New Dashboard - Final Testing

andromoappmakerandromoappmaker
edited February 2013 in General Discussion
Hey everyone, I just wanted to let you know that the new dashboard has entered the "Final Testing" phase. You can read more about it on the blog.

mark.
Tagged:

Comments

  • BertHolbertjrBertHolbertjr
    I dont want to sound ungratefull but ...  ABOUT TIME!!!!
  • colinadamscolinadams
    Yeah, these changes were huge. There's more than just the new dashboard layouts in there, we also rewrote the Action Bar allowing custom theming, images/logos in the Action Bar etc. The flexibility this gives you over the visual look of your app is huge - but it affected every little nook and cranny of each of the activities and hence your whole app. Definitely not a small job to get this done, but I can say for certain that's awesome...

    Colin
  • leapyearcoupleleapyearcouple
    If you didn't want to sound ungrateful, then you didn't have to say anything.

    So will we be able to easily integrate the new designs into existing apps?
  • andromoappmakerandromoappmaker
    @leapyearcouple The new dashboards replace the old dashboards which means that all you have to do to add the new dashboard to your app is build once we release the changes. Of course you'll probably want to customize things a bit more, but the basic dashboard is just as easy as it was before.

    mark.
  • turbomiketurbomike
    Looks good and thanks for the update.  I'm sure you guys are ready to get onto other things besides this beast of a dashboard. :)  I'd probably be tired of looking at it! haha

    On an already existing app, what happens to our 128x128 activity icons if we were to just hit the build button?  Would our app look really bad or is it going to put everything in place for the most part?  Do we have to re-adjust colors again or will the new dashboard use the existing theme, if you will?  Just curious.

    I hope to avoid tweaking the dashboard on every single app I have just because I want to go quickly go back and add a simple activity like a FB link to them. What if I don't want to customize things further because it is time consuming?   I am lazy.
  • andromoappmakerandromoappmaker
    @tubromike It depends on how you customized your apps previously. By default the placement of the icons will be the same as they were before if you just hit build, you won't notice much of a difference. The default icons are now different and more modern, they are what I had in the screenshots.

    This is a big change so some of your colours will be lost. If you are building a new app after the release you should probably check it to make sure you get what you want. Once you are used to the new dashboards the process will probably become much more automatic.

    We tried to make it so that if you just hit build things would look pretty good, it might not be what you had before, but it should look good together.

    mark.
  • sdsplanssdsplans
    2 questions, 
    With the update my linked pdf files will not work anymore it just says the document cannot be opened in the app even after reloading and building again. Any suggestions

    The icons are a lot smaller once built, is there anyway to get the old icons or larger size as with earlier builds or are the nice colorful icons no longer available and I need to build my own?
  • lornelorne
    edited February 2013
    The icons used to be centered on a transparent background of 128x128 when you uploaded them, but those old 128x128 icons end up looking smaller on the new dashboard layouts. If you can re-upload the original icons, they will not be expanded to 128x128 any more, and will look larger on the device.
  • andromoappmakerandromoappmaker
    Just a note to everyone, we have found and fixed the PDF activity. An update will be deployed soon.

    mark.
  • andromoappmakerandromoappmaker
    And there it is the fix is in: http://blog.andromo.com/2013/andromo-app-maker-for-android-v3-0-2-released/
  • slabarslabar

    I keep getting the folowing error when trying to use a custom action bar theme file: "Must be an action bar theme .ZIP file"

    Not sure what's wrong as I am using the site you recommended to create the custom anction bar file.

    Any insights?

    Steve

  • lornelorne
    Did you change the style name from "example" to something else? If so, there are some naming rules you must follow. It must begin with a letter, and can only contain lowercase letters, numbers, and underscores. No spaces, punctuation, or capital letters.
  • meoldTestmeoldTest
    Hi Steve,

    If you're receiving a build error notification, there are 3 different types of error messages that may be returned, each with specific text. If you let us know what the exact text is, we'll be able to tell you more.

    Beyond what Lorne stated, you'll also want to make sure you select "Sherlock" instead of "Holo" next to "Style compatibility".

    For more information, take a look at the article http://support.andromo.com/kb/application-settings/action-bar-style-generator

  • colinadamscolinadams
    Also - Make sure you are uploading a .zip file...
  • martt182martt182
    Please tell me the icons being so small can be fixed, all the apps look completely different now and the icons are too small, from the response I got from Andromo I uploaded my icons again in a new build and it still was alot smaller and less quality than the older apps, please tell me you guys are working on a fix or a way around this as I'm afraid to touch the other apps, thanks

    Martin
  • andromoappmakerandromoappmaker
    @martt182 What size icons are you uploading now? Which dashboard style are you now using? The images should not be less quality now, in fact given that you can upload 256x256 the quality should be better. If you can post one of the images that you are using for your Activity icon so we can take a look.

    Also what size device are you testing on?

    mark.
  • slabarslabar

    Lorne / Darryl,

    Thanks for the help and speedy reply.  It appears that it was not accepting my switch from Halo to Sherlock.  I had to click it a few times but eventually it worked and I can now test the new action bar with different colors, etc.

    Thanks again for the help.

    Steve

  • andromoappmakerandromoappmaker
    @martt182 We have release a new version 3.0.3 which has increased the default size of icons on the classic dashboard. Let me know what you think.
Sign In or Register to comment.