Redesign UI: Hex Color

Hello all, 

I have updated Random Draw, Hex Color, and OhYeah. Be sure to check them out!

I essentially applied the UI design tips from Tuesday's post to these applications to enhance them. There is nothing new except actions bars, and neater design. 

I will be sure to write more about future projects in tomorrow's post. Including an app that will try to replace the external stereo. Stay tuned.

Happy coding,

Mike

First UI Remake: Phinder

Hello all,

This begins my series on remaking my user interfaces for my applications. Today, I will be doing my most popular app, Phinder. If you recall, this app is used to locally find the user's lost Android device. The reason I am redesigning my UIs is because users love a great UI and hate a poorly done UI. Can you guess which end my UIs are on? Hence, the need to redesign.
First, I will go with more conserved colors. I am thinking a #22272D for my background. I will then go with the white text to provide a nice complement to my background. Moving on the buttons, I will use this background for my android background:  android:background="?android:attr/selectableItemBackground" creating a nice and modern button effect. Now I will just resize everything to make the UI look practical.
The app icon also needs to be spruced up a bit to provide a sense of change and whatnot. So I change it to match my color scheme.

The next thing we need to do is to add an actionbar. Actionbars are common place in almost every popular app. This website gave me everything I needed: http://www.androidhive.info/2013/11/android-working-with-action-bar/

And with that I am done updating my UI! You can get the app here:

For now, that is all.

Happy Coding,
Mike

The Reconstruction

Hello all,

I did not post anything last week. I am greatly sorry. Things have been getting busy. However, I am ready to start anew this time with redesigning my apps! That's right, we are throwing out the old, and ugly UI of ALL of my  apps and replacing them with modern UI. Stay tuned for posts.

Happy coding,
Mike

Convert to Chrome!!!!

Hello all,


I have recently found an amazing service called ARC. ARC allows Android developers, like me, to take Android Application Packages (APKs) and convert them to a zip folder. This folder can then be uploaded to the Chrome Web Store and would then be available to all Chrome users and all who own a Chromebook. If any of you have any APKs from previous projects, I would highly recommend using ARC to reach millions of more individuals. This takes less than 15 min and can really be worth it!

I will start this week's app, called Daily Success, off tomorrow with my return.

Happy Coding,
Mike

Ummmm...The Awkward Return :O

Hello all,

It's been a long time....
Hello!

Starting today, I am restarting the blog after a much delayed and crazy schedule :P.

So yeah, welcome back!

Happy coding,
Mike

12 Days Later...

Hello all,

I have been quite busy making one app: Defining. Since I have been concentrating my full effort towards this one app, I unfortunately was not able to complete the 12 that I anticipated. However, out of failure, births great success. I was able to launch an advanced app that is well-deserved of my effort. Introducing: Defining.

Defining is an app that uses image processing to get the text from the camera feed. This then is fed into a hashmap where the definition is then displayed.

The source code will be ready soon. The app is still in progress because of all the words that are constantly being needed to add.

For the next week I will be publishing apps that I have been working on.

Happy Coding,
Mike

Button Duel Day 7...kinda

Hello all,


I did not manage to get much progress done on Dutton Duel because I have been concentrating a lot of my time towards database programming. However, in the next two days, I hope to spend all of my free time finishing Button Duel so it can be released on Christmas Eve.

Happy Coding,
Mike

Button Duel Continued

Hello all, I have finished the majority of the code for one of the game modes. The app should be completed by the end of this weekend. However, I am going to postpone the release of this until December 25th. Now why would I do that? Good question. From  December 25th until January 5th I plan to do 12 days of apps. During the duration of these 12 days, I intend to release 12 applications; one a day. This will be a creative yet engaging challenge. I am looking forward to it starting with the release of Button Duel.

Happy Coding,
Mike

Button Duel Day 2

Hello all,
I have made the layout for the menus of Button Duel along with the layout for one of the game modes. The layout of the menus is a simple button layout with some textviews. It is uninteresting to include in this blog post. Anyway, I plan to have two games modes: Tug of War and Classic. I have planned out the layout for the Classic game mode:

Tomorrow, I hope to link up all of the layouts in addition to adding my color theme. I would also like to get started on the code of the game modes

Happy Coding,
Mike

The Return

Hello,

It has been a while, hasn't it? I have been busy with both android programming and other events and believe have not been able to blog in quite a while. Anyway, Cool Reminders is on hold for right now. In the past weeks I have developed three apps: Rock Calculator and Phone Finder (My personal favorite). The source code for Phone Finder can be found here. I now intend to blog this week about making an app called Button Duel. Button Duel is a game that consists of pressing a button more than your opponent. I first plan to make the game local but then in a future update, incorporate only game modes. I will keep you guys updated along with source code.
It has been a while, and I am looking forward to the most exciting weeks of android development yet!

Happy Coding,
Mike

Cool Reminders Day 4

Hello all,

It has been quite a while since I have blogged, hasn't it? Anyway, OH YEAH is up right here. Overall, it's an obnoxious app; if you are looking for some laughs, you should definitely check it out.
In other news, I have started coding Cool Reminders. I am currently trying to figure out how to save data. I am not posting any screen shots of the layout yet because that will probably change. Keep you guys updated.
Happy coding,
Mike

Persevering Day 7 and Cool Reminders Day 1

Hello all,

Two of my apps that I published over the weekend are right here and here. My other app that I said would be coming out today is getting pushed back to tomorrow because I want to add some additional features. Before I start reflecting on my previous two published apps, I want to talk about the main app this week. Cool Reminders will be an app that will contain an editable list of reminders that the user can view. Along with a cool feel and appearance, it will make for quite an interesting app. I want to make this app so I can practice using array lists and storing data even when the user exists the app.
Now, time to reflect on my past two apps. Jazz Calculator is an app where I did not learn any anything new (in terms of programming). That is the reason I did not make it the main app to blog about.
During this week, I learned to manage many screens and learned how to make curved buttons. All in all, I would have liked to pick apps that would help me learn more.
Looking forward to the upcoming app. This week I will try to post the source code.
        My other app, titled "OH YEAH" will also be an app just for the purpose of making money. I am not learning anything new. It will essentially be another sound app consisting of different voices saying "Oh yeah".

Happy coding,
Mike

Persevering Day 6

Hello all,

Persevering along with my other app, Jazz Calculator are all coded for! I intend to release them both tomorrow. The other app that I plan to release this weekend has not been finished. I am hopeful I can get it out by tomorrow. If not, then I should be able to by Monday.

Happy coding,
Mike

Persevering Day 4 and 5

Hello all,

Yesterday I was flooded with high school work so I was not able to even make any progress on any of my apps. Today however, I was able to get most of the code done and in addition some code for my other two apps which I plan to release this weekend. Those being Systems of Equations Buddy and Jazz Calculator. Looking forward to telling you guys about the release.
Happy coding,
Mike

Preserving Day 3

Hello all,

Same progress to report as day two except with a couple more quotes. I have been busy lately.

Happy coding,
Mike

Persevering Day 2

Hello all,

I started gathering quotes today and I hope to finish gathering them tomorrow. This is a relatively simple app to code so I am not concerned with starting my code right away.

Happy coding,
Mike

Groovy Calculator Day 2,3,4,5...ahhhhh

Hey guys!

As you can tell by the title and my activity on this blog, I have not posted in a really long long time. But first, here is Groovy Calculator which I published yesterday: Groovy Calculator. So anyway, what happened? Well high school got in the way of a lot of things, including my blogging. This "busyness" that prevented me from blogging sent me a strong message: I am not communicating with you guys at the level that I would like to communicate. From now on, I will try even harder to post everyday even if it is not much. Also, I need to do a much better job of posting my source code and screen shots along the way. Finally, I need to start blogging about my promises. The one I have in mind is translating. I am looking forward to my more active involvement in this blog.The app this week will be a series of inspirational facts  that will be called "Persevering". I hope to learn how to better manage multiple screens along with improving my layout design (which clearly needs work).
I am looking forward to this active involvement.
Happy coding,
Mike

Groovy Calculator Day 1

Hello all,
I started making the user interface of my newest app. Hope to finish the user interface tomorrow!
Sorry for the short post, not much to blog about... If any of you have questions about me or my apps feel free to email me at redefiningproductions@gmail.com
Happy coding,
Mike

Linear Equation Buddy Done!

Hello all,
Good News! Linear Equation Buddy was completed only in 5 days! The app is not on the Google Play Store just yet, but I will link you guys to it in my next blog post. I am starting to move away from these math quiz apps. I want to start moving into more complex applications. I expected this challenge to take me a week exactly. I will still continue my quiz apps, however, they will be done on the side and I will be mainly blogging about more complex apps here. Of course I will still mention my other apps even though they are not the main focus. Next week I plan to make an app called Groovy Calculator. This app will be a normal four-function calculator but with some groovy sounds. Although the idea is cheesy, I should be able to learn the process of making calculator apps and working with multiple sound pools at once. I will keep you guys all updated.
Happy coding,
Mike

Linear Equation Buddy Days 3 and 4

Hello all,

I was unable to create a blog entry yesterday because of this:

it consumed my entire afternoon.....yeah. 

It turned out that I needed to uninstall all of my software :O.

I only just recently re-installed everything that was previously on my laptop.

Now, moving onto happier news, I was able to finish the java code for my app! I just need to test out my app and publish it. As I am making more and more apps, the overall process becomes easier and routine. I plan in the feature to start making more and more complex apps. 

Hopefully, I will not run into anymore blue screen problems for the rest of the week haha.

Happy coding,

Mike