Archive for March, 2008

Android Tutorial 2: “Hit” testing on a View (MapView)

Published March 19, 2008 Android , Tutorials 25 Comments
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The following tutorial addresses how to perform ‘hit’ testing for user ‘clicks’ in a View. By hit testing, we mean the ability to determine when a user’s selection of a specific Point in a View overlaps with a region that we are monitoring for further action.

In other words at the end of this MapView tutorial, your users will be able to click on any icon that you draw onto the map, and you’ll be able to take whatever action you like such as displaying a transparent popup window (as we do in the tutorial).

Here’s what the final result will look like:

Screenshot of Tutorial 2 results

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Tutorial 1: Transparent Panel (Linear Layout) On MapView (Google Map)

Published March 15, 2008 Android , Tutorials 36 Comments
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This tutorial is for Google’s Android mobile operating system. If you haven’t already heard about Android, then check it out immediately because it’s way cool. We have benefited so much from the Android developer community that we want to give back our own insights into the platform and how to better design/develop on the platform.

For this tutorial, we’re going to help the several people that have asked us how to create transparent panels. While we show how to overlay onto a Google Map, you can use the same technique to overlay a transparent panel onto any other view.

Starting at the end, this what we’ll develop today – a transparent panel with a single button displayed at the base of an Android MapView

Tutorial 1 - final result

Tutorial 1 - final result (closeup)

Continue reading ‘Tutorial 1: Transparent Panel (Linear Layout) On MapView (Google Map)’

Welcome to Pocket Journey

Published March 14, 2008 General 3 Comments
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We’ve been working towards this release for over a year now and the pieces are finally coming together. Our ‘official’ website has gone into public stealth mode…yes that’s a little cryptic but we guarantee your wait will be worthwhile.

In the meantime, please read on and explore this site. There will be enough leaked knowledge to wet your appetite for the final launch which we hope will arrive by year’s end. We’re participating in Google’s Android Challenge and will be releasing screenshots and more insights into Audible Journey over the next few months. If you haven’t heard about Android but like the vision of Pocket Journey, then you’re going to be in for a shock. We were. None of us expected so much progress on the mobile front in such a short time. Judging from the just announced release of Apple iPhone SDK, we’re about to experience a MAJOR shift in what we will expect from our cell phones over the next few years.

Please feel free to post your own thoughts about Pocket Journey or to contact us. Without community participation both on the business development & the member usage side, this vision will never become a reality.

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