Andromo v5.0.5 – Backgrounds are Back

edited July 2017 in Announcements

Andromo App Maker for Android version 5.0.5 has been released.

Here is a list of changes in this version release:

  • Added a background image option for the Dashboard and the following Activities: Audio Player, Podcast, SHOUTcast Radio. Dr. Andromo aims to please!
  • Made the audio controls translucent (and other small adjustments) so they look cool when background images are used.
  • A darkening gradient is automatically applied to the background image when banner ads are enabled, so the background becomes more subtle around the ad. (A 12-step simulated cubic gradient, so it’s extra smoooooth!)
  • Added 11 new Dashboard item styles, including List styles with cool bubble text (they look awesome over a background photo), plus a bunch of 3:1 ratio Card styles for those developers who want to fit more cards per screen.

Andromo App Maker for Android v5.0.5 is now live at www.andromo.com.


Comments

  • Thank you all for your wonderful work. <3
  • Dr. Andromo, you have been amazing!
    Time to get back to work :)
  • You guys are awesome! Not only you added it, but you also switched old apps to be using it already so that we will not have to scroll through all the activities and add it manually again!
  • @anteos Right! I forgot to add that to the release notes. If you had a background image already uploaded in your project (for Dashboard or for one of the "audio" activities), we have automatically configured your project to use them. Don't want them anymore? Just set it back to "none". But for most people, I figured that would save you a lot of time - glad you like it!
  • Thanks for listening to our suggestions, guys! I really appreciate the new card styles and backgrounds.
  • Is there a way to change the color of the main text ?
    More specifically, in the activity "audio player", after uploading a background image the text color used by default is black. Unless i use a light color background, black text will not be legible.
    Thank you !  
  • @vwmto Change your theme to Material Dark if you have a dark coloured background image.
  • I've tested to my apps And the result is EXCELLENT. Thank you andromo and @colinadams
  • Thanks for adding this back.
    Now, where can I set the "Midnight" effect we used to have?
    Without this function, my background images in Radio activities are unfortunately useless.
    I looked for hours through all possible settings, but I cannot find it.
    Thanks a lot in advance for letting me know, where I have to change this!

  • @sylviathewitch that is something you can actually apply to the source image yourself -- the midnight effect was just a greyscale transformation; something that can be done in any free photo editing tool.

    We might add some background image effects in a future update, but if we do, they probably won't be exactly the same as before; so if your designs need that exact "Midnight" look, you might want to consider applying it directly to the images and reuploading them.

  • This is a feature missing, but we cannot complain. I use Photoshop to apply extra layers with solid colors and a percentage of transparency on my original background. It works OK, its just a tiny more work we need to do on this update.
  • @lorne
    Easier said than done!
    Do have any idea how many countless hours that's gonna be?
    I need to locate each and every image (created since 2012) on my server.
    I need to open and apply a filter (in firework or photoshop etc.).
    I need to open the project, open each and every single activity and update every background.

    I have about 2000 images in about 15000 activities!
    Just count the hours ....

    This upgrade makes almost 5 years of my work obsolete.

    To be honest I do not understand why you did not ask your long term PAYING members about what their needs are before doing such an upgrade.

    Please reconsider adding this back ASAP, since we need to update all projects using facebooks ads by beginning of November (since SDK is outdated).

    Even if I would work on nothing else (than applying filters to images and reuploading them) I would not be able to finish this task by then. This is catastrophic!


    If the image effects "are exactly the same" or not is not of real importance. As long as it is some kind of greyscale and as long as the text is visible I am fine with it.

    It is of ulmost importance that the activites are set to what they used to be in the past. So if I had a background image and a greyscale effect this should be automatically be observed. And if I had a black background with white fonts then it should be set to this.

    Otherwise I need to touch every of these about 15000 activities to correct a problem that wasnt caused by me.

    Right now I simply cannot make any updates without working for about 1 hour on a simple app!
    I have a background image set to default that I cannot use since the text is invisible.
    I am horrified to say the least!

    I will send you some screenshots through support ticket so you get a better idea what I am talking about.

    Thank you very much for taking care of situation ASAP!

    P.S. I am sure, that I am not only one running into this problem. I have seen a bunch of apps created on andromo using this very same settings. Maybe I am the only one with so many projects.

  • Yes, that is certainly a lot of activities you have... it is not typical at all. I'm glad to see that you got so much value out of your Andromo subscription! Quite impressive.

    As Lorne said, we are working on adding some filters/effect features for background images. It's not happening overnight, but it's on the list for the near term.

    In the meantime, if you don't want to wait, then I'd suggest a quick photoshop batch conversion of your backgrounds to black and white and let it run while you eat lunch. Then, it sounds like you are using the same background on multiple activities. That's where the new "Inherit from Theme" and "Inherit from Parent Dashboard" options come in, so you don't need to upload the same image dozens of times. And since it sounds like your apps use a lot of black backgrounds, set your global app theme to "Material Dark" so text and other colours show up on it. Some work for you, yes, but there is no way that takes hours per app to do.
  • What do you work with now/next? Sub-dashboards? New activities?

    In the website activity it would be nice if it is possible to refresh the page by pulling down in addition to the existing refresh button.
  • edited August 2017
    We've been fixing bugs and working on features. Once I'm done fixing the bug I'm currently working on my next feature will probably be a background effect for the background images (assuming no other critical bugs need fixing first).

    Sub-dashboards are already implemented internally, but the UI needs to be implemented on the website (which is no small task, and Colin's area of expertise).

    There are many other features and goodies within v5 that we need to finish and/or expose in the web UI as well; that is probably going to occupy our time for a while, so I wouldn't expect any new activity types just yet.

    Pull to refresh for the website activity is a good idea, I've added a ticket for it to be looked at for future updates.
This discussion has been closed.