Hello everyone,
Today I’m releasing the newest version in attempts to resolve alot of issues with the app. As you probably have noticed, I’ve taken about an 8 month sabbatical from programming. I know alot of people have noticed problems with the app and have communicated with me about the app. There are a few reasons for the hiatus. Mainly, I have worked so hard to get this app to work on all of the many Android devices out there. I am just a guy learning to program and loving it, but I do this in my spare time, and the only tools I have available to me are my Droid 1 and the emulators in the MotoDev Studio. The most frustrating thing is when the app works on my device, all the emulators, and every version of Android (1.6 to 2.2), but then the app break when released to the world. The last few versions were released mainly to tackle the problems between devices, mainly with uploading, to no avail. The frustration and difficulty of developing without the resources and time of a business seem large at times. You might also notice the almost 9 month time difference between posts. My wife and I are on our 1st baby, and I thought it would be worth the time to focus on our new beginning…
Recently I have been putting all my efforts to fix the problems in this app. I’m excited about this release because I believe this will fix many or most of the errors that people are seeing with the app. Please test this app for me and provide feedback on this post, my Flickr page (http://www.flickr.com/services/apps/72157622918619247/), or in the comments of the app. I hate the fact that so many of you have had problems with uploading, logging in, etc, for the majority of this year, but I’m back at work to fix these errors. I’ve invested so much time and devotion to the app that I resolved not to be finished with it. I know the comments and ratings are very low, but the app has many great features and is still the best Android app for Flickr, and it will only improve.
I’ve added the changelog for this version at the bottom of the post, but I want to go over some of the fixes in this version. I should also state that I have a ton of ideas for added features in the next release, so look forward to that. There are many areas I still want to expand this app to, and, as always, your suggestions, critisisms, help and collaboration are welcome.
Fixes for Current Issues:
- Uploading photos:
I’ve analyzed the errors that people are sending me, and I believe I have fixed the problems. There are multiple ways to upload photos to Flickr with this app (take a photo on the fly, upload a stored photo from the application, or share photos from the Android Gallery or other apps). These funtions have all been updated, and should work smoothly.
- Login in / authenticating the app:
Alot of users have complained that the current way to search for an account are very limited; the app currently allows you to search by username or email address. Many people have no idea what their Flickr username is. Unfortunately, this is the only 2 ways that Flickr allows us to authenticate the app.
To find your username for Flickr:
- expand the ‘You’ tab and go to ‘Your Account’.
- Your Username will show up as “Your screen name”.
You can edit this in Flickr after you have logged in / authenticated the app and won’t have a problem. But if you are having problems authenticating, it’s one of two things: 1) You aren’t using your ‘screen name’ as the Username, or have the incorrect email when authenticating with an email address, or 2) your permissions are not allowing the app to find you.
If you are using the correct username or email address when authenticating and are unable to find your account, you need to change the privacy in Flickr to allow third-party apps to search for you.
- Login to Flickr, and expand the ‘You’ tab, and go to ‘Your Account’
-Click on the ‘Privacy & Permissions’ tab
-Navagate to ‘Hide your profile from public searches’ and click ‘Edit’ to the right
-in this section you’ll need to uncheck ‘Hide me from site-wide searches on flickr.com and on 3rd party sites that use the API?’ . Unchecking this allows the Flickr Droid app to find your Username and authenticate you to use Flickr on your phone
- Other main errors / crashes: I’ve found some errors that some people have encountered, and found out that it is due to a lack of internet connectivity, or intermitent connectivity, that interferes with the communication with Flickr. I’ve added proper error handling to display dialogs and messages telling the user of the issue, instead of having the app crash.
That’s all, for now. Please give the new version a try and post your comments. I appreciate the continued support…
ChangeLog:
v 2.4.0
–fix error with uploading photo when sharing photo from the android gallery (UploadSavedPhoto)
-this produced a FC on alot of devices.
-changed the way we find the absolute path of the photo on the phone so we can upload. Should return the correct path everytime. If it doesn’t, it will popup a dialog box with an explanation of the error instead of the FC
– fixed errors and bugs when uploading photos from main ativity > ‘Take Photo’ and ‘Upload Photo’
– fixed error when trying to use ‘Take Photo’ on a phone that doesn’t have a camera or doesn’t support that function
- instead of an FC, user will see a popup telling them that this function is unsupported on their phone
– fixed the issue with scrolling the main screen in Android 2.2
– fixed the issue with scrolling in the ‘Comments’ and ‘Details’ tabs in DisplaySinglePhotoTabs
– fixed ‘Set as Wallpaper’ function in DisplaySinglePhotoTabs.
- no longer trying to open the android Wallpaper activity. After 2.0, Android doesn’t let you call their
activity (they removed intent filters)
-using WallpaperManager class to set wallpaper
– fixed the error that sometimes popped when uploading a photo. The crash was due to MediaScannerConnection.connect().
- changed the code to only use this function when necessary, and to use it correctly.
– added alot of error handling for issues not handled before. Added alot of Exceptions to catch issues like no internet connection, no response from Flickr, unable to find referenced photos, unable to upload, etc. This will make sure that the user will see a popup explaining issues that arrise, and don’t see as many Force Closes.
– updated the Italian and German translation of the app. A big thanks to Massimiliano Arione (for the Italian
translation) and Nils Berg (for the German translation)
– Changed the layout for many pages (Contacts, Upload Photo, Collections, Sets, etc)
-It is now a ListView to allow the user to easily see all the items, and there is no need to display a
few items per page, but all the items can be displayed and the user can scroll through the items
