Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Polishing Android application

Before deployment of an Android application there are few common steps that you should consider to ensure the application has a professional look:
  1. Add an EULA - See here how.
  2. Set the correct sound control - Android has multiple sound controls (alarm volume, sound volume, phone volume etc.). You should me sure that when the user click on the volume buttons the correct volume is set (See here how). For example, to set the volume button to control the media volume:
    this.setVolumeControlStream(AudioManager.STREAM_MUSIC);

  3. Disable buttons that are not in use - Except the "Home" buttons, all other buttons can be disabled by overriding "onKeyDown" function.

  4. Hide the window title bar & the Android status bar - To hide the status bar:
    getWindow().addFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_FULLSCREEN)
    To hide the window title:
    requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_NO_TITLE);

Monday, June 21, 2010

Android app requires un-needed permissions

After finishing writing Android app, during installation the application request permissions for:
* Storage
* Phone calls

However those permissions are not requested in the AndroidManifest.

Solution:
This is a backward compatibility issue with Android 1.5 or less. Just add: android:targetSdkVersion="4" to the uses-sdk tag, for example:

(you must compile the application with platform SDK 1.6 or later).

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Project wouldn't run after importing to Eclipse

With the following error message:
"The selection cannot be launched, and there are no recent launches"

I got it for my Android project, but it's not limited to android.
Since I'm newbie to Eclipse I started to googling but I couldn't find a solution. Playing with the UI got me to the right place:

In the main menu: "Run" -> "Run configurations..."
Double click the project type you want (in my case "Android Application") & select the project you want to run.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

How to delete VPN or Dail-up connection in Windows 7

It took me a while to find out how to delete a VPN connection I've setup on Windows 7.

So here's how:
1. Click on the connection icon in the icon tray (right-bottom side of the screen)
2. Click on "Open Network and Sharing Center" (you can open it also from the Control Panel)
3. On the left side of the window, click on "Change adapter settings"
4. Delete the VPN/Dail-up

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

SharePoint web part deployment error: Object reference not set to an instance of an object error

After deploying a SharePoint web-part developed using VSeWSS I get:
"Object reference not set to an instance of an object error"

Solution: copy the web part DLL to the GAC (it's also possible to register the DLL to the GAC on the batch file 'setup.bat' created by VSeWSS by calling gacutil.exe).