• issue #33 Enable uploaded photo title modification
• issue #41 Malformed Gallery 2 URL leads to G2Android forced close
• issue #37 Uploaded photo looses .jpg file extension
• issue #42 Feature Suggestion: Provide automatic login when started
• issue #20 Share via camera app?
• issue #15 Enhancement: Add multiple photo uploading

The major new feature is clearly the « add photo to gallery » feature : I created a new Activity, UploadPhoto , which can be called from 2 external intents :

AndroidManifest.xml

 <activity android:name=".activity.UploadPhoto" android:label="@string/upload_photo_title" >
                        <intent -filter>
                                        <action android:name="android.intent.action.SEND" />
                                        <action android:name="android.intent.action.SEND_MULTIPLE" />
                                        <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
                                        <data android:mimeType="image/*" />
                        </intent>
 </activity>

So now the user can send a new photo or a batch of photos from another application, the android gallery app for example; the big work was then to decode the URIs of the photos to find the photo file on the phone, and then send it to the gallery; also I had to make sure that the user is still connected to the gallery, if not, he must login again.

Also, the user is now able to take a picture and send it to his gallery, without leaving g2android; this has been done adding the camera permission in the AndroidManifest.xml :

<uses -permission android:name="android.permission.CAMERA"></uses>

This is the easy part
Then, when your app receive a photo from the Camera, it does not receive an URI pointing to a photo file; nope, you get a Bitmap object you have transform into a file, to be able to send it to the remote gallery :

UploadPhoto

                                                Bundle extras = intent.getExtras();
                                                Bitmap bm = null;
                                                Object o = extras.get("data");
                                                if (o != null && o instanceof Bitmap) {
                                                        bm = (Bitmap) o;
                                                        try {
                                                                StringBuilder stringBuilder = new StringBuilder();
                                                                stringBuilder.append(Settings
                                                                                .getG2AndroidPath(this));
                                                                stringBuilder.append("/");
                                                                StringBuilder stringBuilderFileName = new StringBuilder();
                                                                stringBuilderFileName.append(fileName);
                                                                stringBuilderFileName
                                                                                .append(System.currentTimeMillis());
                                                                stringBuilderFileName.append(".jpg");
                                                                stringBuilder.append(stringBuilderFileName);
                                                                imageFromCamera = new File(
                                                                                stringBuilder.toString());
                                                                FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream(
                                                                                imageFromCamera);
                                                                bm.compress(CompressFormat.JPEG, 100, fos);
                                                                fos.flush();
                                                                fos.close();
 
                                                                mImageUri=Uri.fromFile(imageFromCamera);
                                                                fileName = stringBuilderFileName.toString();
 
                                                        } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
                                                                ShowUtils.getInstance().alertFileProblem(e.getMessage(),this);
                                                        } catch (IOException e) {
                                                                ShowUtils.getInstance().alertFileProblem(e.getMessage(),this);
                                                        }
 
                                                }

I also optimized the application, issue #37 (Uploaded photo looses .jpg file extension) was in fact due to the fact that I re created the photo file before sending it; instead of using a projection of the URI to get its path on the phone :

UriUtils

public static String getFileNameFromUri(Uri uri, Activity activity) {
                String[] projection = { MediaStore.Images.ImageColumns.DISPLAY_NAME };
                String fileName=null;
                Cursor c = activity.managedQuery(uri, projection, null, null, null);
                if (c != null && c.moveToFirst()) {
                        fileName = c.getString(0);
                }
                return fileName;
}

Also shipping with this new version, Chinese i18n thanks to the chinese android market, GoAPK and also new art from Dan, who just posted a comment to the blog proposing to add new art; thanks again to you both ! You make the application richer !

So now, what remains to be done ? well, the compatibility with Gallery3, as the G3 remote API is almost stable now, thanks to the work of Bharat, Tim, and many others; a java implementation is already under work, I will check if I can use it instead of… re inventing the wheel !
More details to come, for sure !

You can download G2Android from the Android Market, SlideMe, Applibs, etc.. and also from the G2Android project homepage
.
Enjoy this app as much as I enjoy working on it, and if you like it, don’t forget to flattr me !

Go to G2Android project page

• new cache feature
• fullscreen navigation with gestures
• download full res. picture to sdcard

As always, you can get more info going to the project web page : http://code.google.com/p/g2android/, and even download the new version
So what’s next ? tweeting and sending email with photo url, shortcuts for full screen navigation, synchronization between views… well, expect a new version by the end of November !

• No more automatic connection at startup, the user has to push a button to connect to the gallery

• Galleries with port different than 80 now work

• I18n : the app now provide new languages, today only english and french are supported, I’m expecting the community to provide new translations

That’s all folks, expect better UIs and possibility to download pictures from the gallery to the phone soon.
Have fun browsing your galleries !

Now, you can still see your albums and pictures, but you can also :

• upload photos
• create new albums

The ergonomy is not yet perfect, as you may have already noticed, even though almost everything is multi threaded (using AsyncTask), meaning the ui won’t freeze anymore; the next features will probably will allow the user to insert a photo to his gallery from every picture context on the android platform (declaring a « share image » intent)

Stay tuned !

• The main reason I Started this project was because there isn’t yet any gallery2 clients for the android platform and I needed one to access my galleries where I share photos with my family and friends

Gallery2 is an open source project to easily share your photos with your friends and family : you can install it on Php/MySql enabled server : be it a shared server or dedicates server; Gallery2 is maybe the most popular project in this category ! (I know, Picasa and FlickR exist but… I’m not the kind of guy to upload 7 Gb of photos to companies I don’t know and I don’t trust…)

Well, there’s a client for uploading photos to a gallery2, picpush, but it’s not open source and it’s loaded with ads… And you can’t browse photos…

• I wanted to start a new Android project, to know better this platform !
• Iwanted to compete on the ADC (Android Developer Challenge) 2009 : given the current features, I’m not sure I have a chance to win the competition, but, hey, the important is to particpate as we isay !

As of version 1.0, G2Android can browse albums and pictures, for more details, you can check out the Features page of G2Android

Version 1.1, which will be out soon, will allow you to browse private galleries, ie gallery2 installations which need a password.

The project is open source, GPL v.2, so you want to join in, feel free to contact me !

Finally, you can download G2Android from the Android Market : just type « G2Android » in your search or simply click on this link if you’re browsing this page with an Android device .

You can also download it directly from the G2Android Google code site.

Have fun with it, and feel free to submit new issues on the bugtracker if you encounter a bug !

First Method : getting an input stream given a simple url from Android using HttpURLConnection

This method is the most basic one : it allows you, using the basic HttpUrlConnection, ( contained in java.net) to get an InputStream from an Url :

private InputStream downloadUrl(String url) {
		HttpURLConnection con = null;
		URL url;
		InputStream is=null;
		try {
			url = new URL(url);
			con = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
			con.setReadTimeout(10000 /* milliseconds */);
			con.setConnectTimeout(15000 /* milliseconds */);
			con.setRequestMethod("GET");
			con.setDoInput(true);
			con.addRequestProperty("Referer", "http://blog.dahanne.net");
			// Start the query
			con.connect();
			is = con.getInputStream();
		}catch (IOException e) {
                        //handle the exception !
			e.printStackTrace();
		}
		return is;
 
	}

You can also use the Post method, sending data in the HTTP POST payload :

private InputStream downloadUrl(String url) {
                InputStream myInputStream =null;
		StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
                //adding some data to send along with the request to the server
		sb.append("name=Anthony");
		URL url;
		try {
			url = new URL(url);
			HttpURLConnection conn = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
			conn.setDoOutput(true);
			conn.setRequestMethod("POST");
			OutputStreamWriter wr = new OutputStreamWriter(conn
					.getOutputStream());
                        // this is were we're adding post data to the request
                        wr.write(sb.toString());
			wr.flush();
			myInputStream = conn.getInputStream();
			wr.close();
		} catch (Exception e) {
                        //handle the exception !
			Log.d(TAG,e.getMessage());
		}
                return myInputStream;
}

But there are better ways to achieve that, using Apache HttpClient, included in android.jar (no need to add another jar, it’s included in android core)

Second Method : getting an input stream given a simple url from Android using HttpClient

Why is it a better to do it ? because the simpler, the better ! See by yourself :

public static InputStream getInputStreamFromUrl(String url) {
		InputStream content = null;
		try {
			HttpGet httpGet = new HttpGet(url);
			HttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient();
			// Execute HTTP Get Request
			HttpResponse response = httpclient.execute(httpGet);
			content = response.getEntity().getContent();
                } catch (Exception e) {
			//handle the exception !
		}
		return content;
}

But you maybe wondering if it’s still easy with HTTP Post method ? You won’t be deceived !

public static InputStream getInputStreamFromUrl(String url) {
		InputStream content = null;
		try {
          		HttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient();
			HttpPost httpPost = new HttpPost(url);
			List nameValuePairs = new ArrayList(1);
                        //this is where you add your data to the post method
                        nameValuePairs.add(new BasicNameValuePair(
			"name", "anthony"));
			httpPost.setEntity(new UrlEncodedFormEntity(nameValuePairs));
			// Execute HTTP Post Request
			HttpResponse response = httpclient.execute(httpPost);
			content = response.getEntity().getContent();
		        return content;
	        }
}

But what if you want to read a cookie from the response ? And how can you send a cookie back to the server for the next request ?

Reading / Sending a cookie along with the requests

Using Apache HttpClient, it’s easy to retrieve cookies ! Everything is in the headers after all !

[...]
Cookie sessionCookie =null;
HttpResponse response = httpclient.execute(httpPost);
Header[] allHeaders = response.getAllHeaders();
CookieOrigin origin = new CookieOrigin(host, port,path, false);
for (Header header : allHeaders) {
			List parse = cookieSpecBase.parse(header, origin);
			for (Cookie cookie : parse) {
				// THE cookie
				if (cookie.getName().equals(COOKIE_I_WAS_LOOKING_FOR)
						&& cookie.getValue() != null && cookie.getValue() != "") {
					sessionCookie = cookie;
				}
			}
}

To send a cookie along with your request, keep it simple :

HttpPost httpPost = new HttpPost(url);
CookieSpecBase cookieSpecBase = new BrowserCompatSpec();
List cookies = new ArrayList();
cookies.add(sessionCookie);
List cookieHeader = cookieSpecBase.formatCookies(cookies);
// Setting the cookie
httpPost.setHeader(cookieHeader.get(0));

What about the resulting InputStream ? You definitely want to transform it into a String or an Drawable (to set it to an ImageView for example !) don’t you ?

Converting the InputStream into a Drawable in Android

The Drawable class already handles that for you :

Drawable d = Drawable.createFromStream(myInputStream, "nameOfMyResource");

Converting the InputStream into a String in Android

This is some classic java stuff (don’t tell about how easier it is in Ruby.. I know … but hey ! Java SE7 at the rescue with NIO !!! maybe one day in 2010 ! )

BufferedReader rd = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(myInputStreamToReadIntoAString), 4096);
String line;
StringBuilder sb =  new StringBuilder();
while ((line = rd.readLine()) != null) {
		sb.append(line);
}
rd.close();
String contentOfMyInputStream = sb.toString()
 
That's it folks ! If you have any other methods to achieve these goals, feel free to share them sending a comment !

The Changing Nature of Enterprise Java Application Development, 9:00 – 9:45 by Adrian Colyer

During his talk, the speaker described the audience the future of a Java platform, because it is actually going to be there for a long time now.
He mentioned the dynamic languages compatible with the JVM : Groovy, JRuby, Scala, and Clojure.
He mainly focused on Groovy (which belongs to SpringSource by the way), even if he was not sure if whether JRuby or Groovy would win the « war of dynamic languages ».
For the web platform, he mentioned Grails, built on top of Groovy, Rails running on top of Ruby, and Lift built on top of Scala.
He finished his talk introducing OSGi and Spring DM; the future of enterpise is application may be in the cloud : easily to deploy and scale applications are to come.

The android runtime environment, 10:30 – 11:20, by Joerg Pleumann

The speaker first made an introduction to the Android system, as a platform competing windows mobile and palm.
More technically speaking, it is based on a Linux kernel (along with necessary drivers : display, camera, sound, etc…).
On top of it come the Android Runtime and libraries; the talk is about the Android Runtime and its Dalvik VM.
Dalvik VM : CPU between 250 and 500 MHz, RAM >=64 (equivalent to a 1999 PC), but low power consumption is critical.
The Dalvik VM is really efficient, using explicit registers to keep temporary values: the immediate benefit is the number of lines of the bytecode resulting from the DalvikVM compilation : nearly 30% less than a standard VM compilation.
A dex file (Dalvik Executable) contains several files, and is not compressed.
JNI is ready, a sdk for using JNI is about to come out in the next days; also an Android Debug Bridge is available from the beginning.
The core libraries
dalvik vm specific libraries : dalvik.*
java compatibility libraries : java.* and javax.*
and some apache libraries(mainly for http) : org.apache.*
The core libraries are partly taken from Apache Harmony (a JDK implementation by Apache), partly written from scratch; and some of them have been optimized (using JNI)
The core libraries are mostly compatible to a subset of J2SE 5.0.
JDBC 2.0 is supported, but the SQLite driver is limited., but one can use the alternative in android.database.sqlite which are better integrated.
To conclude with, with Android you can reuse your java knowledge and tools.

Android Application Model, 11:30 – 12:20, by Dominik Gruntz

4 main components :activities, services, content providers and broadcast receivers.
A single class, uses intents to communicate with the other activities; when you launch an activity, you can (or not) expect a result; if this is the case, the method onIntentResult will be called.
You can also define intent filters to describe the intents an activity can handle.
An intent specification is on its way : http://www.openintents.org
An application is packaged using an APK (Android package).
Every activity has a lifecycle containing 4 steps : new, running, paused, stopped, killed and the corresponding methods (onCreate, onStop etc..)
For each activity a new process (with a single thread) is created.
The Looper.loop() dispathes the actions to a queue.
If an activity does not conume events in 5sec, the system issue a warning message.
A service is running background and can communicate with an activity (in process if it’s the same application (APK)) or via AIDL.
Finally, a content provider is the only way to share date between Android applications; it can using SQLite, a file, or a remote storage.

Scalable Agile Web Development: REST meets JCR meets OSGI, by Michael Marth

JCR : JSR 270 for accessing content repository : located on a file or database; can be versioned; node ahave read/write group properties, etc…
Apache Sling is a web framework, on top of REST/Scripting (Ruby, Groovy, etc…)/OSGi(in this case Apache Felix Container, to switch on/off part of the frameework live)/JCR.
So basically Apache Sling allows the user to create/edit/read/update content in a restful manner (http methods), the data being created is then stored on the JCR repository, organized in a very similar WebUrlFriendly way (and then you can manipulate the data through rest or webdav and so on, thanks to JCR)
The demo was really smooth and interesting !

The charm of Mockito: Test Spies in action, 14:30 – 15:20, by Szczepan Faber

The speaker begins asking who uses JMock : 2 or 3 people among an audience of 60 people, half of the audience using EasyMock.
So let’s start with EasyMock : coding in TDD a dictionnary, (and its history) depending on a translator : the translator is mocked.
With easymock the speaker keeps it old fadhioned : createMock/expect/replay/assert/verify , (his test extends Assert) and then refactor a bit in the @Before and @After test methods, nothing special here.
Then Mockito : mock/when/assert/verify : it’s a lighter syntax indeeed!
Szczepan insisted on the fact that usually developers using easymock create replayAll and verifyAll methods called in the @After method; which make Easymok fail when many behaviours are attached.
The speaker uses BDD style template (given/when/then) in eclipse, when creating a test.
Mockito eases the use of a given/when/then syntax when writing a test.
Has good point of failure ?
The failure trace in mockito is linked to the source code and more explicit about the error, it does not whow internal classes exceptions
Mockito or mockito-like for python, flex, javascript, C++; there are mockito extensions
He concluded with : « Do TDD and write great tests with whatever tools that work for you »
May the force be with you !

Eclipse Galileo and JBoss Tools, 16:30 – 16:50, by Max Andersen

Galileo (3.5) is a huge release.
Must-sees : Eclipse Memory Analyser (to see which plugin consumes all the memory for example), using jmap
XML and XSL editor is really better.
P2 (eclipse update manager) works for real; you shouldn’t use dropins anymore (single zip files to unpackage in /plugins and /features), for offline installation plugins providers should suggest copies of the update site, then you may use P2 to explore these files, as if you were online).

Danny Coward Keynote, 9:00 – 10:00

Java 7

Description of the new features in Java SE 7 : modularity, ?. operator, new API for java.io (Path, Asynchronous FileVisitor), http://openjdk.java.net/projects/jdk7

Java FX

The new version is 1.2, running on all OSes (even Linux and Solaris, a TV, some phones to come out), more UI components (skinnable with CSS) , new layouts, better performance; then Danny showed the audience some JavaFX applications : a pacman application, a video player, with some nice visual effects …

OSGi and Java Modularity, 10:30 – 11:20, by Peter Kriens

If you think your application is modular only by using the VM, well, think again…
You can’t hide interfaces in the classsloader, and if there are no enforcements of rules at runtime, it’s uselesse to try to make these interfaces secrets…
In OSGi, you can set secret interfaces (not exported) and also use MANIFESTs to explicitely specify exports.
With an OSGi bundle (a jar actually, with its MANIFEST), you can dynamically specify which others bundles it can depend on, if one of the bundle you depend on is no more available, OSGi will remove the dependency; then it will put it back when the bundle is available again.
The problem is : many implementations of modularity exist and JSR 294 do not specify a particular one … From a programmer point of view, you will have to choose between OSGi, Jigsaw, guice, the modularity implementation you want to use …

Next generation Wikis: Mixing Content-Oriented Applications with Wikis, 11:30 – 12:20, by Vincent Massol

Wiki 1.0 : just used for text
Wiki 2.0 : you can add everything : images, videos, comments, notes, etc.., the datas can be structured, unstructured or mashups (datas coming from everywhere) the wiki 2.0 is the excell… of the web !
After presenting a demo showing us the possibility in Xwiki to define in 10 minutes (knowing velocity or groovy syntax) an application hosted on the wiki, Vincent listed the Xwiki features and the new features to come : real time collaboration, mobile skin, social features and … merge of CMS and wikis.

JavaFX Rich Internet Applications connected to GlassFish Java EE 5 services, 16:00-16:20, by Ludovic Champenois – Sun Microsystems

First of all, Ludovic showed us the GlassFish v3 admin console (looks good !) and reminded us with REST (standard HTTP methods, resources, etc…), and the REST annotations in Java EE6.
Why ? because the example given during his demonstration is communicating with a JAX-RS Java EE6 application, hosted by Glassfish V3.
To test the REST application, you can simply use : curl -HAccept:application/xml http://localhost/domain, or use your browser or use Glassfish v3 Admin Backend Tester.
And then, down to the JavaFx application code, using Netbeans, only 15 lines of code are necessary to consume the REST service.
TO finish with, Ludovic showed us some other JavaFX demo applications.

JavaFX / Android: Competing technologies or the ideal partnership? , 16:30 – 16:50 by Mike Mannion and Andreas Hölzl

Presented as a theater play : 2 guys talking about phone technologies around a coffee : one is a JavaFX supporter, the other is an Android supporter.
They then compared a similar application (using Flickr, Lastfm, youtube web services): developed both for JavaFx and the Android Platform.
*UI : JavaFX needs UI designed by designers, Android defines it in an extermal layout XML file
*UI (2) : Android provides a richer API, providing a photo gallery for example, JavaFX does not…
*language : you have to learn JavaFX script for JavaFX, Android uses Java 5 API (with some restrictions…, for example it does not use AWT or Swing for graphics)
They also told us that Sun is not clearly decided about supporting Android : they said that they were thinking about it… but since then (a year ago) nothing came out !

• Lundi (si j’y suis): Glassfish
• Mardi : Java EE6, groovy, Spring 3.0, GWT, iphone, maven , mobile java
• Mercredi : hudson, securing ajax,jsf 2,mule, android
• Jeudi : android, rest, mockito, openjdk

çà va être épuisant je sens !
Trop hâte d’y être !

Ecriture de ma première application Android

Ce qu’il faut sur le poste de développement :

De retour de vacances, je me dirige sur http://developer.android.com/sdk/1.1_r1/installing.html où je découvre que dans eclipse je peux installer le plugin de développement ADT, qui, une fois connectée au SDK installée sur ma machine (sous windows pour commencer ) me permet d’intéragir plus facilement avec ce SDK.
En résumé il vous faut :

• Eclipse 3.4 avec une JRE 6
• Le plugin ADT téléchargé via le « Software updates » d’Eclipse
• Le SDK Android

Ecriture du Hello Android : première application Android

Google fournit un tutorial très bien fait qui permet de se familiariser avec le concept d’activité et de création de vues via des fichiers XML (çà me rappelle une mission çà …), à l’adresse : http://developer.android.com/guide/tutorials/hello-world.html
Oups ! quand on (contrôle) clique sur du code Android (comme Activity.class par exemple), on se rend compte que les source sne sont pas fournies ! Plutôt dur à digérer quand on a l’habitude d’avoir les sources des frameworks que l’on utilise et que l’on sait qu’Android est un produit Open Source ! Heureusement, le « bug » est signalé et en supprimant la librairie Android (android.jar) dans le projet Eclipse et en la ré important en précisant le chemin du code source (téléchargeable ici), on a accès au code source du framework !
On lance un « Run » et on a le plaisir de voir l’application se lancer dans l’émulateur d’Android !

Déploiement de l’application Android sur le HTC Dream

Il faut tout d’abord télécharger et installer les drivers USB sur votre poste de développement.
Pour installer les pilotes, dézippez les dans le répertoire de votre choix, et connectez en USB votre téléphone (en ayant pris soin au préalable de le mettre en mode Debug USB dans Parametres -> Applications -> Développement); Windows va détecter votre téléphone et vous demandez d’installer les pilotes.
On y est presque !
Il n’y a plus qu’à déployer l’application, pour cela, retournez dans Eclipse, dans votre « Run Configuration… » qui lance votre application Android dans l’émulateur, sélectionner dans « Target » Selection « Manual », cliquez sur « Run » un dialogue apparaît, sélectionnez votre téléphone, et regardez votre application se lancer sur votre téléphone portable toujours connecté en USB bien sûr !
Maintenant, laissez place à votre imagination et codez !