Android App

Bob - W7KWS -

William,

I think I understand what you are facing here but I would encourage you to publish your work less the audio? There are many ways to deal with audio on the side & I think there would be a large appetite & appreciation for what you have achieved.

An example is Pocket RxTx and Pocket RxTx+ in the play store. It has a couple of bugs & its audio is is difficult but many of us love it. I use seperate audio & it works well.

Adding your work would be a fantistic step forward.

Thanks for your consideration,

Bob

Walt - KZ1F

Mark, I believe his source was published already.

R2AGG

hi friends on hobby! very interested in the management of my flex6500 through android. tell me where I can download the version presented here? Respect for author of project.

Chris DL5NAM

Check this tread and you will found the link. Only 3 pages ;-)

R2AGG

Chris, I looked the all pages and found only the first version without waterfall and waveforms. Poke a finger in a message with the correct link. I'd like to try on my Tab 10.5 Thanks,

James Whiteway

First version is all that's available. Panafall version has never been released. James WD5GWY

Roy Finch

Hi all this seems to have dried up. What a shame as there seems to be no android version of the app used on the iPad. Is this still a work in progress ? Roy

W5XZ - dan

I hope so too, roy...but i'm NO programmer..

73, dan

Bob KN4HH

My Galaxy Tab 2 is jealous.  Guess I will have to keep my parallels Access account for a while longer. 

mdjdmi

This work showed a lot of promise but William seems to have gone on to other things. It's a shame because I think there are a lot of Android users that would pay for a polished app to operate their F6k series radios. I know I would. SO far, looks like K6TU has the only tablet (iPad) thing going.
73 de Arnie W8DU

KY6LA_Howard

There is also the soon to be released DL8MRE app for iPad

The issue with Android is that unlike iOS which is consistent among its implementations and devices Android tends to be a dogs breakfast in that it varies greatly between editions and equipment vendors and even between models within a specific vendor.  So the reason you are less likely to see an Android emulation is that it ends up being a great deal of hard work for the developers not only to write the code, but also to make it work with different hardware vendors and models and then even more work to keep it running when Android inevitably changes...

mdjdmi

Thanks for that info and perspective Howard. I had never really thought about the difficulties in coding for all the different flavors or Android as compared to the relatively uniform flavor of IOS. It's a shame because the price difference between buying an Android tablet is substantial as compared to the price of an iPad, not to mention how much easier it is to interface hardware to an Android tablet.

mdjdmi

Where can I find out more about the DL8MRE app?

GI4FZD

try his qrz page for links
cheers

mdjdmi

Never mind, I found it. Looks awesome. Let's hope it does all it aspires to do! Too bad it is not expected until Q3 2016 or later.

Walt - KZ1F

Howard, that is patently uninformed. Just as with iOS, new features are added, new code GUI linking is available. It goes forward not backwards. More FUD. And, yes i do write for Android, do you?

Walt - KZ1F

The way android development works is, externally, the developer specifies the target and source SDK levels. Just as with Java, C#, MFC, .NET, there are always functions that are deprecated. This means they are marked for future removal. However, the Android SDK comes with past version support such that if you have a program you want to be runnable on Android I (ice cream sandwich) but you are building it against Android N, in beta now, you specify that in you project environment and it just builds that way. If, on the other hand, you built an app with a floor of Android L, Lollipop, and an API introduced in Android Lollipop was used, user running Android K, KitKat, would be unable to run it. This is no different than SSDR can not run on .net 3.5. if the app was built to have a floor of Android K, it would run on K,LM, and N.

EA4GLI

I would love an Android client!

Walt - KZ1F

XPSLib and XPSSDR make heavy use of java 8 features. If I were to move it to Android now I would need to run it through a post processor, retrolambda, to modify the byte code to change all lambda expressions to anonymous class invocation. That might not pick up all java 8 features in use. Android N, GA this fall, natively supports all of java 8 features so no kludges are required. Further, Google has native in-app purchase support such that the whole shack control version of XPSSDR would be available for subscription. For those interested, the reason it is not available now is linux Mac and Windows have no, or certainty no common in app purchase (licensing) support.

KY6LA_Howard

http://ham-radio-apps.com/radioapp-flexradio-signature-series-software-defined-radio-sdr-client/

Walt - KZ1F

That's kind of neat, good job. I don't happen to have an IPad nor will I get one.
As I appear so fond of saying, that's why they invented chocolate, as not everybody prefers vanilla. Again, it's not a zero sum game.

Steve-N5AC

Walt, we also investigated doing Android work.  I talked with a friend that owns a mobile development company that works on Android and iOS, did research on forums, etc. and the universal complaints from developers were that code developed on one platform would not always run on another.  When we were serious about this, we investigated if we could solve the problem and we found companies that do nothing but test on all the platforms and tell developers where things do not work.  You know if there are companies springing up to solve the problem it is a real one.  The other complaint was that developers were not as able to charge as much for Android apps as for iOS apps.  This complaint wasn't as universal as the first but it was there.  I believe this is because Apple is skimming the margin from the cell phone market and the customers willing to pay more for the phone will also do this for apps, but this is my speculation.  But the Android dogs breakfast comment Howard made is the real deal.

Walt - KZ1F

Proof of the pudding... For myself, I prefer writing code that is portable, which is what I've done. As for debating this with Howard, I don't debate how something works with someone who's never done it

IW7DMH, Enzo

I would give a chance to Embarcadero Rad Studio that is the smartest and powerful development tool. It has also one of the best tech support. 
Development unification process is the real challenge today and sooner or later this aspect should be taken into great consideration.

Walt - KZ1F

By way of addendum. My comments were addressed to Howard's assertion. You (Steve) and I have already addressed what platforms FRS will support and why. That ship has sailed. Again, proof of the pudding... If somebody broke Android, which I did not believe people were allowed to do and still call it Android, I can not address that. I believe I have addressed how to build an app that runs on older releases of Android than that which it is built against. This is really the wrong forum, IMHO, to be discussing developing commercial grade software.

Walt - KZ1F

Back in the very early days of Java, before, say Java 5, the joke was Write Once, Debug Everywhere...the FUD put out by Microsoft as a slur on Write Once Run Everywhere. Java 1.0 - 1.4.3 was all considered Java 1. Starting with 5 they broke that and referred to the version as 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 soon as they were all, 'just that different' from Java v1.  This was because Swing, which used AWT did have issues with graphical widgets like mice which required OS specific implementations. This is why they developed SWT, Standard Widget Toolkit, which provided much fast and much better consistency across platforms, than AWT. IBM built their entire Eclipse environment around SWT, still Java BTW. Most developers think of Eclipse as a really good Integrated Development Environment (IDE). Eclipse, as IBM would tell folks, was a container for anything, or nothing at all. That means it was a container, not strictly a Java IDE. IBM also positioned Eclipse as a cross platform common container for RIA, (Rich Internet Applications). One could argue SSDR for Windows is an RIA, very powerful presentation graphics, fully internet capable. As Java evolved, it initially had a daughter project called JavaFX. JavaFX went through several generations. Now, JavaFX8 is now part and parcel part of the Java8 rt.jar, run time archive (think dll). So if what Steve was referring to is vintage 2005 or earlier, then yes there was some truth to that stmt then. So, as I had told Steve when he and I discussed this years ago, I am not questioning or trying to relitigate decisions made a long time ago when such decisions on the 6000 series was being made. But this is 2016 and the environment has shifted dramatically. IOS had an earlier start than did Android so naturally, especially initially, it would have been a bit more mature as an environment.
   So the Write Once, Debug everywhere FUD on Write Once, Run Everywhere, has been laid a relic. It never was terribly relevant as Sun wrote AWT and once SWT came along there was far greater viability in the cross platform development space.
   I would ask, especially those incensed, to understand that the reason I don't pontificate on what can and cannot be done with .NET and C# is because that is NOT my space. Designing and writing multi-platform systems IS.

Walt - KZ1F

For anyone who would like to see how well a JavaFX8 app runs on their Android, I encourage you to download Ensemble8 to your Android from the PlayStore.

Chris DL5NAM

Walt, i install it. if i start i get always a stop message. it's not run here at my Android 6.0.1

Walt - KZ1F

I think I have been running it since 5.0 and now I am on 6.0.1. Hmmm. So what hapens with Marshmallow (V6) is apps as they are loaded get compiled into executable code..native code. So unlike when I ran that same app with 5.x it would start w/i a second or so. Now it takes a little longer. I also have 2GB of main memory and 32GB or external...as I develop on it. I also have a Nexus 9. I know James with a Nexus 7 ran the stuff William did FB. The app itself demos virtually every non-3D control available in JFX8. Another app that is fun, written in Java, for a pre-KitKat version of Android is Infinite Virtual Slide Rule. That is nice as it is a really good job on very high res graphics. Try googling your make/model Android and Ensemble8. Or, you can tell me and I can research it. It has always worked fine for me but this is the Android tablet I have. Does it stop and go back to the screen or just say stop and continue? Are you doing that on a tablet or phone? I never tried it on a phone. But, thanks for the feedback, even though I didn't write the app. It was an app I was serendipitously pointed to it to demo how every control in FX8 would look on an Android. I was very impressed. Infinite slide rule is impressive too, esp for those that recall using a slide rule.

Walt - KZ1F

For what it's worth, it runs on my wife's Nexus 7, which also has 2GB of main memory. That could be the issue, in the case of Ensemble8.