Author Topic: Android intervals app  (Read 1715 times)

David Martin

  • Thats Dr Oi You thankyouverymuch
Android intervals app
« on: 31 December, 2013, 04:07:43 pm »
I've thrown together a pretty basic Android app for interval timing. All it does is tell you which session you are in (warm up, hard effort, recovery, between set recovery, warm down) by text and colour (so you don't have to read the screen, just look for the colour change)

You can configure the warm up time, the effort duration, recovery duration, number of efforts in a set, number of sets and the gap between sets. I am considering adding some sound to it (if I can persuade one of the local coaches to do some voice recording) or just beeps when it changes state.

It is Android only. First draft is at https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-7w4ITqudI_ejF2TGVxVnhOUzQ/edit - You need to set your display to not timeout, and to allow installation of non-market apps.

Comments etc welcome.
"By creating we think. By living we learn" - Patrick Geddes

thing1

  • aka Joth
    • TandemThings
Re: Android intervals app
« Reply #1 on: 13 January, 2014, 11:36:11 pm »
Sounds useful - I'll dig out a test phone and give it a try.

I've started using one of those 'plank challenge' apps recently, amazing how useful a stop-watch app is when pre-programmed with a couple simple instructions.


Couple small tips on the app, in case they're helpful:-

>You need to set your display to not timeout
- If you want to, the fix for the is pretty simple: just call View.setKeepScreenOn(true) (or set layout property "android:keepScreenOn") on a view of appropriate lifetime, or while the intervals are being done. Unlike various other approaches, no special app permissions needed for this one. (I'm cribbing this from the previous project I assisted in fixing this for)

- I noticed the app is being allocated READ_PHONE_STATE permission, is this intentional? It's probably side effect of not setting a targetSdk level (see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1747178/android-permissions-phone-calls-read-phone-state-and-identity).
  Note you can safely "target" the highest SDK level you test on (so e.g. you set android:targetSdkVersion=19 if you test on kitkat) and the app will still install on phones back to whatever you set as min SDK - see http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/manifest/uses-sdk-element.html. (These days targeting 14 - 19 and having a min of 9 is pretty typical)

David Martin

  • Thats Dr Oi You thankyouverymuch
Re: Android intervals app
« Reply #2 on: 14 January, 2014, 12:21:37 am »
It was thrown together in a few hours in appinventor so is a bit limited in functionality. I'll bear your suggestions in mind for a future version in java.
"By creating we think. By living we learn" - Patrick Geddes