Apps like Floating Toucher or Link Bubble proves how useful a floating button can be. And no, I'm not talking about FABs as per Material Design guidelines here, I meant a literally 'floating' button that draw over any screen in the system that can be dragged around and clicked.
Take a look at these examples:
(source: boatmob.com)
Now, I tried to Google a way to do this but I'm afraid I'm still at lost here. How can these apps draw over screens outside their own?
I've come across this SO question which more or less asking about a similar question. But to be honest, I wasn't able to gain much information from it. Said question mainly addressed how to intercept a touch for a floating view; Not how to specifically make one.
I really hope that somebody out there could enlighten me on this. Thanks in advance for your time!
If you are talking about an activity's view (not Widgets), 'floating' on screen, like Facebook ChatHeads. Then you should create a background service and attach a view with it. Though it is not recommend by Android.
See below links
What APIs in Android is Facebook using to create Chat Heads?
http://www.piwai.info/chatheads-basics/
Related
What I want is to have a listener when a certain element (like a button, an image, a view or anything else) became accessibility focused. I found stuff like mybutton.sendAccessibilityEvent(AccessibilityEvent.TYPE_VIEW_FOCUSED) but then I don't know what to do next, how to handle it.
My main purpose is to make a sound when an element became focused instead of reading his accessibility name.
Any suggestion?
Im not much of an Android developer, but i think the event you are using is sending information to the screen reader. You would need the opposite of that.
I think the answer to this question could help you
Google talkback API to get current focus item in android
Best of luck, sounds like a cool app for visually impaired children
I have a pretty nice idea to implement.
What I need is to somehow add a keylistener to the keyboard at all apps and to draw on all app's screens, including the browsers. Which means that I need to override the native keyboard and the native screen. Preferably in Java (I don't know if there is another language for Andoird, Java is the best one I know).
Could someone suggest me a way to override native keyboard\screen on Android? (OR just to do what I need, whichever is correct.)
Here's a way to do it on Windows. Not tested though. http://kra.lc/blog/2011/07/java-global-system-hook/
Edit: TextFieldListener is OK too and even better as long as it's global. I haven't thought about possibility to make a keylogger with such thing.
Edit 2: Here is the link for drawing on top of everything, I haven't reviewed it too yet: http://www.piwai.info/chatheads-basics/
Fortunately, it is not possible to "somehow add a keylistener to the keyboard at all apps", for blindingly obvious privacy and security reasons. Such things are called keyloggers, and they are primarily the province of malware authors.
You would need to create a custom keyboard by implementing an InputService
I have developed many applications for desktop or web in java, but never for android.
What little I have practiced with was weird because I am used to SWING. Since it uses .xml files for applications I was wondering if you needed this also in games?
For example there is a a good example at http://developer.android.com/resources/samples/JetBoy/index.html. I was hoping someone could explain two things for me.
How is the image drawn to the screen?
How do you listen for user input? (Eg. Clicks, drawing, swiping, ect...)
I have made games on the desktop so you don't have to get in depth, but I found it hard to understand the code. (What I was suppose to do special for android.)
(Another way to put it:)
I guess basically what I am asking is how to I draw an image that will in turn listen to clicks and such without adding a button? Or do I need to add an invisible button? Then if I did have to add a button how would I listen for swiping and drawing?
Also I saw some methods like doDraw(), but did not see where they were putting the image so it would appear on the android device.
JetBoy is rather complicated for a beginner, check these simple examples which are based on the same principles as JetBoy: How can I use the animation framework inside the canvas?
Everything is done by drawing bitmaps on the view's canvas and an event which detects when and where the sreen was touched.
I think this will tell you everything you need to know, in a comprehensive, 31 part series detailing the creation of Light Racer 3d for Android.
If you are not going to use any Game Engine ,
basically you extend android.view.SurfaceHolder
and then overide these methods,
public boolean onTouchEvent(MotionEvent event)
protected void onDraw(Canvas canvas)
go through
these articles.It teaches everything you need from the scratch
Android has many useful tools when coming to views and screens and layouts.
Description: While playing my game (running around as a zombie bear eating humans) I would like to allow the player to access an items menu via sliding a menu from the right side/edge of the screen. Or at the least be able to access a game options menu (not game settings which would be the menu button).
What would be the best fit for description?
P.S How would I make a question like this less like a discussion and more like a straight forward programming question when I don't really know what's available to do this.
Also, if this is the case, please point me to another location to ask a question that may require a discussion.
Thank You!
Try looking at the SlidingDrawer class.
PS I personally don't see a problem with how you have worded your question if you are looking for ideas of views/widgets you need to perform a specific function/effect.
My first thought, and for a simple approach (this wouldn't be animated or dragged really), would be using a RelativeLayout where the portion representing the menu was initially set so that it's visibility were GONE, except for a small tab or arrow or something. When that tab/arrow is touched, the visibility of the View for the menu could be toggled to VISIBLE.
With visibility set to GONE, a view is not drawn or considered in any part of the layout pass when the screen is drawn.
You could populate a listview with some icons and when an particular icon is selected, then figure out which one was selected and then execute some function and hide the sidebar using an animation. I've never developed a game, so I'm not too sure how far it deviates from the standard, but I wish you the best of luck :) ! If you post the source let me know would love to test your game and see how you work with the source!
I'm trying to create a "scrollable" layout in Android. Even using developers.android.com, though, I feel a little bit lost at the moment. I'm somewhat new to Java, but not so much that I feel I should be having these issues--being new to Android is the bigger problem right now.
The layout I'm trying to create should scroll in a sort of a "grid". I THINK what I'm looking for is the Gallery view, but I'm really lost as to how to implement it at the moment. I want it to "snap" to center the frame, like in the actual Gallery application.
Essentially, if I had a photo gallery of 9 pictures, the idea is to scroll between them up/down AND side to side, in a 3x3 manner. Doesn't need to dynamically adjust, or anything like that, I just want a grid I can scroll through.
I'm also not asking for anyone to give me explicit code for it--I'm trying to learn, more than anything. But pointing me in the right direction for helpful layout programming resources would be greatly appreciated, and confirming if it's a Gallery view I'm looking for would also be really helpful.
EDIT: To clarify, the goal is to have ONE item on screen at a time. If you scroll between one item and the next, the previous one leaves the screen, and the new one snaps into place. So if it were a photo gallery, each spot on the grid would take up the entire screen size, approximately, and would be flung out of the viewable area when you slide across to the next photo, in either direction. (Photos are just an example for illustration purposes)
This page gives a good summary of the different built in layout objects. From your description a GridView or possibly a TableLayout might work. GalleryView looks to be horizontal only.
I believe GridView is what you're looking for. Here's a tutorial: http://developer.android.com/resources/tutorials/views/hello-gridview.html
You should check out the ViewPager widget, which is available in the Android compatibility package. I spent a loooong time trying to get the Gallery widget to behave properly, but finally settled on a ViewPager which returned ImageView objects instead. Works like a charm.