Lock Screen Switch Widget Updated

Some users have complained that the widget does not work after a while. I've added some code that'll prevent the lock screen from reenabling.

2 Projects Open Sourced

The My Location Widget and Lock Screen Widget applications for Android have been open sourced under the MIT license.

My Location Widget: http://code.google.com/p/futonic-mylocationwidget/
Lock Screen Widget: http://code.google.com/p/futonic-lockscreenswitchwidget/

From now on all code changes and versions of each of these apps will be available in these web pages.

Android String Resource Translator has been open sourced!

Many apps on the Android Market are made by a single developer. Because of this it's really hard to provide apps that are accessible to many users outside of their native language. Today, I am releasing a tool to help that problem.

This tool will take your Android project and scan it for string resources. (They should reside in the res/values/string.xml file). These resources will then be translated to a bunch of different languages and placed in the appropriate folders automatically.

It has been released as an open source project under the GPLv3 license. If you want to contribute please let me know.

Lastly, this utility uses Bing as the backend so be kind to their servers. Only use this tool just before release.

Download: http://code.google.com/p/android-string-resource-translator/downloads/detail?name=string-translator-tool.zip

Project Site: http://code.google.com/p/android-string-resource-translator/

  

Android Market panel showing the My Location Widget localized to many languages.

Beryl Android Library

While working on my Android applications there's always a ton of code that I create that can be reused in other projects. For this I created a cherry picking project called Beryl.


This library has all sorts of functionality such as web service apis against Bing and Google as well as enhanced logging and HTTP REST.


Later on I'd like to add some custom themes to promote consistent look and feel across all my apps that are also visually pleasing. And actually complete some of the tasks that are in the project backlog.


Since this project is open source it is available to everyone and if you'd like to contribute please let me know.


Beryl Project Page - http://code.google.com/p/android-beryl/
Subversion Repository: https://android-beryl.googlecode.com/svn/


Lastly, there's a pretty sweet utility for Android developers that can automatically translate your Android Project string.xml into many different languages. Judging from the comments I get on the market they have been positive. I'll be posting that utility as a standalone project later on as well.

My Location Widget 2.0

My Location Widget has been updated.

New Features:

• New Widget Sizes 1x1, 2x1.
• Address is now shown in notification bar if not using the 4x1 widget.
• Sharing now includes the address information.

1x1, 2x1, and 4x1 widget and notification.

Widget Selector with the new sizes.

My Location Widget update coming!

My Location Widgets now come in more shapes and sizes!

Lots of users have stated that the My Location widget is too large. The next update should fix those complaints, you'll now have 3 sizes to choose from! 1x1, 2x1, and 4x1.

Task Manager in Froyo

In Android 2.2 (Froyo) there's been some talk about Task Manager not working as well as it has in the past. With this post I'm confirming that this is the case. The short answer is Google has made some changes that made ALL task managers less effective not just mine.


The detailed reason is there was functionality in the Android SDK that allowed developers to shutdown packages (or apps) that was limited. Android still allows apps to shutdown other apps but the ones being shutdown cannot have any attachments to the system such as alarms, active services, etc. Android still has the functionality to shutdown apps but this has been hidden from 3rd party developers and locked down with security so we can't touch it.

The only way to address this change is by attempting to kill the app. If it doesn't get killed the Task Manager will send you to a page that has these special privileges to kill the app.

I'm sorry that it's cumbersome but this is the best solution out there for now.

Task Manager for Android

Android supports multitasking for your apps. For the most part apps play nice and don't cause problems but or the other times a task manager can help you control them.

Features:

• Resizing
• Notification Icon
• Smart Kill
• Widgets
• Ignore List
• Kill Everything, Tasks, and Services
• Power Information and Details
• Manage Apps
• Memory Display

Donate Version Additional Features

• Auto Killing
• No Ads

Futon Redemption's Android Apps

This blog will contain update information of all things related to the apps I've posted on the market.

At the time of this writing the following apps are available:

• Task Manager
• Task Manager - Donate
• My Location Widget
• Lock Screen Switch Widget