Many Android and non-Android projects automate the task of building and deploying software using continuous integration, CI for short. In the context an Android app, an app might be distributed to the Play Store or Firebase App distribution, or integration tests might be run on Firebase Test Lab. All of these steps interact with Google APIs which require authentication.
Read more →At this years Lowlands festival and IFLA World Library Congress we presented the Poem Booth, an installation that takes an image of you and the surroundings and creates a beautiful unique poem. The Poem Booth is a collaboration between VOUW and Little Robots. VOUW created the concept and the physical Poem Booth, and Little Robots has created the software and technology used.
Read more →Signing in to an app with your email address and clicking a link can be very convenient. There are no passwords to remember and just by signing in you also verify your email address. This option is also provided with Firebase Authentication and there’s documentation on how to integrate this form of sign-in to your app.
Read more →I’m proud to announce that my new Android app, drumbox, has been released!
Read more →If you are building Android apps, you can’t really go without a continuous integration system (ci) to
compile your code, run your tests and automate various other tasks. There are many ci systems out there,
but for my personal projects I tend to rely on a Jenkins instance that I host myself. I’m using a little shared library
I created to make building Android apps easier, while keeping the Jenkinsfile concise.
The rxlint check for RxJava code has been updated to version 1.7.5. This version is a bug fix that updates the packaging of the lint check itself; there are no updates to the lint checks contained. If you are using Android Gradle Plugin version 3.5 and up, you should upgrade to 1.7.5 to ensure the check keeps working.
Read more →Since the beginning of this year, I’ve been working on a new product called Name Tag Printer. Name Tag Printer enables you to print name tags for your event, at your event. This not only gives you professional looking name tags, but also real time event statistics. After a private testing period, trying out the app at various events, Name Tag Printer is now available for everyone as beta release!
Read more →The rxlint check for RxJava has been updated to version 1.7.0. In this version there are exciting new features:
support for some OnError* operators and RxKotlin and AutoDispose support!
Around the new year, I released an update for Rainy Days, the doppler radar app that I originally created in 2009(!) and was effectively the start of my Android career. Today, version 3.1.1 is rolling out, which fixes a couple of issues from that release.
Rainy Days today still does what it did since its inception: showing you accurate doppler rain radar on Google Maps, as fast as possible. Unlike apps that use a single map for the entire world, Rainy Days shows you the best available data for your location.
The latest version brings a refreshed look and updates to performance and a more efficient data use. I hope you’ll like the update, while I’ll keep working on the next one :)
Read more →Here’s another update to rxlint, adding a new check this time for RxJava 2 that will warn you if you are using a default scheduler in an operator.
Read more →Rxlint 1.5 is now available with two important changes.
Read more →At I/O, Google announced their Architecture Components effort for Android. This effort contains of a guide and a couple of libraries that help you implementing the “reference” architecture. One of these libraries is Room. Going forward, Room will be the official Android persistence library.
Read more →RxLint, the lint check that helps you to write better RxJava code, has been updated with a couple of important changes.
Read more →A new version Cupboard was released last week. For those that don’t know, Cupboard is a library to simplify working with SQLite, mapping objects to and from the database without getting in your way.
Full changes for this release are in the changelog.
Read more →Spoiler and short answer: nothing!
Read more →I have been banging my head on this one for a while, and now that I finally get it I thought I might write this down.
Read more →Using RxJava in a project has many advantages, but learning rx can be a bit challenging. And with learning, it’s easy to make mistakes :)
Read more →Into the 2nd year of Little Robots and it was an exciting year! With the new year approaching, it’s time to look back at 2015.
Read more →Great news! The Unofficial Android SDK authored by Little Robots for the PunchThrough LightBlue Bean will transfer into the Official Android SDK.
Read more →RecyclerView is a great class that you should consider over ListView for building list interfaces. It offers more flexibility and has
built-in hooks that make implementing animations and custom layouts much easier compared to ListView.
Back and still a bit jet lagged, I had an amazing time at Google I/O. There were a lot of exciting announcements, but this is my top 3:
Read more →In Android builds, pre dexing helps to speed up the build for incremental builds. On a CI server, where you usually run a clean build, pre dexing is only adding extra time to the build without any added value. There’s already a tip on the Tools site on this, but how do you disable pre dex for all project on your build server?
Read more →Recently, Facebook released a tool called Stetho, which let’s you inspect your Android app from the Chrome Developer tools. I find that particularly nifty because it also provides access to any SQLite databases used in the app. Obviously, this type of tools should only be included in debug builds of your app. Here’s a nice way to accomplish that.
Read more →Consider this blog a continuation of my personal blog at code.neenbedankt.com. On this site you'll find (technical) articles related to Android and updates on Little Robots in general.
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