Comments on The Radioactive Yak: Strategies for Honeycomb and Backwards Compatibili...

A couple small comments on your sample: (1) I str...

2011-03-11T02:14:53.726Z

A couple small comments on your sample:

(1) I strongly recommend against using reflection to find out if an API is available. It is safer to check the API version. It is possible for someone to build an older version of the platform where they have back-ported some features from a newer one. In that case, you would mistakenly think that the full newer feature is available, when it may not be.

(2) This is the best way to test against running on at least a certain platform version:

private static boolean shinyNewAPIsSupported =
android.os.Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= android.os.Build.VERSION_CODES.HONEYCOMB;

These version codes are static final int constants, so the actual value is built in to your app; this code will work on any platform version, it isn't actually retrieving the HONEYCOMB constant at run time.

Just what I was looking for. Really nice article, ...

2011-02-25T22:43:28.497Z

Just what I was looking for. Really nice article, thank you.

Hi I tested fragmentsSupported = android.app.Frag...

2011-02-25T07:35:23.926Z

Hi
I tested fragmentsSupported = android.app.Fragment.class != null;
but you get java.lang.VerifyError. I Tried this on 1.5 and 1.6
I dunno if reflections work.
I tried to catch it with NoClassDefFoundError, This failed then I tried general Exception and this failed too.
Also as tl said:
Integer.parseInt(Build.VERSION.SDK) > 10
Is better then SDK_INT cuz I want to support 100 % of my customers.
Even though it is deprecated

Mmm, though the introduction of Fragment seems ver...

2011-02-24T11:29:50.612Z

Mmm, though the introduction of Fragment seems very interesting, maintening both versions (w or wo Fragment) seems to me overkilling for the moment. yes it is okay in a simple hello world tutorial, but in a real application, this is another story. Not even saying this increases the combination of tests to do.

One comment: using VERSION.SDK_INT crashes 1.5 device... we cannot rely on that without doing yet another is_XYZ_supported() trick. worth mentionning in an article related to compatibility ;-) (still have 5% of my users in 1.5, and will probably support that platform for months)

Anyway, limitation from older versions should not stop the progress of new version of Android. Thanks very much for giving such valuable examples :-)

Reto - you said: "When I put my credentials ...

2011-02-24T11:06:08.747Z

Reto - you said:

"When I put my credentials into a shiny new tablet, I expect it to install all the apps I use on my phone"

This is the first time that we expect one user to be running two Android devices (phone & tablet) with the same data, which raises the interesting question of syncing their application data & settings between the devices.

How do you see that working ? Is there a recommended approach to the problem ?

It seems quite complicated for now to manage both ...

2011-02-10T15:34:10.835Z

It seems quite complicated for now to manage both APIs. As some others said, I will wait a bit before doing some smartphone/tablet compatible development. Looking forward for fragment/action bar library and waiting on official 3.0 device available in my country (Switzerland). Maybe Google will send us some tablet before the Google IO event and we could develop on them :-D

Reto Meier: It's about the ability of older An...

2011-02-10T15:31:38.724Z

Reto Meier:
It's about the ability of older Androids to tolerate such a second layout as long as it's not used.
As I said, that does not work for animations that are not used = not referenced from the layout used on the older device. They would simply force close the entire application instead.

So: Has this approach been tried and verified to work flawlessly on Android 1.5-3.0?

@Anonymous (last one): You can use the same underl...

2011-02-10T11:04:06.811Z

@Anonymous (last one): You can use the same underlying layouts to define the various Views that make up the UI, but you'll need different Activities and different "container layouts" that package those underlying layouts either within Fragments or more traditional layouts.

@Marcus: No. What you would do is create the "...

2011-02-10T11:02:43.642Z

@Marcus: No. What you would do is create the "content layout" that contains the actual UI that you want to inflate within the Fragment. Then you have two "container layouts" -- one that includes the Fragment, and another that uses tags to pull the content layout(s) in.

Within your code you inflate whichever container layout is appropriate -- the one with Fragments or the one without.

I still miss the (for me) most important informati...

2011-02-10T08:45:41.893Z

I still miss the (for me) most important information: As long as there's no fragment library, or if I want to save the KBs the library will need, do I have to code both Activity and Fragment (and use different XML layouts) for e.g. a list? Or is there a way to reuse the same code (except with workarounds like external helper classes)?

Will the Android Market be able to show screenshot...

2011-02-10T00:02:14.894Z

Will the Android Market be able to show screenshots of the tablet-optimised and phone-optimised versions? (An interface could change significantly for a 2"phone, 7"tablet, 10"tablet and 50"HDTV.)

I trust the Google maps API will be updated with MapFragments at some point? Do you intend to release the updated source code for Earthquake? Seems like a good example of how to use a MapFragment.

If those fools at Motorola decide to charge $800 for the XOOM then they deserve not to have any tablet optimised apps. Unless of course they kindly giveaway some tablets to developers for free. Hint, hint. :)

Just seen the new HP babies...makes me wonder is M...

2011-02-09T22:54:27.352Z

Just seen the new HP babies...makes me wonder is Mathias Duarte is still working with them, or who created that sorry UI of Honeycomb. webOS looks sooo much better.

Agree with buddy from Germany @7:26 : It is a sham...

2011-02-09T22:16:43.367Z

Agree with buddy from Germany @7:26 : It is a shame the 2.3 is still under 1% in penetration and only available in two countries and Honeycomb emulator is a joke...Google really needs to figure out how to provide real emulated development environment.

^ What Anonymous said.

2011-02-09T20:52:28.398Z

^ What Anonymous said.

Can an Android 1.6 -device even inflate the layout...

2011-02-09T20:49:11.228Z

Can an Android 1.6 -device even inflate the layout-xml if that contains fragments?
It certainly does NOT work for animations that are not supported on older APIs even if they are not used on the current device.

I'm in Germany - and I can't even official...

2011-02-09T19:26:22.759Z

I'm in Germany - and I can't even officially buy an Android 2.3 device here. The emulator for 3.0 is so slow it's not even funny anymore.

Sorry, but for the time being I'll continue writing for 2.2 (Nexus One & Galaxy Tab).

So lets say I want to use a image as the backgroun...

2011-02-09T16:44:10.155Z

So lets say I want to use a image as the background to one of my activities.
I have to crop the image at least a half dozen ways to support different screen resolutions and orientations.
This quickly adds bytes to my apk especially if I want to support high res tablets.
I run out of space for apps all the time on my
Nexus One.
I know it supports moving apps to SD now, but its that a complete solution?

In this scenario should I make one large app that supports both tablets and phones or should I just have 2 apps?