BUKsAPPs is pleased to announce a sponsorship for the local rugby 7s team, the Druids. BUKsAPPs sees this as an opportunity to support the local community with a group that has a strong focus on teamwork and building positive culture around sport.

Rugby 7s is a fast-paced abbreviated version of the normal game that is highlighted by lightning-fast breakaway runs, clever passing, deft kicks, and brutal tackling. Rugby 7s will be included in the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.

The Druids will wear the BUKsAPPs company logo on their uniforms and team gear.

Druids Rugby

So what I want first is a normal check box, and one with my custom images( red circle when not checked, and a green circle when checked).  To do this first I created a Selector to describe my checkBox.  Create a selector by making an XML file in the drawables directory called ‘myCB_small.xml’ and put the following in it.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
   <item android:state_checked="true" android:drawable="@drawable/green_small" />
   <item android:state_checked="false" android:drawable="@drawable/red_small" />
</selector>

This tells Android that we want our drawable, ”green_small”, to be the image when checked; and “red_small” to be our image when unchecked.  Now we need to tell the checkbox to use our selector.  Here I used one of the most common suggestions for that in my layout xml file.

<CheckBox
   android:id="@+id/checkBoxA"
   android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content"
   android:layout_alignTop="@+id/linearLayoutPauseButtons"
   android:layout_toLeftOf="@+id/linearLayoutPauseButtons"
    />
<CheckBox
   android:id="@+id/checkBoxB"
   android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content"
   android:layout_toLeftOf="@+id/linearLayoutPauseButtons"
   android:layout_below="@+id/checkBoxPauseMusic"
   android:button="@drawable/myCB_small" />

Looks Great!

Now if we want the top checkbox to be a slightly bigger circle, we make another selector file pointing to larger circle drawables, then just set our button for the top checkbox to the new selector, Right?

<CheckBox
   android:id="@+id/checkBoxA"
   android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content"
   android:layout_alignTop="@+id/linearLayoutPauseButtons"
   android:layout_toLeftOf="@+id/linearLayoutPauseButtons"
   android:button="@drawable/myCB_large" />
<CheckBox
   android:id="@+id/checkBoxB"
   android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content"
   android:layout_toLeftOf="@+id/linearLayoutPauseButtons"
   android:layout_below="@+id/checkBoxPauseMusic"
   android:button="@drawable/myCB_small" />

No, that doesn’t look right!  The image is getting cropped.  That solution only works for images up to 40dp.  Any bigger than that and your image will start to get cropped.  So what else can we try?  What about the checkBox’s background option?

<CheckBox
   android:id="@+id/checkBoxA"
   android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content"
   android:layout_alignTop="@+id/linearLayoutPauseButtons"
   android:layout_toLeftOf="@+id/linearLayoutPauseButtons"
   android:background="@drawable/myCB_large" />
<CheckBox
   android:id="@+id/checkBoxB"
   android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content"
   android:layout_toLeftOf="@+id/linearLayoutPauseButtons"
   android:layout_below="@+id/checkBoxPauseMusic"
   android:button="@drawable/myCB_small" />

Not quite.  Now the image is resizing, but the olc check box is back.  Using the selector for the background does update the color based on the check state, but we don’t want our image covered by that check box.  So what do we do?  The first thought is to set both the button and the background to the selector.  And this works!  But don’t settle for that.  Just because it works doesn’t mean that it is the best option.  That is why there are so many half answers online.  Setting the button value works sometimes, but that isn’t the real answer because there is a better one avaliable.  There is also a better answer than setting both the button and the background.

Since we know that the background is what allows our checkBox to resize, and it also gives us the image changing behavior that we need, all we need to do is get rid of the checkbox; and we can do that.

<CheckBox
   android:id="@+id/checkBoxA"
   android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content"
   android:layout_alignTop="@+id/linearLayoutPauseButtons"
   android:layout_toLeftOf="@+id/linearLayoutPauseButtons"
   android:background="@drawable/myCB_large"
   android:button="@null" />
<CheckBox
   android:id="@+id/checkBoxB"
   android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content"
   android:layout_toLeftOf="@+id/linearLayoutPauseButtons"
   android:layout_below="@+id/checkBoxPauseMusic"
   android:button="@drawable/myCB_small" />

And there we have exactly what we want to see. So as far as I can tell, the most complete and accurate answer for using a custom image in a checkBox is to:
set the button=”@null”
set the background to a custom selector

I hope this helps you out, and if you know of a better solution, post it in the comments.

I was getting “java.lang.ClassCastException: android.widget.TextView” on:

Button btnPlay = (Button) findViewById(R.id.ButtonPlay);

What happened?

I didn’t change any IDs.

ButtonPlay IS a Button, not a TextView.

The answer is simple, but the quarter hour it steals from you is so frustrating. Somewhere along the way, the IDs in R.java got mangled. R.id.ButtonPlay was now finding one of my TextViews.

The Solution: Project -> Clean
Generated java files get rebuilt, resource conflicts dissapear, then everything works again. Not a code problem or a layout problem. Just the tools having a little hickup.

Adding that simple line to your ‘application’ or ‘activity’ in your AndroidManifest.xml

android:theme="@android:style/Theme.NoTitleBar.Fullscreen"

or in your activity before you call setContentView()

requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_NO_TITLE);
getWindow().setFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_FULLSCREEN,
                     WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_FULLSCREEN);

Both solutions can have your view being laid out below(not behind) the notification bar in certain situations.  Usually everything works great when your app is launched, or a new activity is created.  You may only see the issue when returning to your app from a screen that has the notification bar visible, most commonly this happens when you back out of a web view or ad, back to your app.

The first option above can result in your view being shifted down the height of the notification bar.  This is because it starts getting laid out before the notification bar animates off the screen.  This is the worst case as any content on the bottom of your layout my be shifted at least partially off the bottom of the screen.  The second option, as it is written, is better; because it will reshift the view after the notification bar animates off the screen.  So functionally, everything is fine with the second option; but what about something better?

There is an option to make your view lay out BEHIND the notification bar.  Then it gets revealed as the notification bar animates off the screen.  This is generally much more visually appealing than having your view layout, then shift up into position; and is obviously better than the option that leaves your view shifted off the screen.

And the best thing about this fix is that it is just as simple as hiding the notification bar was in the first place.  Just add the following, also before you call setContentView().

getWindow().setFlags( WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_LAYOUT_NO_LIMITS,
                      WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_LAYOUT_NO_LIMITS );

After a busy weekend, version 1.0 of Duck Carnage+ has launched and landed on the Android Market.  Just in time to get ready for huntin’ season.  Build your arsenal to impose foul destruction on ducks in 6 different environments.

Earn cash and points for every duck killed but be sure to avoid fines for killing out of season birds and endangered butterflies.  Use your hard earned cash to buy a hunting license for next level and to buy new weapons.  Who doesn’t love hunting with grenades?

Get it here!

There are the new things we have been hearing about: books and movies, but these don’t excite me a whole lot.  That isn’t really how I use my phone.  My biggest complaint as a developer is the removal of the “Just In” section.  Apps have a few categories that Games don’t have such as “Trending” and “Top New Free” but those still miss the boat.  Even though they contain games, those categories aren’t in the Games section of the market.  The problem is that they don’t deliver for the “little guy” the way the old “Just In” category did.  Out of the top 4 apps in “Top New Free” 3 have over 100,000 downloads and the other over 50,000, and I think that trend continues.  Just how new are these apps?  Where can apps under 10,000 downloads be found?  Brand new apps used to be able to get free exposure in the market in the “Just In” listing.

The cynical side of me thinks Google is trying to drop the free exposure of “Just In” in hopes of generatig more paid advertising.  They recently added a “Advertise this App” link in the publisher console for the creation of AdMob ads.  There were some problems with the “Just In” category, mostly from sex apps spamming updates, but Google has to be smart enough to handle that in a reasonable solution if that were the main issue.

Some of these new categories could turn out to be pretty cool, I am checking out the trending category right now and that looks like it could be a fun category that has a good mix of apps, I’d like to see it divided into apps and games though.  Hopefully the new Market is still in development and some solution that supports independent developers will emerge soon.  Otherwise, any app, no matter how good, will need a significant marketing effort to reach a critical mass.

Time will tell, and we will continue working hard on great new Android apps and hope for the best.

There isn’t anything critical in the update, but this version should provide for a smoother user experience.  I updated a few GUI things to better explain to the user what is happening, and improved the menu interaction with the Skiller API which proved to have some timing issues due to occasional network delay.  Also, the first set of Player Achievements have been enabled.

The basic polish and explanation issues were things like the need to make it more clear in game that a game is played as a first to 5 match.  I quickly realized that this wasn’t prominently displayed anywhere and many new players didn’t seem to know what the victory conditions were.

Achievements were left out of the original release.  The Skiller API returns an error when an Achievement is claimed, but this doesn’t seem to have a negative impact, so I am going to suppress the error message and activate achievements.  I also added a new achievement “6-Pack” that you can claim by winning a game that has a 6-pack on the game board.

Perhaps more important changes revolve around menu interaction.  I suspected that this might be a problem before the initial release, but didn’t implement a propper solution.  The nature of using a 3rd party API(Skiller in this case) puts some constraints on what a developer can do, espically when that API is communicating over the internet.  The Skiller API uses a callback system which is good, but that doesn’t always alert ME to what the user has done until sometimes a little bit after they have done it.  The biggest issue seemed to be when a user selected a game to join in the game lobby.  The lobby screen shuts down and the main menu is brought back to the front – then a progress dialog lets the user know that the game is loading until the game starts.  Due to network delay and the callback system, there were frequently delays between the main menu being redisplayed and the progress dialog poping up.  Many users were using that time to click some more buttons, which causes all kinds of havoc.  A similar issue could occur while creating a multiplayer game right before or after a fee is chosen.

I did the best I could to try to minimize the opportunity of button clicking while waiting on a callback, but since I can’t always know when a callback is coming they can’t be totally eliminated, and there is a tradeoff with slowing down someone that isn’t expecting a callback, for example when they cancel the game lobby rather than join a game.  I hope that this version has a much better continuity and user understanding of when the system is “thinking”

Other things of interest: I got the market to stop filtering out tablets, even though SMS messaging is included in the Skiller API

Still trying to figure out how to hit that critical mass a multiplayer game needs to support itself.  But don’t forget, the built in learning AI is also a fun challenge – play against it while waiting for a real opponent.  Don’t forget to invite your friends to join the R:P:S fun.

I still have many other projects that are a higher priority, but I think this little widget will be something that gets just a bit of attention each week.  It already got more than it should this week.

Oh, and the prototype for the specific project I was working on turned out great and we are looking to find some big fish to bite on it.

Leave a comment about what your favorite type of Android widget is.

R:P:S Academy takes the classic Rock-Paper-Scissors game online so you can challenge friends from all over the world.  Each match is played as  first to 5 battle.  This gives the perfect game length to size up your opponent, figure out her strategy, and claim victory.  In game chat keeps the game more interactive and allows you to interject a more psychological battle into the match.  The game is simple enough for a kid to play, but will challenge even the best strategist as they try to climb to the top of the podium.

Earn Skiller coins with each victory and use them to buy game bonuses or to develop your Avatar.

R:P:S Academy is built on the Skiller social network.  This provides online leaderboard based on ELO rating,  and your game Avatar.  With each victory you win more Skiller coins that you can use to buy game bonuses or to customize your Avatar.  Show off your Avatar in each match, and in the online leaderboard if you can climb to the top.  There are also many Achievements to be claimed withinR:P:S Academy.

The game was designed for multi-player competition, but the singleplayer system was not neglected.  A briliant AI was integrated into the game that is sure to give you a run for you money.  Play the AI when you want a super quick challenge, and while waiting for an online competitor to join your game.