Khanjahan Ali College Of Science & Technology

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14/02/2018

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17/01/2018

Cordova - Android Programming IDE Overview

First developed by a company called Nitobi, Cordova was originally known as PhoneGap. In 2011, Adobe bought Nitobi and contributed PhoneGap to the Apache Foundation. Apache changed the name to Cordova (although Adobe still oversees a separate project called PhoneGap). It is a cross-platform mobile development framework that allows developers to write apps in HTML, CSS and JavaScript and then deploy them to any mobile platform. It requires a little bit more technical knowhow to install and run than Adobe PhoneGap. Note that it requires installation of Android Studio.

Developer/Owner: Apache Software Foundation

17/01/2018

Appcelerator Titanium - Android Programming IDE Overview

Axway acquired Appcelerator, the original Titanium developer, in 2016. Axway kept the Appcelerator brand name for its mobile development platform, and Titanium as the name for the open source IDE and SDK within the platform. The company claims that the Appcelerator platform "powers mobility for 70 percent of the Fortune 100." Its users include Avis, Bed Bath & Beyond, Comerica

17/01/2018

App Inventor - Android Programming IDE Overview

Originally created by Google, App Inventor is now maintained by MIT. Unlike most of the IDEs on this list, the App Inventor aims at helping students and other new developers create their first Android apps. It works right in the browser, so users don't have to download anything (although the source code is also available). It boasts more than 6.8 million users from more than 195 countries, and they have used the tool to create more than 24 million apps.

Developer/Owner: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

17/01/2018

AIDE (Android IDE) - Android Programming IDE Overview

Downloaded more than 2 million times, AIDE allows you to develop Android apps or websites from your Android device. It includes interactive programming lessons for beginning developers and lets you earn stars as you progress in your coding abilities. You can download it from Google Play, where it has a 4.3 star rating.

17/01/2018

Xamarin Forms: Refresh Data Using MessagingCenter

When developing mobile applications, we come across scenarios where there is a requirement to display a list of cart items and there is a page where we can add items to the cart. Items that are added to the detail page need to be refreshed on the cart list. The list can be refreshed whenever the view appears. However, loading the data every time the view appears may not be the best way to do it because it will make a call to the server when not required. In this article, we will use MessagingCenter's publish and subscribe model to refresh the cart data.

Description of the MessagingCenter Example
We will create a Xamarin Forms application with any target platforms—Android/iOS. Because MessagingCenter is platform independent, the code is required only on the Forms project. We will use the FreshMVVM pattern to implement the solution. In this sample app, we create a page that displays the list of available colors and another page to add colors to the list.

Xamarin Forms Level Changes
In the Xamarin Forms project, add two files: 'SampleAppPage.Xaml' and 'AddColorsPage.Xaml', both of type 'Forms ContentPage Xaml'. Also, add two new class files named 'SampleAppPageModel.cs' and 'AddColorsPageModel.cs'. 'SampleAppPage.Xaml' displays a list of colors in a list view. 'AddColorsPage.Xaml' is the page where we can add new color names to the list.

17/01/2018

Exploring the Android SDK and AVD Managers

In this short tutorial, we are going to cover two useful tools for keeping your development packages up to date and for emulating the testing devices. The former is called SDK Manager, which integrates easy updates for the Software Development Kit (SDK), including tools, platforms, and other components into packages. The latter is AVD Manager, which allows you to create and manage Android Virtual Devices (AVDs). AVDs are basically device emulators.

Both tools are accessible through the graphical interface of Google's own Android development environment, Android Studio, as shown in Figure 1 or through the command line. If you are not familiar with it, you can check out the reference section at the end of this article or our previous tutorial, "Using Android Studio". The goal of this tutorial is to at least point out the most common usage popular among developers and explain some different options.

17/01/2018

Working with a Camera in Android

A camera is perhaps one of the most desirable hardware features among the regular mobile phone functionalities. It goes beyond the traditional purpose of just taking pictures. Modern mobile cameras, as shown in Figure 1, also do on-the-fly image processing, object recognition, 3-D photo capture, security authentication, virtual reality, and so on. With the gigantic selection of versatile camera apps, many things become excitingly possible.

We will cover the basics of what the Android Camera API can do, with simple examples included to make learning easier. Although many apps are still utilizing the deprecated Camera API, we should be gearing towards the currently recommended Camera2 API, introduced in API level 21. We suggest you keep the Android software development kit up to date. If you need some help with that, please check out the previous tutorial, "Exploring the Android SDK and AVD Managers."

And, because the Camera2 API package is still not widely discussed, there are really not many references or examples you can find out there. Google's own developer advocate did point out some examples, so you should at least check out Camera2Basic, which demostrates how to get camera characteristics, get a camera preview, and save pictures.

17/01/2018

OAuth with Xamarin Forms Passive Authentication for iOS Apps

There are scenarios where we need to authenticate against an API that has its own OAuth. The user gets redirected to their API authentication site and it returns a token to the calling app. This process is a passive authentication because the user does not key the credentials in the app directly. In this article, we will learn how to do a passive authentication in Xamarin Forms for iOS.

Description
To begin with, we will create a Xamarin Forms application with a target platform as iOS. Passive authentication will be implemented at the iOS level using 'SFSafariViewControllerDelegate'.

17/01/2018

Developing with Live Video Technology

No matter the industry, there is an expectation that business transactions will happen quickly. This is evident in the evolution of e-mail to Slack, blogging to tweeting—communication is becoming more synchronous. We now are pushing that immediacy even further, with the emergence of live video as a medium. Just look at the adoption of apps like Instagram Live, Doctor on Demand, and Houseparty.

Why is this happening now? There are the obvious factors, such as hardware advancements, improvements to network connectivity, and shifts in consumer behavior. But, one of the key catalysts is advances in communications technology—or, more specifically, Web Real-Time Communications (WebRTC).

17/01/2018

Adding Basic Android Text-To-Speech to Your Apps

Text-to-Speech (TTS), also known as speech synthesis, in Android is an easy yet powerful feature you can use to supplement your apps in terms of benefiting your users in a thoughtful way. For people who have learning disabilities, visual impairment, or many other things going on at the same time, this simple addition will make their lives a lot easier and your apps friendlier. The applications or devices utilizing TTS technology cover a large variety of areas—education, mobile technologies, screen readers, communications, disabilities, and so forth.

Android TTS API offers multiple-language support, control of voice characteristics and features, file output, and so on. With just a small number of lines of code, you can make your apps reach out to a wider audience. Needless to say, you will see more and more apps that support this feature, so yours also should take advantage of it and follow suit in the the modern software trend.