Hello all
I have been using XDA for years, and yet this is my first post. I have always felt inferior to the development genius's on this site, so I thought it best to keep my mouth shut and just marvel at all of you.
I think I can now give something back.
I have an idea for an application that I have not seen on the market (I am from South Africa so we only get free apps here, but I have used google and can't find something similar)
I think this idea would be quite successful on the market, and therefore can not describe it openly.
If there is an application developer (not a newbie like me) who is interested in helping design this application, please let me know.
Thank you
You should just share it right here. The more people that can freely see it, the more would be interested.
All that secret stuff will only work in your disadvantage.
Hi there
You may be right. I have not done this before. How do protect your idea? Or is that not done on this forum?
Maybe you can explain how application development works and how to you protect it if and when the application is a success and goes to the Andorid market.
Explain why this needs to be a secret. Are you looking to make a profit from it? If you're thinking that way you will make very little as a non-functioning member of the application development team.
Just say what your amazing idea is.
Thanks Gazebee, since you put it like that.
I have a desire and when I received it, swore to myself that I would never 'fiddle' with the Rom, like I did with my Windows mobile devices. Well, that was then...
I really liked HTC sense, but have in the interim, moved over to Froyo (Currently using Open Desire1.5).
I miss Sense very much. One of the main reasons for this is that, with Sense you can custom design your Scenes. You can save your back ground, widgets, shortcuts apps etc for all your homescreans, and go back to a previouly saved scene if you wish.
The items that you may wish to have on your homescreans will vary dependant on a variety of factors.
For example, in the week when I am at work the most important items are email, calander, weather(we work outdoors often), messaging, work contacts etc.
On the weekend there are other things that are more important, Photo album, camera, family and friend contacts, music etc.
There may even be times each week when your phone needs to be in airplane/ silent mode etc.
The application I was hoping to develop would allow the user to set scenes for himself, based on the day of week.
So for example, on Monday morning at 6AM, your phone swithces from the 'weekend' scene that the user designed to its "workday"scene. (either needing confirmation or automatically depending on the settings previosly stipulated).
Perhaps when you leave work at 5pm, your phone switches to "evening scene"
The user can stipulate /design as many as he wants and set timed controls to switch between the scenes.
The above was my initial thoughts, but why stop there.
It is surly possible to use Gps location to contol the scenes. When you pull arrive at work, the appropriate scene is activated. When you get to Church on Sunday morning your phone goes into airplane mode so that you don't get struck down by lightning because your phone interupts the sermen.
It may even be possible to take this one step further.
Integrating with applications like Rom Manager it may be possible to use a different THEME for the weekend, work week or whatever, depending on you mood.
Hell, if that is not enough, you may want to switch Roms for the weekend. Perhaps you prefer using the Sense UI at work, but want FROYO on the weekend. These choices can be set in advance and timed based on previously set perameters.
Please let me know what you think of this, it was something that I definitly thought was missing from the Sense UI.
Thank you
tyronius said:
Please let me know what you think of this, it was something that I definitly thought was missing from the Sense UI.
Thank you
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I really like that you took the idé and threw it out there. A great step forward. I like that you understood that finalizing the idé will be hard since you, the "inventor" don't have any development skills, such as programming.
This idé, almost excist. Based on different set of logical operations, like if it's 8 AM and my GPS position tells that I'm at work, it turns the phone down to silent for example. You can also connect different types of applications that should interact with this application, i.e. develop your own plugin for this program.
The app is called Locale and can do a **** load of things; http://www.twofortyfouram.com/
What it doesnt have is the personlization of the homescreens depending on logical operations. Sounds cool, but to get this to work with Sense will take a ****load of work, I would think that implement it to a launcher i.e. will be much easier. Maybe tip the guy behind http://www.launcherpro.com/ to have a look on this.
Cheers!
Something that may be easier than fiddling with homescreens is having a full screen widget that had a 4 x 4 grid of configurable shortcuts that you can setup as you wish for each "profile".
Developing a widget will be far easier than trying to interface with the large number of launchers/interfaces around.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
This is actually a great idea. SPB Mobile Shell on Windows Mobile has a similiar function. But doesn't do it automatic. What it has is a Lifestyle Home and a Professional Home. In each of them you get 3 screens left and right. But if you flick the screen up/down. it switches to the screens of Lifestyle and then to Professional.
While this idea is good, it's too much work to start it from nothing. It would be best do integrate it with one of the already homescreen alternatives out there (e.g. LauncherPro and the likes)
I used to love Locale until they started charging $10 for it... It's useful, but not THAT useful... Am I being a tightarse?
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
streetdaddy said:
I used to love Locale until they started charging $10 for it... It's useful, but not THAT useful... Am I being a tightarse?
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it also drains battery like crazy
I bought the pro version over 6 months ago and I absolutely love the concept. I look at all these beautiful widgets on mycolorscreen.com, and I have downloaded many of them. The problem I always run into is the following:
1. The scaling and size take forever to perfect. Sometimes you finally get it to the right size and scale, somehow it can become all distorted after a reboot or unknown event.
2. The widgets such as those use Media utilities often appear sluggish during operation. It's no smooth or fluid like the build-in widgets from apps like poweramp. Most complicated widgets are very sluggish even on Galaxy Note 3.
The other day I downloaded https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=axt.toosimpleactuallynot.zwskin which looks amazing on the Youtube video, and I followed the instructions to the T. After the 2nd home screen, the phone just hangs. Widgets don't refresh and eventually crashes.
I'm not sure if I'm missing something other users are doing to make Zooper widget actually function smoothly not just look pretty like a static image on the home screen. I am under the impression that Zooper may be trying to do too much and sacrificing performance.
I agree ... although perhaps it's from not having done any launcher changes since my first Android phone, nor have played with UCCW or any skin mods before. That and there is stil a lack of (slow) step-by-step tutorials of "here is what I made, and here is everything I did to make it happen" instead of having to know what the settings are that those that have been doing this already know.
I'm not complaining though - it's like many things that require weeks of trolling through forum posts to understand the lingo and the tools, then you play with them, then you troll through a zillion posts again and maybe ask a few questions in the newbie sections instead of the Expert sections, then you play with it again and pretty soon you realize that "Hey! You figured it out".
I don't want to be like the guy that just bought an Android phone and knows he needs bragging rights to having rooted it with a one-step tool but doesn't have any idea what to do next or if he bricks it.
Zooper Pro is frustrating because it is very powerful and customizable, but if it was one-step easy, everyone would have cool themes, and I certainly don't want my brother have a better looking phone than me if I haven't worked at it some, lol.
Hi guys
I Was Wondering if you could help me get organized.
like Many of you probably, I have both AnoteHD and Snote. And like Many of You again, I think a hybrid between the two would Work best. So I thought I Would share my Sentiments and ideas, and then we could look at the options and discuss apps.
I really like the UI of AnoteHD, but think it is very limited. Its Such a let down You cant even edit the position of the pictures you added once you drop them into a note. But otherwise I really like the folder options and stock note backgrounds.
Snote has a very comprehensive note taking/ making ability. However, its a little disappointing that you cannot group notes together or "bind them" after thier creation. this coupled with the boring and limited folder Method.
As far as calendar I like The way AnoteHD is setup or at least I think it is easier to work with, especially with to-do's which is the Majority of my interaction with this app. I feel as Though S planner May have potential but Just the fact it is giving me what seems like proprietary back talk about not syncing with my google calendar is annoying. Though I found a tread discussing that issue it seemed unclear to me if they resolved this issue. I tried as well and had no progress with it. Being able to draw on your calendar Seems like a relevant function and gives you more freedom than AnoteHD. Also, I believe S planner does not Show you past due tasks or upcoming tasks as Well as AnoteHD.
Some of the Useless functions between these two apps :
A-note HD: The ability to edit the creation date? (Is this for the procrastinater?)
Snote: All the different templates Seem a little Silly.
Is there away to Change the default search engine for the Knowledge Search from wolfalpha gram?
As far as other apps, I remember I Used to utilize Go launcher on my former HTC phone. However it Was Junked With Ads unless you paid for it. And to use their task app you need to Mask your Stock UI With theirs, which Im under the impression will eat More Memory and battery. If things have Changed With this app or you have another app to Recommend, please let me Know.
Tips and tricks are also Welcome.(please ease the random capitalizations) I'm interested to hear What works for You.
TheAndroid_isLearning said:
Hi guys
I Was Wondering if you could help me get organized.
like Many of you probably, I have both AnoteHD and Snote. And like Many of You again, I think a hybrid between the two would Work best. So I thought I Would share my Sentiments and ideas, and then we could look at the options and discuss apps.
I really like the UI of AnoteHD, but think it is very limited. Its Such a let down You cant even edit the position of the pictures you added once you drop them into a note. But otherwise I really like the folder options and stock note backgrounds.
Snote has a very comprehensive note taking/ making ability. However, its a little disappointing that you cannot group notes together or "bind them" after thier creation. this coupled with the boring and limited folder Method.
As far as calendar I like The way AnoteHD is setup or at least I think it is easier to work with, especially with to-do's which is the Majority of my interaction with this app. I feel as Though S planner May have potential but Just the fact it is giving me what seems like proprietary back talk about not syncing with my google calendar is annoying. Though I found a tread discussing that issue it seemed unclear to me if they resolved this issue. I tried as well and had no progress with it. Being able to draw on your calendar Seems like a relevant function and gives you more freedom than AnoteHD. Also, I believe S planner does not Show you past due tasks or upcoming tasks as Well as AnoteHD.
Some of the Useless functions between these two apps :
A-note HD: The ability to edit the creation date? (Is this for the procrastinater?)
Snote: All the different templates Seem a little Silly.
Is there away to Change the default search engine for the Knowledge Search from wolfalpha gram?
As far as other apps, I remember I Used to utilize Go launcher on my former HTC phone. However it Was Junked With Ads unless you paid for it. And to use their task app you need to Mask your Stock UI With theirs, which Im under the impression will eat More Memory and battery. If things have Changed With this app or you have another app to Recommend, please let me Know.
Tips and tricks are also Welcome.(please ease the random capitalizations) I'm interested to hear What works for You.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why narrow it down to two apps? Have you tried LectureNotes for note taking or looked into the functions of Write? Also, which SNote version are you using? I much prefer the one ported from the Note 3 because it has the extra functionality however not everyone agrees.
Just a few thoughts.
CCallahan said:
Why narrow it down to two apps? Have you tried LectureNotes for note taking or looked into the functions of Write? Also, which SNote version are you using? I much prefer the one ported from the Note 3 because it has the extra functionality however not everyone agrees.
Just a few thoughts.
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Click to collapse
Im interested so I'll check it out. I was rather more hoping this would turn into a discussion but I see it does not seem to strike a chord with anyone else. Either way thanks for the feed back. Ill give them a try.
TheAndroid_isLearning said:
Im interested so I'll check it out. I was rather more hoping this would turn into a discussion but I see it does not seem to strike a chord with anyone else. Either way thanks for the feed back. Ill give them a try.
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You might have better luck posting it in the "Themes and Apps" section. Just a thought.
CCallahan said:
You might have better luck posting it in the "Themes and Apps" section. Just a thought.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ahhh, I dont not even think of it. Since there was some personal gain for me as a result I put it in here. Maybe I'll repost or would a mod move it over if I asked?
Thanks,
It's been well over a year since MyColorScreen acquired Zooper, and Zooper's online presence is STILL a hideous mess. The official links at the Google Play store are broken, and even some of the reference links on this forum's sticky are dead. I can't even find an official blog post that isn't less than a year old. Zooper's documentation wasn't that good to begin with, and it looks like MyColorScreen has done absolutely nothing to improve it.
Here's my fear:
MyColorScreen is going to mothball Zooper so it won't compete with one of its future pet products (themer maybe). Zooper requires a huge time investment to use properly, and I don't want to lose that investment. I've been burned by this exact scenario with other successful apps.
PROVE ME WRONG, MYCOLORSCREEN... PLEASE! Get your support and reference material in one place and make it available. Communicate your plans for Zooper. If you're just "parking" the app until you figure out a business plan, then say so. We're on your side, so please don't screw us over.
Yeah.... You are so true.
But I have to add that they don't do anything to improve the App. Even their Promises regarding Zooper are just empty words. They promised to add multiple Timezone support, but nothing happens.... Still only possible for text....
brownblack said:
It's been well over a year since MyColorScreen acquired Zooper, and Zooper's online presence is STILL a hideous mess. The official links at the Google Play store are broken, and even some of the reference links on this forum's sticky are dead. I can't even find an official blog post that isn't less than a year old. Zooper's documentation wasn't that good to begin with, and it looks like MyColorScreen has done absolutely nothing to improve it.
Here's my fear:
MyColorScreen is going to mothball Zooper so it won't compete with one of its future pet products (themer maybe). Zooper requires a huge time investment to use properly, and I don't want to lose that investment. I've been burned by this exact scenario with other successful apps.
PROVE ME WRONG, MYCOLORSCREEN... PLEASE! Get your support and reference material in one place and make it available. Communicate your plans for Zooper. If you're just "parking" the app until you figure out a business plan, then say so. We're on your side, so please don't screw us over.
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Click to collapse
Well, they have apparently fixed their broken links. But their web presence is still awkward. Every link at the Play store points you to a support page which has a feedback forum, yet doesn't even mention these XDA forums. So is XDA still relevant? And one of the top hits from a google search takes you to the old zooper.org page which indeed directs you to these XDA forums. But a few people are still trying to post on the defunct zooper.org archives!
So as far as I can tell, there are 3 separate zooper forums that are unaware of each other. It's this kind of disjointed mess that makes me worry about the future of the product line.
I wouldn't of upgraded to pro had I known it was going to be abandonware myself. It was the first, and one of the few, apps I've upgraded to pro. Even if an update was months away it would be nice to know there's something going on.
bterrill said:
I wouldn't of upgraded to pro had I known it was going to be abandonware myself. It was the first, and one of the few, apps I've upgraded to pro. Even if an update was months away it would be nice to know there's something going on.
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Update just released. So far it looks to be just a ui update but at least its something.
jr67 said:
Update just released. So far it looks to be just a ui update but at least its something.
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The Google Play store is showing version 2.58 (Nov 2014) as the latest. Do you know of something more recent?
brownblack said:
The Google Play store is showing version 2.58 (Nov 2014) as the latest. Do you know of something more recent?
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Sorry, it must be a beta update. You can join the beta google+ group to get access. As far as I can tell its just a UI update nothing more.
Well it's something I guess. I never digged too deep and didn't even know someone bought this out a while back or whatever. Damn shame there's not more work being done though. I'm not on zooper beta but not even sure what ui would need updated unless there's finally support for better weather location things.
I guess I'll join the bandwagon on hoping work that matters to most of us is done .... eg variables and what not. I would even pay 4.99 or 5.99 for a diff version that had 3 updates a year to stuff that's fun to mess with. I must of spent the first 2 months straight on my galaxy playing with zooper... like hours on end
Thanks for the info jr67
Zooper is awesome!
While I agree that updates are great and there are things that would be nice to have added, I think the app is pretty awesome as is. I rarely feel like I run out of opportunities for new ways to customize my phone and tablet because it lends itself to so many possibilities. Now if they would only update their app Media Utilities to work correctly with Android Lollipop (Zooper can't display cover art and music information at the same time with Lollipop), I'd be all smiles!!
MyColorScreen kinda died
I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but according to my sources, MyColorScreen is dead and it's likely that they won't be coming back. I talked to a former MyColorScreen employee, about how to get a human response from MyColorScreen, and here was the interaction (Via Twitter)
@MarcoJHB I need a little help. How can I get in contact with mycolorscreen and get a human response?"
"@burner_studios sad to say but MCS is pretty much dead. Anything I can help with though?"
@MarcoJHB not really, but thanks for the info!"
Here is a link to the conversation.
https://twitter.com/burner_studios/status/631000884072349696
Why do I believe this?
1. MyColorScreen's last tweet was "All good things must come to an end. Follow @MarcoJHB to stay updated with his new ventures! https://youtu.be/kxFyq1I-g-I #dontstopcustomizing" and proves that the source is trustworthy.
2. The last update to Zooper Widget (free and pro) was 11/3/2015, Media Utilities was last updated 18/12/15, and Themer, MyColorScreen's main product, is no longer avalible on the Play Store.
3. The Zooper Widget beta community has a very old icon
4. The official MyColorScreen community had it's last "Screen of the day" post 19/3/2015.
5. The last "Question of the day" post in the aforementioned community was 19/3/2014.
6. Again with the aforementioned community, Marcos Agas is still a co-owner, despite him no longer being employed with MyColorScreen.
7. Again with the MyColorScreen Google+ community, there is essentially no moderation whatsoever.
8. MyColorScreen CEO Ashvin Dhingra last posted on Google+ 30/4/2014.
9. Ashvin's LinkedIn profile says "Co-Founder & CEO at Themer by MyColorScreen (acquired by IAC)"
10. On the Zooper Widget uservoice website, under "Report a Problem" you will find an item with 111 votes (As of this post) named "Editing interface HUGE lag" which is a bug that appears to be occurring on devices primarily running lollipop. It was reported on 5/5/2015, however I can testify that this has occurred on devices running 4.4 as early as 2014.
Based on that, I'd say that the information is fairly trustworthy.
So I suppose, the real question is, "What is OUR future with Zooper Widget?"
Are we going to decompile and update it ourselves, just like with steam?
Are we going to look for a new design tool to use?
Are we all just going to switch to using KLWP?
because I may know what the future of Zooper Widget is from the perspective of MyColorScreen, but we have great developers in this community that could keep the app going now that MCS stopped doing so.
That sad news, I dont like KWLP I stay with Zooper Widget I made like 200+ widgets. I hope someone acquire ZW and gonna develop it further
I tried kwlp but I hate ui and everything is unorganized.. In Zooper is nice and simple organised. What alternatives do we have? Can't find anything that match zooper customization and easy to use.
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I'm not a fan of KLWP. Looks like the people who did Themer and Zooper just moved on to another app and abandoned the others.
Sent from my Nexus 6 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Has anybody tried Make Your Own Clock Widget? It seems to do a lot more than just clocks
ewa12321 said:
That sad news, I dont like KWLP I stay with Zooper Widget I made like 200+ widgets. I hope someone acquire ZW and gonna develop it further
I tried kwlp but I hate ui and everything is unorganized.. In Zooper is nice and simple organised. What alternatives do we have? Can't find anything that match zooper customization and easy to use.
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Click to collapse
I completely agree with you on that front. I already have invested so much into zooper widget development that I'm willing to push it to, and far past its limits. Although I don't expect IAC to let someone else acquire zooper widget until the profits from it begin to decrease.
But yeah zooper hasn't hit the end of its lifespan just yet. In the end it's developers that decide when that happens.
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What other widget maker I can recommend is Buzz Widget. Easy to use some functions are really cool wish to have some in Zooper Widget: bigger preview, tap hold and move object with your finger (optional), filter widgets by show only clocks, weather widgets, music widgets etc only disadvantage is that to share download stuff from other people it's recommend to download Buzz Launcher and idk if it works with Tasker and no support with Kolorette . Worth trying.
Maybe UCCW lots of skins similar to Zooper
That's not fair, Themer got update and Zooper Widget nothing since March
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Another update, KWGT by the team of KLWP is now in development.
Yeah... Bye bye zooper.
Further information found here: https://plus.google.com/+FrankMonzas/posts/9PpjCce44PL
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firebirdfilms said:
Another update, KWGT by the team of KLWP is now in development.
Yeah... Bye bye zooper.
Further information found here: https://plus.google.com/+FrankMonzas/posts/9PpjCce44PL
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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's the death blow to Zooper. They walked away from Themer and Zooper do they really think that they won't walk away from this?
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KLWP and KWGT are developed by "Kustom industries" hailing from Italy. MCS is from California, and has had no known interaction with kustom industries. Also KI only has 4 apps they are working on including pro keys, and KWGT reuses a lot of code from KLWP. So I'm not really worried.
Yet.
Just found this thread, so, for anyone trying to understand what's the difference between KWGT and the other widgets around i have filled up a list of Kustom advantages over Zooper / UCCW on the main thread, i will list them here just for clarity:
How is KWGT better than Zooper, Buzz, Mycw or UCCW??
You have Komponents which are like widgets inside widgets or reusable items inside the editor. So for example you can create a clock and redistribute it as a module for KWGT, users will just add your clock and change the options you expose (like colors and font), there are many examples online on the store already or you can check the dedicated thread above
You can download content directly from HTTP, so you can have a Google Map with the city you are in directly in the widget background if you want, or use Street View, or you can have a Komponent that does that for you like this, you can add it with one click
You have global variables, so you can set a color once and then use it whenever you like, so, when you want to change it you just change the global and it will change the color everywhere in one click, this allows users of your theme to change color easily
You can create touch actions that will hide / show elements based on touch, so you can show full weather data when someone clicks on a weather icon and then hide it automatically after X seconds
You have containers, so you can group items inside an object, move them together, apply effects and rotation to the entire group
You have built in music support, so music will work without any additional tool, no music utilities needed, it just works
You have more effects, like long shadows, morphable text, blur images and so on
You can extract colors from images, cover art or anything downloaded from the internet (like kolorette does, but builtin)
You can use formulas on any property you like, no need to use "advanced parameters", you just turn a property into a formula and then you can do anything you like
You have full support for different location, so you can apply a location to any group and make a world clock in seconds, locations are then easily accessible from the settings
You have much more functions, you can download text from HTTP, use regular expressions, parse RSS, XML and JSON, do math with dates, create timers
Much better resizing, the widget will resize automatically and touch will always work on any module regardless of the orientation
A wizard to create APK skins in seconds without any Android development knowledge or additional tool except the JDK
Last but not least from my measurement battery usage difference between KWGT and the others is like 1/100th (not kidding, you can try yourself with a good battery monitor like better battery stats plus, Kustom has 2 processes so you can clearly see the difference between the editor and the real widget/wallpaper service)
@Katt50 / @ewa12321 what's wrong with KWGT UI? anything i can improve? BTW i have absolutely no intention of stopping the development anytime soon, it might slow down at a certain point (i am now releasing a new version every 3 weeks because i have a HUGE todo list) but i will always try to do my best to add new stuff, so if you have any suggestion glad to help
frankmonza said:
@Katt50 / @ewa12321 what's wrong with KWGT UI? anything i can improve? BTW i have absolutely no intention of stopping the development anytime soon, it might slow down at a certain point (i am now releasing a new version every 3 weeks because i have a HUGE todo list) but i will always try to do my best to add new stuff, so if you have any suggestion glad to help
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here's my problem...
Most of the people involved were the same people that abandoned Themer. And abandoned Zooper. I was active in the Themer G+ Community and see many names that were active there
How do I know that in a year that you decide to move on to a different app and just abandoned KWLP? Personally, I have not played around with KWLP much but I didn't find it easy to use for a beginner at all.
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