
 $('.pop-box').hide();
 var p=$(this);
 $(p).next().show();
 var posY = event.pageY;
 nextOfpop=$(p).next();
 
 var toptrack = position ;

 $(nextOfpop).css({'top':toptrack
                 });

 $(document).mouseup(function (e)
 {
 var container = $(".pop-box");

  if (!container.is(e.target) 
  && container.has(e.target).length === 0 && (e.target)!=$('html').get(0)) 
   {
   container.hide();
   }
   });
  });
 })

This code sets the value of top of the pop-over in the variable position and copy it to toptrack that is passed to CSS to adjust the top dynamically.

Responsiveness for top

I was struggling a whole day to find out the best possible way for the responsiveness of track page. Obviously, the difficult part was the recalculation of top with the screen-size. Currently I have used $window.width() to check the width of screen and adjust the top on mobile. But, it will include more complexity when it is done for other screen sizes rather than mobile.

 if( $(window).width()<600){
 var position= offset.top-link.height()-48; 
 }

The tracks page is ready now with both light and dark theme.

10.png

That’s how the position absolute is handled with jQuery. To remove the complexity, all the CSS except the calculation of top is written with SASS.

Continue ReadingWorking with Absolute Positioning