Unofficial Android App (Current Vr: 1.2.2: Custom events and maps!)

nickswar

Hello everyone!

Last year was my first PAX, and I had so much fun that I decided to make a small unofficial android app this year. A beta version is on the android market right now under "PAX Assistant". Currently it has most of the schedule up (as an offline copy), and a twitter feed for pax_lines that refreshes every 60 seconds. In the near future I'll add an option to customize the schedule and display maps. If anyone has an android phone let me know what you think and tell me if you have any suggestions! (I might not respond right away though because I'm going on a vacation for the next few days)

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*If anyone has maps/schedule images/events they would like added, just post on this thread with a link to an image or the data*

For those who can't download the app from the Android market, links to the APK file can be found below

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vr0.1.2
vr1.0.0
vr1.1.0
vr1.2.0
vr1.2.1
vr1.2.2

Update 1.2.2

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-Last minute schedule update

Update 1.2.1

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-More maps!

Update 1.2.0

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-Custom events.
-Toggle button to disable online features added.
-Schedule update.
-Delete local tweets button added.
-New promotion pages.
-Low res map buttons added.


Update 1.1.0

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-Twitter refinements.
-Twitter feeds added.
-Schedule day selection changed.
-Possible fix for map errors.

Update 1.0.0

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-Donate button added.
-Promotions page added.
-Minor schedule updates.
-Satellite theater twitter added.

Update 0.1.2

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-Move to SD card added.
-New link to Master Tabletop Grid available (Thanks to Lackey!)

Update 0.1.1

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-Logo move to background.
-Twitter text size option added.
-Twitter now only vibrates on tweet when the screen is off.
-Small crash fix.


Update 0.1.0 (Yeah! Arbitrary numbering schemes!)

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-New Twitter settings.
-Main logo squished.
-Minor visual change on even details page.
-Orientation change unlocked.
-POSSIBLE fix for people who were crashing when trying to view the schedule.
-Tip: Leaving the twitter screen open will keep it running even in sleep mode, when a new tweet comes in, the phone will vibrate for 3 seconds.

Update 0.0.4

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-Omegathon Round 2 added.
-New google map added under maps
-Map zooming has been re-implemented. Long touch until vibrate, then move your finger up and down.

Hotfix 0.0.3

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-Temporary map fix for devices with low memory

New in 0.0.2

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-Maps now available.
-New title bars for every page.
-During pax, when an event has passed, the text on schedule will turn red.
-New schedule appearance.
-Ability to add an event to your schedule from event schedule.
-New My Schedule section.
-New Schedule Grids section for displaying visual schedules.
-99.9999% accurate schedule (some info is TBA).

aquaone

An excellent start and thank you! It works fine (the completed bits) on my EVO.
You could use both @Official_PAX and @pax_lines twitter feeds perhaps.
I'm a magic junky personally. Would it be possible to get the m:tg schedule (http://www.cascadegames.com/events/819) on there as well?

nickswar

Thanks for taking a look! I can definitely add the other twitter feed. As for the magic schedule, I can't make any promises, but If I have the time I'll try to get that on there too. I'll start those both when I get back.

aragorn18

A few suggestions:

1. The initial instruction screen that comes up needs an OK button or something like that at the bottom. Having to hit Back is counter-intuitive when you haven't actually pulled anything up yet.

2. Instead of listing the entire schedule for all 3 days on the same screen, swipe between screens to see other days.

3. Panel descriptions should be their own screen instead of the current popup.

Otherwise, thanks for the app. It'll be mighty handy at the event.

GeeCee

I fucking love you.

nickswar

aragorn18 wrote: »

A few suggestions:

1. The initial instruction screen that comes up needs an OK button or something like that at the bottom. Having to hit Back is counter-intuitive when you haven't actually pulled anything up yet.

2. Instead of listing the entire schedule for all 3 days on the same screen, swipe between screens to see other days.

3. Panel descriptions should be their own screen instead of the current popup.

Otherwise, thanks for the app. It'll be mighty handy at the event.

Good suggestions, thanks! I'll work on implementing those when I get back.

GeeCee wrote: »

I fucking love you.

I love you too.

basicallygeek

There's also a twitter feed for tabletop gaming @PAX_TT.
The app looks nice, can't wait for the personalization and maps. I like aragorn18's suggestions.
Thanks!

kdnewton

Too cool! Thanks for doing this.
I'm looking forward to that "My Schedule" feature. Last year I ended up using jpegs of my schedule and the event maps stored on my PSP.

bubblegumnex

This is god damned brilliant. You have my thanks

contrefait

If you're adding other twitter feeds, PAXOmegathon and PAX_BYOC could be good ones to add. If you do add so many, may want the ability to hide selected feeds.

edit: Works well on nexus one so far. Thought I should add this info as well.

mspencer

What a coincidence -- just about five hours before your post I had been thinking about doing an app, but using that Google App Inventor thing.

I'd been brainstorming features and one thing I came up with seemed kinda cool: use the orientation sensor to see which compass direction the phone is facing, and autorotate the world map / exhibit hall map to match. Plus maybe locate the user on the map by letting them type or select what they are closest to. You are near what? Room 301. Subway Restaurant. Microsoft booth.

Coldbrew

contrefait wrote: »

If you're adding other twitter feeds, PAXOmegathon and PAX_BYOC could be good ones to add. If you do add so many, may want the ability to hide selected feeds.

I agree, might as well add all of the PAX feeds with options to turn any of them on/off. Or just separate buttons/screens for each feed.

aragorn18 wrote: »

A few suggestions:

1. The initial instruction screen that comes up needs an OK button or something like that at the bottom. Having to hit Back is counter-intuitive when you haven't actually pulled anything up yet.

2. Instead of listing the entire schedule for all 3 days on the same screen, swipe between screens to see other days.

3. Panel descriptions should be their own screen instead of the current popup..

I definitely support each of these.

mspencer wrote: »

I'd been brainstorming features and one thing I came up with seemed kinda cool: use the orientation sensor to see which compass direction the phone is facing, and autorotate the world map / exhibit hall map to match. Plus maybe locate the user on the map by letting them type or select what they are closest to. You are near what? Room 301. Subway Restaurant. Microsoft booth.

This would be amazing!

Overall a great app, thank you so much for putting it together, works just fine on my Droid.

lindethier

Looking good, works fine on my Moto Droid. Can't wait to see what else you do with it

lemongrenades

You're too good to us, nickswar.

Jenny_Spaghetti

Works fine on my X10, which is more than can be said for Tweetdeck for Android. </bitterness>

Phoric

You have my sincere love. Works fine on my (rooted) Froyo Droid.

tek

Much fucking . If yer on the pubcrawl find me and you get a few free drinks! If not on the pubcrawl, we'll figure something out.

Rooted Sprint Hero, works 100%

lillejord

Not bad. Will there be an alarm function in the My Schedule section?

Big Guy

You, good sir, are uh-maze-ing. Great app and I can't wait for the updates. Works 100% on Droid X.

R3cursive

Phoric wrote: »

You have my sincere love. Works fine on my (rooted) Froyo Droid.

Same goes here, working great. Cant wait to see the final product

Slipstream0

love it, thanks man!

JDBizz

Works great on my samsung moment! Once the "my schedule" gets implemented, this will be gold, baby GOLD!

One suggestion, if possible, give the option to export "my schedule" to the device's calendar. That would be tha shiz.

Thanks for this great app!

EruditeAphrodite

This is fantastic. Love the idea of having a one stop place for various PAX twitter feeds and the "my schedule" feature will be a life saver. Works great on my MyTouch Slide!

Brian4120

Awesome, runs great on my Droid X

TeknoMonkey

Thanks for putting this App. Just installed it a few minutes on my Moto Droid running Froyo. It looks great. This app will be definitely helpful during the con as I'm a first timer. I agree with the suggestions that have been popping up on this thread. Keep up the great work and can't wait to see the fully operational app in the next few weeks.

surg3on

Works on Telstra branded (Australian) HTC desire

Rogue_hunter

Works on my Samsung Captivate running 2.1. Won't be attending this year, but will you be updating this for future PAXes?

Atratyys

You sir are a great man.

Seems to be working good on the Moto Droid 1.

nickswar

Thanks for the feedback everyone! About having all the twitter feeds, theoretically the app can only handle two because of the way I have it set up. If anyone has experience with twitter integration shoot me an email at android@nickswar.com to see if we can find a better way. For the advanced map/location idea, I would love to do that, but I'm not sure if I will have enough time... maybe next year. As for alarms on the personal schedule, they should be possible... I'll see what I can do. When making the app I wanted it to be easy to update for future PAXes, so all that's required is popping in new data files (nothing is hard coded). I get back from vacation on thurs so I will start working on updates then. I'll let all of you know when there is a new version up!

61Ranchero

Pretty darn good! I like the interface. Works well on my EVO.

asleepypanda

Works great on my Droid X! Can't wait for the updates!

BrennaCeDria

Downloading it now. Will play with it for the next hour or two, then come back with ideas if I have anything come up that hasn't already been mentioned. FYI, I'm on N1 with FroYo.

Edit - What the hell, there's nothing else going on right now, so I'll at least start on this sooner than later:

1) Regarding adding other feeds in addition to the @pax_lines feed, it would be awesome if you could include other offical feeds that have been mentioned (@Official_PAX, @PAX_TT, @PAX_BYOC, @PAX_handheld, and @PAXOmegathon). If only two feeds can be used, though, then I'd say stick with just the lines and Official_PAX feeds.

2) I don't know if it will work with how you've set up the app behind the scenes, but there's the PAX Attendees unofficial map here: http://is.gd/ekkI4 if you'll be using links to map files rather than actual downloadable formats. (It also has all three PAX locations--the convention center, the Sheraton, and Beyonara Hall marked on it in addition to all the attendees that have signed up. Thanks again to Moe for starting the map for me!)

3) Aragorn18 at least has already mentioned this: If possible and relatively simple, update event schedule to allow one day per page, like Google Calendar app does when set to display Day rather than Week or Month. That way if a user wants to jump strait to Sunday, he or she can just swipe to the side to get the next schedule. Alternately, a "jump to" menu option that can do the same on an all-in-one schedule like is currently loaded.

4) I personally don't mind the popup for information on panels that Aragorn18 mentioned; it looks fine on my phone. Not sure if other phones would have a problem with it, though.

Other than that... yeah. None of the above is anything that's wrong with the app, just ideas for potential additions. Awesome work!

ptriz21_teamkill

Works on HTC Incredible. I'm excited to see it once all the info is added

AltDelete

I was going to carry paper calendars or load up Google Docs, but this is a much cleaner, faster system. Top shelf.

Only error I could find was of the word "errors" on the load screen.

"Most of the times were entered by hand, so there may be minor erros."

Unless that was intentional, in which case sorry for missing the joke ^_^

metric152

This is just what I was looking for. I was going to create a google spreadsheet with all the events i wanted to see, but this will take care of it.

faits

The popups for event descriptions look and work just fine on an old G1, fwiw

rnicoll

nickswar wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback everyone! About having all the twitter feeds, theoretically the app can only handle two because of the way I have it set up. If anyone has experience with twitter integration shoot me an email at android@nickswar.com to see if we can find a better way. For the advanced map/location idea, I would love to do that, but I'm not sure if I will have enough time... maybe next year. As for alarms on the personal schedule, they should be possible... I'll see what I can do. When making the app I wanted it to be easy to update for future PAXes, so all that's required is popping in new data files (nothing is hard coded). I get back from vacation on thurs so I will start working on updates then. I'll let all of you know when there is a new version up!

Can I wildly push my luck, and ask if you'd be willing to release the code (under some form of suitable license - BSD/MIT by preference, but I'm aware GPL is much more popular)?

nickswar

AltDelete wrote: »

I was going to carry paper calendars or load up Google Docs, but this is a much cleaner, faster system. Top shelf.

Only error I could find was of the word "errors" on the load screen.

"Most of the times were entered by hand, so there may be minor erros."

Unless that was intentional, in which case sorry for missing the joke ^_^

Haha it actually was a typo but I decided to leave it in.

nickswar

rnicoll wrote: »

nickswar wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback everyone! About having all the twitter feeds, theoretically the app can only handle two because of the way I have it set up. If anyone has experience with twitter integration shoot me an email at android@nickswar.com to see if we can find a better way. For the advanced map/location idea, I would love to do that, but I'm not sure if I will have enough time... maybe next year. As for alarms on the personal schedule, they should be possible... I'll see what I can do. When making the app I wanted it to be easy to update for future PAXes, so all that's required is popping in new data files (nothing is hard coded). I get back from vacation on thurs so I will start working on updates then. I'll let all of you know when there is a new version up!

Can I wildly push my luck, and ask if you'd be willing to release the code (under some form of suitable license - BSD/MIT by preference, but I'm aware GPL is much more popular)?

Maybe if I clean up my code a bit =P

rnicoll

nickswar wrote: »

Maybe if I clean up my code a bit =P

I'm sure it's nothing I haven't seen before!

Jeppy

This is just what I needed. I would agree with the recommendations of others but as you said it is a work in progress. I like it a lot and will be posting it on my social sites to get more people looking at it. I'm running the G1 and I have a My Touch Slide 3g. It works excellent on both.