Raygional 3.0 with notification

A user contacted me this year. Due to his visual impairment, he uses Android Talkback. He found Raygional useful for switching the system locale. He asked me if I could build with notification, so it can be easily accessed on the system menu.

Battery by MacroPinch is an app I find really useful. The app is really useful to indicate the battery charge level. I really like the notification. My inspiration for Raygional comes from Battery.  I reversed engineer Battery and I found for each level , there is 3 icons ( one for GingerBread, one for Honeycomb, one for others ) , so there are at least 300 icons just for the status notifications. The programming of Battery is not so difficult, the main attraction is the graphic . BTW I’m looking for graphic designers, anyone ?

Because Google Keyboard does a great job to switch the keyboard settings for message typing, I did not use my Raygional as often. With my day job, if I did not set timeboxed goals. It took FOUR months , that’s way too long. During the last few weeks , I started to get interested to update the app. Today I released Raygional 3.0, it feels nice to use the notification.

raygional30

The app is only compatible from Android 4.0 because the UI uses the latest updates . To make compatible from Android 2.1 , I have to import the Holo theme and ActionBar UI pattern , I’ll have a look at the latest Action Bar Compatibility which the Google ‘s answer to ActionBarSherlock .

 

Thanks Peter

CompassRay update “2.0 Xu Fu”

For this release , we got the analytic , a new message popping up, no arc velocity. I didn’t see any use of angular velocity so I suppressed it, it was using space the bottom left corner.

Faster animation

I was unsatisfied with the previous animation, it feels sluggish . Now it’s more responsive but not too fast so the animation looks smooth. For developers, I simply changed SensorManager.SENSOR_DELAY_NORMAL  to SensorManager.SENSOR_DELAY_GAME  .

Analytics

Need INTERNET permission . Let’s see if this permission scares away users or not. Just to know more about the demographics of active users .

New Message

Compatible with Android 4.0 ICS like you see on this pic. Yeah I got my Samsung Galaxy Nexus this week which I chose over the Galaxy 3. I introduced a Toast at each new launch to drive more traffic to indolor.com . At least it drives awareness to this site. I’m hoping users will download my other apps too.

Version name

It has been a tradition to name each version after a explorer. For this time, I chose after Xu Fu

Euro 2012

No relation to CompassRay. For the finale,  I will support Spain over Italy.
EDIT : Glad Spain defeated Italy, 4-0

Raygional update “2.3” analytics

This release has a major update. It contains analytics. Informations I want :
what devices have a problem with this app
is widget more used than the app ?

I chose Flurry because it requires one less permission ( android.permission.READ_PHONE_STATE ) than Google Analytics . Let’s see what the stats will tell after a week use.

New Flags

Fix flags for Taiwan , Brazil

New country flags are Austria, Australia, Switzerland , Ireland, New Zealand, US, South Africa. Some languages have regional flavor : take standard German, German ( Austria) and German (Switzerland).  Picking German (Switzerland)  or France (Switzerland) will display Swiss national flag.

New translation

Andrew translated the Russian version

Raygional update “2.2” Magyar

Corrections

It’s a principle to fix bugs before writing new code

China and Japan flags were not visible.
For China, the code country is cn and the Chinese language is zh . Taiwan flag tw was added to make the difference between simplified and avoid a diplomatic incident 🙂
For Japan, the code country is ja and language is jp

For Norway, norsk Bokmål nb was added . Only Norsk no was recognized before

New flags

New country flags made an entrance :
– Portuguese (Portugal, Brazil)
– Hindi (India)
– Hebrew (Israel)
– Czech Republic
– Hungary
– Poland

New distribution Strategy :  localization

I’m still experimenting how to increase download numbers. I remember reading about angry birds marketing strategy . In order to enter the big market, Rovio conquered small markets first.

“We realised very early on it would be tough to break those markets. So we tried to get a following in the smaller nations,” says Matt Wilson, head of marketing. It took only a few hundred purchases to get the game to number one in the Finnish App Store. The same went for Sweden and Denmark, then Greece and the Czech Republic. “Before having any traction in the UK and US, which are now 90 per cent of our market, we had 30,000-40,000 downloads in smaller nations — not a huge amount, but probably four times what the average app sells,” says Wilson.

Raygional is after all targeted at multilinguists. After first , it makes sense to translate in popular languages like English, Japanese, French, Spanish, German, Korean…  but to penetrate these markets is tough. So I asked some people to translate in Scandinavian and Eastern European languages.

The first translation I got is Hungarian ( magyar ).

Let’s see if the download rate will be affected.

Raygional update “2.1-FlagsOfCountries”

Raygional latest update has  country flags in the widget. Everytime you change the language, the country flag will be displayed in the widget. Of course the list of flags is not complete, so by default Raygional icon will be displayed.

This update contains the following flag :
-China cn
-Denmark da Dansk
-Germany de Deustch
-Greece el ελληνικά
-Great Britain en English
-Spain es Español
-Finland fi Suomi
-France fr Français
-South Korea ko 한국어
-Italy it Italiano
-Japan jp 日本語
-Netherlands nl Nederlands
-Norway no Norsk
-Romania ro  Română
-Russia ru русский
-Sweden sv Svenska

Some users may wonder WTF I chose American English so why do I see the British flag? . Languages don’t have a national flag on their own, it’s the country where it’s associated. The same language can be spoken in different countries. If that’s an user request I’ll add the regional flags . ie For English : Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States.

Raygional update “2.0 widget”

It’s been over 2 years without any updates. Simply because it worked for me and HTC sense has a nice feature to change the keyboard configuration when typing. But recently I played with other smartphones and DAMN I was wrong. Worse I did  not read users comment. That was my old self = no customer support. Some emailed me. Hey I can’t reproduce your problem since I don’t have your device. But things have changed since I have plenty of devices at work.

What’s in the update

Raygional had a major update.

  1. First the one click change didn’t work on most devices. Not great for an app supposed to change the language setting in one click. On my device it was working but that’s no excuse. Now it’s compatible with android 2.x and 4 (ICS) , no test on 3 (honeycomb ) if someone can report.
  2. Second now it has a widget which is showing the current language setting used. Click on the widget to change the language.

Raygional widget

For those don’t how to insert a widget , here is a how to:

  • android 2.x :  press Menu button > Add to Home > Widget > Select the widget
  • android 4 : click on the app list > go to widgets tab

Ideas for next updates

The locale setting does not change the keyboard. You can still have all the apps in German and keep the French keyboard. It’s troublesome because word completion is in the keyboard setting. will be the  That’s two different settings on OEM smartphones ( at least on Samsung Touchwiz and HTC Sense). One setting on Nexus S. I’ll try to add on the widget both : language used in the OS and the keyboard.

One minor, the language displayed on the widget is just the language without any regional preference. There is English (United Kingdom) , English( United States).

Graphic designer needed

The icon ( tongue with flags) I’m using is not mine . Just found on google . I’m looking for a graphic designer for Raygional. It’s just one single 512*512 icon. I’d be really grateful for the help. Email me at raychenon At indolor.com . You’ll get your name or alias ( for privacy ) in the special thanks.

CompassRay 1.7 Andrei КомпасРэй

CompassRay has been translated into Russian thanks to Andrew. I like the spelling КомпасРэй = CompassRay

At the very beginning of the application, I wanted a tool to show me the direction of the street to take. Google Maps is great to show locations. In the first versions, Maps didn’t have a compass on the user location. So I created compassray as a tutorial and a useful tool for myself. I’m glad thousands are still using it today.

This week I received an email from an user, he volunteered to translate into Russian. I feel nearly ashamed not to add any improvements.

The lastest version with Russian locale can be downloaded on Google Play . On Ndoo / Nduo

Post SMS release Facebook

I’ve been thinking for long about an app to share SMS on facebook. Now I’ve done it.

What’s the use ?

Well I had a long SMS conversation once with a girl ( over 200 ) . I wanted to save all the text messages on my device. I found SMS backup from Christoph Studer and an improvement SMS backup+ from Jan Berkel. People save and restore their SMS because they cherish these memories . Just like photos, you don’t only store them on the hard drive. Once the photos are exposed , people get satisfaction when others comment on them. So why not for SMS ?!

Since the iPhone’s Message app , reading/writing SMS is a conversation.  I wanted a way for people to expose their SMS . The text as they received or sent, no SMS should be altered once in the box.

How to use

This icon will be used on Facebook wall.

You’re familiar with Message type app , it works the same way. The first page is like any SMS app : SMS grouped by contact. Click on one item and all the SMS exchanged with this contact are displayed. Then select the SMS you want to share.

screen story

For the moment , you can post the SMS from your Android smartphone to facebook . Top  preview in your smartphone . Bottom what it looks like on your facebook wall.

Note : share SMS that won’t embarrass anyone. That’s common sense. You don’t upload nudes photos of your friends . After all it’s up to you.

Permissions

The app is asking for three permissions :
– SMS , to read your SMS shared across all the applications. So a SMS received or sent by another app will be present in “Post SMS”
– Contact to join a phone number with a person name.
– Internet to access the internet of course.

Is it malicious ? I could still record user’s personnal data. No I don’t . Anyone can check the data packet exchanged from my app.

Next

Currently what I think is lacking :
– Sometimes a phone number is shown instead of the contact name. This bug happens when the number was saved as local number , but the SMS has an international number . Ex : French number 0611223344 is converted to +33611223344 . Each country has its own rules.
– Single Sign On ( SSO ) , you already have the facebook app installed , login into. You still have to login again. BTW I don’t catch your password .
– a notice for message posted or failed. There is a little window that pop up for a few seconds. I have an idea how to better integrate with the UI .

Download

If you find interest, the app can be downloaded here

Please share your impression in the comments.

Post SMS release Facebook

I’ve been thinking for long about an app to share SMS on facebook. Now I’ve done it.

What’s the use ?

Well I had a long SMS conversation once with a girl ( over 300 ) . I wanted to save all the text messages on my device. I found SMS backup from Christoph Studer and an improvement SMS backup+ from Jan Berkel. People save and restore their SMS because they cherish these memories . Just like photos, you don’t only store them on the hard drive. Once the photos are exposed , people get satisfaction when others comment on them. So why not for SMS ?!

Since the iPhone’s Message app , reading/writing SMS is a conversation.  I wanted a way for people to expose their SMS . The text as they received or sent, no SMS should be altered once in the box.

How to use

This icon will be used on Facebook wall.

You’re familiar with Message type app , it works the same way. The first page is like any SMS app : SMS grouped by contact. Click on one item and all the SMS exchanged with this contact are displayed. Then select the SMS you want to share.

screen story

For the moment , you can post the SMS from your Android smartphone to facebook . Top  preview in your smartphone . Bottom what it looks like on your facebook wall.

Note : share SMS that won’t embarrass anyone. That’s common sense. You don’t upload nudes photos of your friends . After all it’s up to you.

Permissions

The app is asking for three permissions :
– SMS , to read your SMS shared across all the applications. So a SMS received or sent by another app will be present in “Post SMS”
– Contact to join a phone number with a person name.
– Internet to access the internet of course.

Is it malicious ? I could still record user’s personnal data. No I don’t . Anyone can check the data packet exchanged from my app.

Next

Currently what I think is lacking :
– Sometimes a phone number is shown instead of the contact name. This bug happens when the number was saved as local number , but the SMS has an international number . Ex : French number 0611223344 is converted to +33611223344 . Each country has its own rules.
– Single Sign On ( SSO ) , you already have the facebook app installed , login into. You still have to login again. BTW I don’t catch your password .
– a notice for message posted or failed. There is a little window that pop up for a few seconds. I have an idea how to better integrate with the UI .

Download

If you find interest, the app can be downloaded here

Please share your impression in the comments.