A small milestone in MoviesHyderabad android application

Today, MoviesHyderabad application crossed 100th active installation. I am very happy share this small milestone with all of you.

Below is the graph of total installation count for the last one month.

Over the last month I have added some new features to this app.  I take this opportunity to list them again.

• You can tell your friends about this app through "Menu->Share" button. 
• Easy navigation to book my show or easy movie sites. 
• You can browse the movies listings by theater name. (E.g It is easy to find answer for "Which movies are running in Cinemax Banjara hills?" like questions).

Please comment and rate the application in android market and do send us your feedback and suggestions.

Successfully published first app in AndroidMarket

Hi,

Last weekend I successfully published my first android app in android market.

You can find it here.
https://market.android.com/details?id=org.chittu

What it is:
Sometimes I find it very hard to track which movie is running in which theater in Hyderabad. I tried BookMyShow app, but it is giving information about movies running in multiplexes only. So I wrote my own application which keeps track of all movies running in hyderabad.

This app supports syncing the latest movies details from the server(chitu.org) into the mobile device.

Please try, rate and comment.

App screenshots:


 

Settingup Android development platform offline

Google provides very informative page on how to setup android SDK and eclipse IDE Here.
But these steps require active internet connection. Even though internet connection is ubiquitous in these days, there might be several problems with using internet connections may be due to firewalls or bandwidth limitations in colleges.

In this blog post I am going to explain how to setup android development platform without active internet connection. This post consists of two sections. In first section, we will get to know what to download, and in second section, we will know how to setup development platform on different machine which do not have the internet connection.

To setup development environment you need following components.

1. Latest Java Standard Edition SDK.
2. Latest Android SDK.
3. Atleast one Android platform.
4. Eclipse 3.4(Ganymade) or 3.5 (Galilio) or higher.
5. ADT plugin for eclipse

Section#1: Download these files.

Step#1 Download latest J2SE SDK:
Download latest J2SE(Standard Edition) SDK. Download Java SDK .
Skip this step if you already have java SDK installed on your machine.

Step#2 Download Android SDK:
Choose latest Android for your OperatingSystem from following link.
For Windows
For Linux
For more Info: http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html

Step#4 Download Android platform:
Download Android 2.2 (Frozen Yogart- Froyo) platform from following links.
Windows
Linux
For more info:  https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/repository/repository.xml. In this XML file you can find more components and their locations(Like docs, samples etc). 


Step#5 Download Eclipse IDE:
Eclipse is the java IDE supported by google for Android development. Download Eclipse 3.5 or higher. Download Eclipse IDE

Step#6 Download Eclipse ADT plugin:
ADT plugin for eclipse will help you develop Android applications easily and much faster. It automatically takes care of converting your .class files to .dex files. It can do much more.
Download Eclipse ADT plugin(Version 0.9.9) 
List of all available ADT plugins.

I created a single zip archive with latest android SDK, latest android platform (2.2 Froyo) and Eclipse ADT plugin. Download Single Archive.


Note: You need to download J2SE SDK and Eclipse separately from the above links.

May be you may want to copy and paste the contents of this blog post for reference when you are installing on target machine.

Section#2 Settingup the environment

Copy all these files to the machine where you want to develop your Android applications.

Step#7 Install java SDK:
Make sure j2se sdk is installed on the target machine. And I am expecting that j2se is already installed on target machine.

Step#8 Installing Android SDK:
Installing Android SDK is nothing but unzipping the zip file downloaded in Step#2. (File name looks like   "android-sdk_r07-windows.zip")

From now on I will refer the unzipped location of the Android SDK as ANDROID_HOME.

Step#9 Add ANDROID_HOME to PATH environmental variable.
In windows, RightClick on MyComputer -> Properties -> Advanced -> Environmental Variables. In UserVariables section add ANDROID_HOME location to PATH variable.

In Linux, modify the PATH entry in $HOME/.envrc file.

Step#10 Installing Android platform.
Unzip the file we downloaded in Step#4(File name looks like "android-2.2_r02-windows.zip"). And copy this directory to "ANDROID_HOME/platforms" directory. That's it, installation of Android 2.2 Froyo platform is installed in your Android SDK.

Step#11 Installing and Starting Eclipse.
Just unzip the Eclipse build  downloaded at Step#5. File name looks like "eclipse-jee-galileo-SR2-win32.zip".  And start the eclipse by executing "eclipse.exe" (eclipse.sh in Linux).

Step#12: Installing Eclipse ADT plugin. 
By now you must be running the Eclipse. Just use "Install New Software" option in Help menu to install the ADT plugin.  
Help -> Install New Software -> Add -> Archive -> Locate and point the ADT plugin zip file downloaded in Setp#6 (ADT.0.9.9.zip).

In Eclipse 3.5 only, enter a name for the local update site (e.g., "Android Plugin") in the "Name" field.

Accept the license and install the software. Eclipse will prompt you to restart it, say yes.

Step#13: Creating an Android AVD (Android  Virtual Device). 
AVD will help you to develop the applications without having a real Android phone. To install AVD, you need to launch AVD manager.
in eclipse Windows -> Android SDK and AVD manager

In the left hand side bar, you can find "Virtual Devices". Right hand side box might be empty. Create a new AVD by clicking on "New" button.  Give a name to the device and select the target platform "Android 2.2 - API level 8".



Congrats you have successfully installed Android Development platform on your machine. Go ahead and write your first Android program with the hep of HelloWorld tutorial http://developer.android.com/resources/tutorials/hello-world.html


Happy Androidingy.. :-)