Animated GIF ImageView Library for Android

Okay Good People!!!
Announcing today a brand new library which is intended to help you out with displaying Animated GIF's within your applications.

WHY A NEW LIBRARY?
As an Android developer you would have noticed that Android has not provided support for Animated GIF's as a component.
Therefore in order to show an Animated GIF's we usually end up using WebView in application which has its own disadvantages (Memorish Isuuess!!!).

THAY THE LIBRARY!
https://github.com/abhinavasr/giflib

Screenshot of Sample Application

The Sample application demonstrate that the Library Can handle both regular Image (PNG/JPG) and Animated GIF on same View. Therefore giving developer the flexibility to use Image/GIF without making any changes to his/her code base.

Sample Implementation:

layout.xml

        android:id="@+id/animatedGifImageView"

        android:layout_width="match_parent"

        android:layout_height="wrap_content"

        android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"

        android:layout_alignParentRight="true"

        android:layout_above="@+id/button1"

        android:layout_below="@+id/textView1" />

Activity.java

animatedGifImageView = ((AnimatedGifImageView)findViewById(R.id.animatedGifImageView));

animatedGifImageView.setAnimatedGif(R.raw.animated_gif,

TYPE.FIT_CENTER);

That's It!

AnimagedGifImageView supports some basic parameters to give you better control of image resizing (If required) There fore you can pass :

FIT_CENTER: Stretch and fit image while maintaining aspect ratio

STREACH_TO_FIT: Stretch Image irrespective of aspect ratio

AS_IS: Place the image without any manipulations.

Hope you will use the library and make your life easier :)

Barcode Scanner and Generator (Version 2)

On November 4th, 2012 we launched QR Code Scanner and Generator V1

(http://abhinavasblog.blogspot.sg/2012/11/creating-your-qr-code-scanner-and.html)

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT TILL DATE

Since then we made numerous progres on the library and updated it time and again.

Time has now come to welcome better smarter version of BarCode fragment library.

Please welcome Barcode Fragment Lib V2

The library is located at https://code.google.com/p/barcodefraglibv2/ .The library has better features and more detailed samples.

Unlike previous versions you can now simply add a jar in your app and start using the complete scanner functionality.
You can download the jar's from here: BarcodeLibraryFragment and Barcode Core (Please note both jars are mandatory)

Library now also support some added barcode types (e.g Aztec, Datamatrix).

Please read the wiki located at https://code.google.com/p/barcodefraglibv2/wiki/HowTo to start using the library.

There is a sample implementation for easier understanding of usage at : : https://code.google.com/p/barcodefraglibv2/wiki/SampleImplementation

I am also looking for the contributors for maintaining the library. Please let me know if you are interested to enhance this library.

Creating Your QR Code Scanner and Generator

THIS LIBRARY HAS BEEN DEPRICATED, PLEASE USE BARCODE FRAGMENT LIBRARY V2

Hey Everyone...
Has been long since i posted any of the open source codes which could help you develop some awesome apps.
Well was working on couple of things.. :D

Anyways recently have been working with QR Code scanning and other stuffs...

WHAT IS QR-CODE?
As per wikipedia
QR Code (abbreviated from Quick Response Code) is the trademark for a type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional code) first designed for the automotive industry. More recently, the system has become popular outside the industry due to its fast readability and large storage capacity compared to standard UPC barcodes. The code consists of black modules (square dots) arranged in a square pattern on a white background. The information encoded can be made up of four standardized kinds ("modes") of data (numeric, alphanumeric, byte/binary,Kanji), or through supported extensions, virtually any kind of data.

We do have several libraries available.. (Many are paid and asks for upto $50k/1000 users and some free (zxing).
Now the obvious question is: WHY ANOTHER LIBRARY?

1. The library is based on Zxing
2. It is based on Fragments which means that you can simply add the scanner functionality in any of your existing application without changing even a single line of code.
3. You can invoke the scanner within a part of screen just like a small view, unlike the existing where you need to launch a new activity all together just to make a scan.

WHERE IS THE LIBRARY?
Here is the link : http://code.google.com/p/barcodefragmentlib/ (depricated)
Please use: https://code.google.com/p/barcodefraglibv2/

HOW TO TEST FUNCTIONALITY?
You can download the apk which has been generated from the provided source.

LICENSE?
As always its under Apache License. So feel free to use.


Lemme know if it helped.

Customizing Android Phones

Easy steps for phone customization

Phones, as i believe, is something very very personal. Then why my phone should be exactly like anyone else's phone around? Why should it even look or behave like someone else's?

OpenSource was crafted with this intention, they gave all possible opportunity to people to create their own environment. A place where they can have everything just the way they want.

When i talk about OpenSource in Phone environment i guess we all know what we are talking about here... Yepp Android Operating system.

Well here are some easy ways by which you can customize your phone and make it behave exactly the way you want.

STEP 1 (Non rooted / rooted phones ):
Widgets : This has been on Android since the beginning of time  :) Many of you must have been using it already on your phones and many haven't.
Widgets are by definition small portion of application which can work on your home screen and provide you a quck and easy way to access your application contents without even opening the application. For example the above screenshot contains three widgets
1. Google search widget
2. Clock
3. Music Player
 Put them together and your screen becomes gorgeous :)

STEP 2 (Non rooted / rooted phones ) :
Wallpapers : Again you have couple of choices. You can use a static image as a wallpaper or can go for live wallpaper. WHATS LIVE WALL PAPER ? Its a wallpaper which can perform actions. For example it can show you a ocean view and you will see the waves around. there are hundereds of free live wallpapers available on android market, just check em out :)

STEP 3 ( Rooted / Custom roms) : 
Ok.. so you stayed long enough to reach this section... this is for pro users who love to play in deep :)
There are plenty of options for you, namely Cyanogen, AOKP, MIUI and many others out there... all of them have some pros and cons. Cyanogen undoubtedly has the biggest community support followed by AOKP and MIUI. I personally use Cyanogen on my Galaxy Nexus device.

These roms give you plenty of options to modify the system not only on appearance but also you can overclock your processor and get an awesome experience which you could have never got from your phone.

Here are some of the things that you can do!

So you can see the customization at notification area and the Lock screen.

There are millions of other coool stuffs that you can start doing.. ( One of my Fav..  Run Ubuntu on your Android ) 

STEP 4 (Rooted / Custom Rom) : 

THEMES : YOu can install themes on your device... and trust me it ant gonna slow your system down.. :) 

Here are some changes which happened on settings and other places due to themes:

Change your phone every day with themes...

Hope you enjoyed and will try to make your phone a little more personal :)

Andy Rubin: No 'one-size-fits-all solution'

Andy Rubin -- the father of Android --has taken to the Android Developer blog to shed a little light on what's happening regarding Honeycomb,any changes in Google's open-source policy, and fragmentation. The post is titled "I think I'm having a Gene Amdahl moment," referring to the former IBM exec who coined the phrase "fear, uncertainty and doubt" -- aka FUD. You'll definitely want to read the entire post, but we'll break it down here:

"We don’t believe in a 'one size fits all' solution. ... Quality and consistency continue to be top priorities."

"As always, device makers are free to modify Android to customize any range of features for Android devices."

"Our approach remains unchanged: there are no lock-downs or restrictions against customizing UIs. There are not, and never have been, any efforts to standardize the platform on any single chipset architecture."

"We continue to be an open source platform and will continue releasing source code when it is ready."

Again, those are just bullet points cherry picked by us. Read the entire post. And then take a deep breath and read it again. And while you might not like the answers -- or maybe you don't think really Rubin answered anything at all -- Rubin, and by extension Android and Google, did one thing we called for in last week's Android Central Podcast: cast a little transparency on what's been a bit of a murky period for Android's "open" nature.