Trouble getting windows 7 to recognize android device? Solution
I had to reinstall windows, and the Samsung galaxy (vibrant) refuses to allow me to install the drivers. I found the 64bit and 32bit (I am running windows 7 64 bit), and although it installed the drivers, the device would show up in device manager as just ‘sgh-t959’, and say ‘drivers not installed’ with a yellow exclamation mark on it.
I tried installing samsung KIES, running its ‘troubleshoot connection error’, which appeared to uninstall and reinstall the driver, and yet nothing.
FINALLY I found a solution to force windows 7 64bit to actually recognize that the drivers were installed:
- Right click on the device in device manager, and go to properties.
- Under the driver tab, select ‘update driver’
- Select ‘Browse my computer for the driver software’
- Now INSTEAD of selecting the folder with the drivers in, click on the bottom text ‘Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer’.
- Uncheck ‘show compatible hardware’, select your manufacture on the left (Samsung for mine, HTC if that is yours)
- Scroll down on the right and select the newest ‘SAMSUNG ANDROID ADB INTERFACE VERSION (mine was 5.14.0.0, from 2/5/2010, I selected the second one)
- Click next, ignore asinine warning
And viola, you have your device showing in the device manager without a yellow exclamation mark!
To test that it is actually working, if you have the android sdk, or adb, open a command prompt (‘cmd’ in the start->run box), go to your android sdk/platform-tools folder (cd c:\android-sdk\platform-tools or whatever folder your adb.exe is in), and type ‘adb devices’, and it should list your device.
Hope this helps someone– spent several days trying tons of drivers, have them all installed, yet windows wouldn’t assign the correct driver to the correct device. So +1 for forcing driver install!
Android 3.0 Animations: Beginner’s Guide Review
This was a good read if you are interested in adding animation to your android applications. It shows several different methods, from frame animation to tweening objects around on screen.
The book is titled for “Android 3.0”, but almost all of the examples will work for any version of Android. You just need to change the build target of the project properties to whatever SDK version you are using, and change the android manifest file from build 10 to 3.
It does touch on what the new animation methods are for Android 3.0, and you have a warning in the chapter for the exercise file that uses a newer version.
The examples may not all look pretty (especially the first one), but it teaches the main concepts, and you can fill in your own graphics, using the concepts, to add some nice ‘flair’ to your applications.
One of the more interesting examples shows you how to create your own, animated, and interactive ‘live wallpaper’, which you could use to create pretty much any type of live wallpaper.
The book does not go into OpenGL programming, but does introduce the concept of a “game loop”, which would be useful for someone to see who has never created a game before. A lot of the concepts might seem simple to someone who has experience using tweens, or frame by frame animation.
I would recommend this book to someone who has programmed on Android application before, but would like to add more “polish” to their application, using animation to liven it up.
You can pickup the book here: http://www.packtpub.com/android-3–0-animations-beginners-guide/book
Android 4.0 announcement!
Android 4.0 (Ice cream sandwich) has been announced, and so has the new Galaxy Nexus.
I am looking forward to this android update, and it is supposed to be a large one! It is supposed to be a combination of the divergent HoneyComb (3.0 series) OS for tablets, and the current gingerbread (2.3) for phones.
It looks to have a ton of new features, including:
- A beautiful new user interface
- Recent Apps button, that appears to work like the Windows 7 task manager
- Unlocking the phone using facial recognition and the front facing camera
- Swipe actions to dismiss notifications, browser tabs, ect.
- Better keyboard
- Ability to set warning and cutoff points for your data usage
- Built in panoramic camera
- Sharing information with other Android Devices using NFC by just touching them together
- Faster Web browsing (with faster javascript engine)
It looks to be a fairy major update, and does resemble Honeycomb’s user interface.
I would bet on it being available on the new Galaxy Nexus when it is available (most likely, like usual, in early January or late December), and most likely slow updates coming out to all devices (although Android 4.0 isn’t supposed to have as much manufacture “skinning”, so it might roll out much faster).
You can see more details at the official Android 4.0 Platform highlight page:
http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-4.0-highlights.html
How to start creating android games using the LibGDX game development framework
Why Android?
I’ve been creating games using flash/actionscript for a while now, but have really wanted to get started with android game development, since it’s an open source platform, the sky is the limit to how much you can learn about it.
The devices are usually fairly non-restrictive, being able to load custom roms, install any available software — even not directly through the market, being more practical (using internal storage as storage, not needing to install bloatware to connect to a computer), as well as having many more choices in hardware, since there is such a wide diversity of available mobile phones.
All in all, Android is very non-restrictive and flexible to it’s users, as well as it’s developers, and the market is supposed to be much easier to upload your app on, without getting turned down without a reason. It also caters more towards free apps (with ads), which is what I had wanted to offer, to allow everyone to be able to play my games.
Why LibGDX?
I have read a few android programming books, and most go into quite a bit of detail about application programming, but very little about OpenGL, not to mention I hadn’t done much programming using multiple separate threads in the past.
LibGDX takes care off pretty much all of the low-level stuff for you, so you can focus on game programming, or basic engine programming, and not about techniques for loading different image and music types, creating and handling multiple threads, or creating OpenGL surfaces to render 2d bitmaps on to.
Using it also does not take away any of the control you have, if you wanted to or needed to program lower level stuff, such as creating surfaces and 3d objects using OpenGL. Thus, it provides an excellent platform to get started with without having to worry about creating everything from scratch yourself, but also allows you to create things later on when you need them.
And for super-icing on the cake, it is specifically made for creating games, and it also allows you to compile and test using native Java on your computer before deploying to your android device, which makes debugging and compile time so much faster! No needing to deal with the android emulator for most of your design, unless you wish to, no needing to compile the apk, move it to the SD card, install, open, and finally debug– you can do it all on your computer before deploying to your android device!
So in summary:
- Handles a lot of the stuff that you would normally need to program from scratch, saves you time, as well as allows you to expand it if needed
- Specifically created for games!
- Debug, test and try out your android app without having to rely on having a device/ emulator running almost all the time!
- Open source and free, as well as great forums for support
So Now that you know why it is a great framework to use to develop android games, lets get up and running.
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Flash Development for Android Cookbook Review
This is an awesome book to bring your Flash games and programs to Android!
This book provides you with everything you need to start developing programs and games on android using Adobe AIR, assuming you already have some knowledge in ActionScript.
It shows short “recipes” on how to interface with everything that you would want to on the phone, from gestures, drawing, acceleration and geolocation, camera, microphone, images, video, audio, local storage and SQLLite, to even putting the final app on the market.
Every recipe is well written, and specific to the interface you will be looking for, so you can easily find how to use the accelerometer, or load up the browser within your app. Most examples show how to do everything in Flash Builder (Flex), Flash ‘professional’, FDT, and even command line, so you have many options (although the code will work well in any of them).
The only negative I found with the book is that in Chapter 1, you learn how to compile, and run a program on Android, but Chapter 10 is when it actually goes into debugging, and setting up different configurations for testing your app. I wasn’t sure how to have the app test run in Windows instead of running on my Android directly until that chapter (although it is a cookbook– you pick which chapter is relevant what you’re trying to do).
If you have built applications or games using Flash/Flex before, and would like to have a version running on Android, this book will give you all the information you need, and is a great reference as well!
Get it now to get your Flash apps running on Android!
http://www.packtpub.com/flash-development-for-android-cookbook/book
Ackmi Dress Up for Android on the Market!!
Sorry about the lack of updates and additional tutorials lately. I have been busy trying to finish my first android game with my fiance.
I have been learning how to program using the libgdx game framework, and it makes the whole process of programming an openGL based game much smoother.
It’s a game used to create your own avatar, somewhat like a virtual barbie dress up game, so aimed more at girls. It is really more of a “toy” than a game as of right now, but we do have plans for adding goals, rewards and feedback to convert the customization system into a game with many hours of re-playability.
I will be posting tutorials on how to use it to create your own android games in the next few posts.
In the mean time, check out the android app, let me know what you think and provide feedback!
Our company website:
http://www.ackmi.com
The link on the app store:
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.ackmi.amazing_dress_up&feature=search_result
