StudyFlashcard 3.0 - Mobile Flashcards For Android

During the past month, I worked on a new version of StudyFlashcard For Android.

StudyFlashcard 3.0 is a mobile flashcards application for students to learn foreign languages, review exam materials, or simply as a memorization tool.

Here is the UI of the application:

StudyFlashcard Android is different from other flashcard applications in the following ways:

1) Organize flashcards with #hashtags

Powerful #hashtag system lets you add flashcards to your midterms, exams, favorite lists, or secret lists. Study in whatever ways you imagine.

2) Study multiple subjects at once with Merge Play

Whether you have three exams on the same day or you are just bored of studying one subject for too long, Merge Play lets you study multiple flashcard sets together.

3) Study multiple questions at once with Cram Mode (Web only)

Cram mode offers a multi-column view that lets you study a lot of questions at once. This is perfect for a quick memory refresh before exams.

4) Perfect for learning vocabularies and foreign languages with three sided flashcards

Each StudyFlashcard has three sides: question, answer, and hint. Three-sided 
flashcards are perfect for learning Asian languages such as Chinese and Japanese.

Full list of features:

• Sync Flashcards with StudyFlashcard.com
• Score tracking
• hashtags
• play multiple sets of flashcards/quizzes at the same time
• Sign up is not necessary
• Works completely offline (You can create flashcards offline)
• Three sided flashcards/quizzes with question, answer and hint
• Can adjust text size

Give StudyFlashcard Android a try. Let us know what you think.

Android - Connecting to SQLite through adb

This will only work for the Android emulator or a rooted phone. In unrooted/unlocked phones, the data files are locked.

cd into your platform-tools directory in your terminal

cd C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools

Start the emulator and check if adb can detect the emulator

adb devices

Start Shell

adb shell

Connect to sqlite

sqlite3 /data/data/{your_package_name}/databases/{your_db}

Use CellObject to browse Android SQLite data contents

This will only work with Android emulators or rooted phones.

Download CellObject SQLite Browser.

Extract it. Find net.cellobject.sqlitexmlbrowser_1.2.0.jar.

Put net.cellobject.sqlitexmlbrowser_1.2.0.jar into the eclipce plugin directory.

Restart Eclipse.

Start the emulator.

Go to DDMS

Select your device on the left panel.

Then on the right side panel, navigate to 

data/data/{your_app_package_namespace}/databases/{app_name}

Click the database icon on the top bar of this right side panel.

You should now be able to see the table schema and browse the data in the CellObject SQLite Browser.

Android selector needs drawable instead of just background

The following will result in a crash saying that cannot inflate the drawable.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
  <item android:state_pressed="true" android:background="#000000" />
  <item android:state_focused="true" android:background="#000000" />
  <item android:background="#FFFFFF" />
</selector>

The solution is to change the background to use drawable

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
  <item android:state_pressed="true" android:drawable="@color/grey" />
  <item android:state_focused="true" android:drawable="@color/grey" />
  <item android:drawable="@color/white" />
</selector>

android:drawable attribute does not accept raw color.

Define color.xml in res/values.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
     <color name="black">#000</color>
     <color name="white">#fff</color>
     <color name="grey">#cccccc</color>
</resources>

Android Listview RuntimeException - Your content must have a ListView whose id attribute is android.R.id.list

"Your content must have a listview whose id is android.r.id.list"

Just make sure your listview's id is @android:id/list.

<ListView
        android:id="@android:id/list"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="fill_parent" >

Blackberry Android Simulator Blinking Issue

Just submitted my first android port to Blackberry. In case you don't know, Blackberry Playbook OS 2 can run Android apps.

If you are using the simulator, you will notice whenever, you have an EditText, the whole screen will keep on blinking. After doing some research, I found the following:

http://twitter.com/#!/BlackBerryDev/status/169882992997711872

According to Blackberry, it seems like it's only the simulator that's doing that. I do not have an actual playbook, so I do not know if that's the case. So far, it took me half a day to convert my Android app to the Playbook.

The app I converted is the Ignite Study Flash Card.

PhoneGap and HTML5 - Ad CPM and CPC Calculator

Lately there are a lot of buzz about creating HTML5 PhoneGap applications on Android, iPhone, and Blackberry. I am not a big fan of writing HTML5 phone apps, since I think the HTML5 speed on the phone is still very laggy and slow.

If you have written any jquery mobile websites, you will probably see that the "apps" still feel like web pages whether than apps. It is very easy to tell whether an app is native or written in HTML5 on a phone. Feel free to comment below to let me know if you see any smooth HTML5 phone apps out there.

Anyways, I quickly wrote an app called Ad CPM and CPC Calculator. Below are the screen shots.

Description:


Ads CPM and CPC Calculator is the FIRST advertising calculator that lets you compute eCPC, eCPM, conversion rate, CTR, cost per conversion and campaign cost. You will never need to do tedious hand calculations again.

Ads CPM and CPC Calculator comes with three calculators:
Ad Rate Calculator lets you estimate the campaign cost by CPM and CPC.
Ad Inventory Calculator estimates impression and clicks given the budget.
Ad Spent Summary Calculator computes eCPC, eCPM, conversion rate, CTR, cost per conversion and campaign cost.


Android Market Link:

Download Ads CPM and CPC Calculator


Results:

I think the app is still quite laggy. It probably has to do with jquery mobile. Sometimes, the footer would bounce up or not refreshed probably. When switching through pages, it's not very responsive. You will have to click more than once on rare occasions.

I strongly recommend everyone to go native if possible. The only benefit for using HTML5 is it's fast and you can quickly launch to multiple platforms.