Squishing bugs, adding features

Over the past few days, I've been spending what little free time that I have (basically any time that I'm awake and not at work) working on Auto Respond.

I've found a few bugs, one of which I think I introduced in the latest beta, so you shouldn't have to worry about that one. The others are all in the Dock menu.

For those of you on Android 4.0+, you may notice that after opening the dock menu and starting to scroll, some of your settings change. Amazingly this is not a bug caused by me. It's actually a bug caused by a flaw in the Android OS which happens when you have consecutive settings screens, and one ore more of them have a switch preference. To my surprise, someone on Stack Overflow found a fix - and I implemented it. (If you are a coder and don't know what Stack Overflow is, find out. If you're not a coder, it probably doesn't matter to you.)

For all versions of Android, the "Get current message" and "Preset messages" buttons for the dock message options were not working. Again, this has been fixed.

None of these changes have been released in any version, because before releasing my next beta I want to finish what I've started with data backup. Yes, that's right... backing up the settings, messages, schedules, and whatever else may be included in Auto Respond. This will be available to free and pro users, and it will be using Google's new backup service which puts the data in your Google account. That means that if you get a new phone you can just re-install the app and have all of your data back.

Also, I'm working on adding custom responses to each schedule in the Pro version. The custom responses was a lot of work to implement initially (which is why it's a pro-only feature) and we'll see how much work it takes to implement it per-schedule. I know I can do it, but it may take some time.

So there you have it. A lot going on in the way of changes and fixes in Auto Respond. The new version will hopefully be out in a week or so, depending on how quickly I can work.

Auto Respond 1.3.5 Beta

I just published a new beta version of Auto Respond. If you want to check it out, you need to join my Google+ community. (Unfortunately this is Google's restriction, not mine.) This beta only applies to the Pro version, none of the major changes affect any of the capabilities of the free version

The community can be found here:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/103951105335573781027

There is a sign up for the beta testing in a post in the community.

Here is the full change log:

• Added do not respond list to individual schedules
• Change Screen title from "New Schedule" to "Edit Schedule" when editing a schedule
• Change Screen title from "New Message" to "Edit Message" when editing a message

I know that last one affects the free version, but it's a very minor change.

The next step is to add the "custom response list" to individual schedules yet. Now that I have the "do not respond list" per schedule, I should be able to bang out individual responses fairly quickly.

News

A bunch of random stuff in this one...


Auto Respond

First, I've released a few new versions of Auto Respond since my last post. All just bug fixes. I released another one this morning for Pro users, which fixes a FC when deleting a schedule. If you have received this FC, the schedule was still deleted properly but it closed while trying to update the view.

A few weeks ago I added another stat to keep track of in Auto Respond. Each time it sends a message, Analytics tallies it. In the first 7 days of June, Auto Respond has sent 53 messages! That's an average of almost 8 messages per day! I found that to be a pretty cool statistic. (especially since some people still have older versions installed that don't send that information, so the number could potentially be higher.)


Countdown Widget

If you follow me on Google+, or other social media, you may have noticed that I posted last night about a Beta version of my Countdown Widget app. A few updates about that:

1. The app STILL has not been actually published to the Play Store. I'm not sure why this one is taking so long, but after reading through some stuff in the developer's console, it says it could take up to 24-hours to become live. Which means that it could be as late as 11pm Eastern Time tonight. (8pm for you West coasters.)
1. EDIT: It's live now! But it only shows up in the Play Store AFTER becoming a tester! (As there is no publicly available version right now)
2. While reading through that documentation, I also noticed that all of my testers have to be in either a Google Group, or a Google+ Community to use the link and get the Beta. I created a community a while back, and right now it only has 4 users (including me.) If you would like to use the Countdown Widget Beta (and future app betas) join my community! (Again, this is a restriction put forth by Google, not me.) https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/103951105335573781027

Right now the app is fairly basic... put in a title and a date, and you get a widget which shows how many days until your event. There are also options to put a specific time with that date, and options to display hours left instead of days left, or display hours left when less than a certain amount of hours are left.

In the future I'm going to add a lot more options, like changing background color and transparency (right now it's black with 50% transparency,) possibly changing text size and color, rearranging the data that is displayed, and more designs and sizes of widgets.

The widget is resizable now if you have an Android version or a home screen launcher that supports it (I think resizing widgets was added in 3.0, but certain 2.x launchers may support it) but there is only 1 design. I have plans for more designs that will default to larger sizes.

Tic Tac Toe

I said before that I am going to build Google Games features into Tic Tac Toe... and I still plan on doing that. However, I still have not had the time to do that. I am working on a lot of stuff right now, and even the things mentioned above have had minimal work done. I've had Countdown Widget almost working for a while, and just finished up some last minute things over the past couple days.

Auto Respond crash bug

I've found a crash bug when using the status widget. It was an easy fix, but I can't compile an apk at work. I will push an update when I get home. 

Auto Respond 1.3.4

I just published Auto Respond 1.3.4. Most of you are probably asleep (or will be by the time it's available) but it'll be ready for you in the AM. Here's the change log:

• Fixed a crash in Dock menu when clicking settings name instead of switch (4.0+)
• Moved "help" to the bottom of the menu
• Reload all widgets on reboot
• Changed error message in "Do not Respond" settings to be more clear

The crash in the Dock menu has actually been around for a while, but I just now figured out what was causing it. All changes apply to both the free and pro version.

Google Games!!!

It's there! In my Developer Console... "Google Play Games Services"!

I can't wait to play around with it, and network up my Tic Tac Toe game, and hopefully finish up Euchre soon, and get that networked.

I have some achievement ideas for Tic Tac Toe as well. I know, there's not a whole lot you can do with achievements in Tic Tac Toe, but I found some things. I've also got achievements already built into the existing Windows version of my Euchre game, so those will be coming over to Android, and I may add a few more. I may also categorize them a little differently than they are right now... we'll have to see.

In any case, I'm REALLY excited to get coding, there's just one problem... I don't have much time this week because I'm moving this week/weekend :-(

So most of the work won't even get started until next week. I've first got to read through the documentation and see how to use the API and all of that stuff, so it might be a couple weeks before any actual progress gets made. We'll see how difficult it is, hopefully I can get some good work knocked out in a little time.

New name?

Lots of questions coming up tonight! (I told you my mind was running wild!)

What do you like better:

1515 Studios (Current name)
Fifteen15 Studios (Potential Rename)

I wish there was an easy way for me to imdeb a poll, but I don't really know how to go about that, so leave your suggestion in the comments! (Please!)

New app?

Today has been one of those days that my mind has been wandering.... and wandering to good places. This is the result of one of those wanderings.

I've been using a countdown widget app for quite some time now, and recently the developer updated the app and completely ruined it in my opinion. I have not downloaded the most recent update because it looks terrible, and there are a bunch of negative reviews about how transparency was removed, and it overall did not look good. So I kept the old version, so that I could keep my widget as-is.

So suddenly I started thinking... I could make an app like this. And it wouldn't really take too long. I've got the gist of widgets now, I've done a count-down type of code with the schedules, and I can add in a TON of customization from what I have learned doing both Auto Respond and Tic Tac Toe.

So here it is... some ideas for my countdown widget app:

• Information
• Name/Title of event
• Date (optional? - only time - repeat daily)
• Option - Time
• Either date or time would be required if date becomes optional
• Option - Show hours instead of days 
• Option - Show hours when less than X days left
• Look and feel
• Selectable color/image for background
• Selectable transparency for background
• Text
• Selectable color for all text
• All text same color checkbox
• Customizable text order
• Text1 - Name
• Text2 - Date
• Text3 - Days/hours remaining
• Stock images (to come later)
• Selectable size in setup? (? = not sure if this is possible in the setup screen)
• 1x1
• 2x1
• 2x2 with picture background
• 3x3 (?) with picture on side (? = I'd have to play with sizes for this one, to see what works best)
• Show preview of widget as changes are made
• Option - Remove widget automatically when countdown reaches 0
• Option - notification/alarm when countdown reaches 0
• alert sound
• alert vibrate

These are the notes I've made for myself so far. Any other ideas you can think of for a countdown widget? 

It's a simple idea but, as you have probably noticed in my other apps, I like options and customization! :-)

Google Games is coming!

For those of you who don't know, Google I/O starts on Wednesday!

There has been a LOT of speculation as to what will be announced at I/O, but there have been some things that have been pretty much confirmed, and right now, Google Games is one of them.

Android Police (AP) did one of their famous teardowns of some new a new Google Play Services app, and found a TON of references to Google Games, and even some working pieces!
http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/05/11/google-play-games-leaks-out-in-all-its-glory-ahead-of-google-io-hello-cloud-game-saves-apk-teardown/

Reading this got my mind rolling with ideas for Tic Tac Toe and Euchre. New achievements all over the place, new ways to get people connected, new ways to get more people playing, and new ways to have more fun with the games that I've already created! (Or in Euchre's case, mostly created)

Since none of this has been officially released (or even officially announced) I can't really start working on these things yet. But you can be assured that I will be working on it soon! (Well, once things get settled down in my personal life. Check out my personal blog for details on that.)

Auto Respond 1.3.3.1

Sorry for the bugs... I created a new function that was similar to an existing function. I copy and pasted the code, but what I didn't realize is that the trigger had to be opposite on the new function.

This created all sorts of havoc. I found a few other things when I got home that needed to be changed to allow the new function to work properly.

It should all be fixed now though. The new version has been published, and should be available in a couple hours when Google's servers sync.