Reef Angel Forum

Curt, I just installed and checked out version 2.0.0 - Beta 3 and here are a couple comments/feedback:

1. I love the new side panel look and feel for the menus. I think the latest 1.0 release method works well too, but the new style is more inline with all the newer Google apps and stuff so it feels updated.

2. I actually preferred the black background of the latest 1.0 release over the white in the beta. Is there any way we can have that option in the 2.0 version once it's released? I guess some people will prefer both styles, so having a preference option in settings would be ideal.

3. Is there any way you can reduce the fonts slightly or resize the "Relay" tabs so that all 8 ports fit on the page at once? As of right now, with both versions you need to scroll up to see the last 2 ports. It would be better if we could just see the whole thing on one page. And this is coming from someone with a Samsung Note Edge which has one of the largest screens for phones at this time.

4. I would say the same thing about the "Commands" tab but the buttons that you have to scroll up to see are some that you rarely use except for initial setup or occasional trouble shooting.

5. On the "Commands" tab, when my phone is in vertical orientation, The "Clear Overheat" button text has the last letter "t" carried to the third row. A change in font may correct this. In landscape orientation, this is not an issue since the text is all on one line. Not a big deal, but aesthetically it looks like it needs to be fixed.

6. I don't know if this is an issue with my controller or the app, but whenever I use the "Get Time" button on the Date and Time menu, it comes back with a Error 24: XMLReadException. The "set to match device" button works fine (I can verify it works by seeing the time on the controller change too). It just doesn't read my controllers time for some reason. This happens in both the beta 3 and for my Ver 1.0.

7. On the "Errors" menu, could you add an option to delete specific errors individually instead of only allowing us to delete the whole log entirely? I can see an instance where you might want to delete all but a few error messages to look into later.

8. Lastly, on the 2.0.0 - Beta 3 version, I noticed that after viewing a few menu pagess... hitting the back arrow on my phone doesn't close the app right away. Instead, it cycles back through the recent menus I opened. Not sure if this is intended or not, but it differs from the 1.0 version where the back arrow just closes the app no matter how many menus I opened. Not a big deal, just an observation.

I think your app is tremendous and I couldn't live without it Curt. I hope you don't take any of these comments as complaints and I really appreciate all the hard work you put into keeping this app updated and improved. I just felt obligated to provide feedback in hopes it can help you perfect it.

TanksNStuff wrote:Curt, I just installed and checked out version 2.0.0 - Beta 3 and here are a couple comments/feedback:

2. I actually preferred the black background of the latest 1.0 release over the white in the beta. Is there any way we can have that option in the 2.0 version once it's released? I guess some people will prefer both styles, so having a preference option in settings would be ideal.

TanksNStuiff;

Binder will comment on your suggestions, but I know he has been working on a Themes option so that you can choose between whit or black. I mentioned it to him when I was testing the app, prior to release.

Cool, good to know. Thanks Steve.

First off, thanks for the feedback. I'm going to run through each item and add comments/followup. You are correct; I want the feedback because I want to make it better. I do not take any of your comments/suggestions/feedback negatively. I take them as exactly as I want, constructive criticism to improve the app and also good feedback for the usability and functionality. I can think something needs to be like this or like that or should function this way, but when people actually start to use it, they may expect it to behave a different way. This is just good product development...getting feedback and actually using the feedback to make the app function like the users expect or want. I mean, if I didn't ask for feedback or listen to your feedback and just did things how I wanted, then what's the point in me even doing this?!?

1. I love the new side panel look and feel for the menus. I think the latest 1.0 release method works well too, but the new style is more inline with all the newer Google apps and stuff so it feels updated.

That's what I was going for. The 1.0 release just had an "old feel" to it and needed some updating to bring it inline with the current trends. In addition, I'm hoping that I allowed myself to simplify the code a bit and make it easier to follow. This, though, still has to be proven and decided.

2. I actually preferred the black background of the latest 1.0 release over the white in the beta. Is there any way we can have that option in the 2.0 version once it's released? I guess some people will prefer both styles, so having a preference option in settings would be ideal.

Like Steve said, this has been reported and will be an option. It may not be available for the 2.0 official release, but it may be like a 2.1 release. I have already started working on it. I have code in place that does work, but I just do not have all the widgets, screens and dialogs honoring the theme. Plus, since a lot of the resources have changed as android has evolved, I have to eliminate the old resources that are no longer in use and also make sure I am setting things properly. I had an issue with using the Material Toolbar and displaying / reloading the theme for the entire app. I had to get the preferences screen ironed out first before I can finish up with the themes. But rest assured, a Light (the default) and a Dark theme will be available soon.

3. Is there any way you can reduce the fonts slightly or resize the "Relay" tabs so that all 8 ports fit on the page at once? As of right now, with both versions you need to scroll up to see the last 2 ports. It would be better if we could just see the whole thing on one page. And this is coming from someone with a Samsung Note Edge which has one of the largest screens for phones at this time.

Oh sure, he who has the virtually the largest screen you can have on a phone would complain about the screen real estate.
Yeah, I can look and see what I can come up with. My thoughts behind the size I have chosen are this:

• I don't want something too small that you cannot read it easily
• I want to have enough space for a finger to tap on the toggle button without worrying about not hitting it properly
• I wanted to have a distinction between the name the person chose for that relay/item/whatever and the default name

I may have something for you to test out and give me feedback on. I will look into the screen size and resolution of your phone and see what I can determine.

4. I would say the same thing about the "Commands" tab but the buttons that you have to scroll up to see are some that you rarely use except for initial setup or occasional trouble shooting.

I may be able to shrink them up some but I wanted to have decent sized buttons to tap on and I wanted it to be able to scale to fill the space. And yes, the least used buttons are towards the bottom. I do not think it would be possible to cram all the buttons into the single screen and still be usable.

5. On the "Commands" tab, when my phone is in vertical orientation, The "Clear Overheat" button text has the last letter "t" carried to the third row. A change in font may correct this. In landscape orientation, this is not an issue since the text is all on one line. Not a big deal, but aesthetically it looks like it needs to be fixed.

I was unaware of this issue. I will look into it.

6. I don't know if this is an issue with my controller or the app, but whenever I use the "Get Time" button on the Date and Time menu, it comes back with a Error 24: XMLReadException. The "set to match device" button works fine (I can verify it works by seeing the time on the controller change too). It just doesn't read my controllers time for some reason. This happens in both the beta 3 and for my Ver 1.0.

This exact same scenario happens to me as well. I wasn't sure if it was my setup or not. Sometimes my testing devices do not always behave as other "normal" devices. I have not tracked it down further though. I was attributing it to how I handle the XML responses. There may be something with how the controller sends out its responses and how I am reading them. I will be looking at it more and possibly switching up how I process the controller responses. Honestly, I have not been too worried about it because it is not a commonly used function (in my opinion). It is nice to check on at times but not something that is usually done daily which is the reason why I just haven't looked at it more closely.

7. On the "Errors" menu, could you add an option to delete specific errors individually instead of only allowing us to delete the whole log entirely? I can see an instance where you might want to delete all but a few error messages to look into later.

Sure thing. It is not something that I thought was needed. Your reasoning for doing it makes sense though. I can add in a long press on the error and it will prompt to delete the item. That would be the simplest route to doing the individual deletions. Then I would still have the "clear all" option.

8. Lastly, on the 2.0.0 - Beta 3 version, I noticed that after viewing a few menu pagess... hitting the back arrow on my phone doesn't close the app right away. Instead, it cycles back through the recent menus I opened. Not sure if this is intended or not, but it differs from the 1.0 version where the back arrow just closes the app no matter how many menus I opened. Not a big deal, just an observation.

Yes, this is exactly how it was intended. I have it currently set that you can swipe to the different controller status pages (Controller, Main Relay, Commands, Flags, etc) and it will not change the back button. But, if you use the navigation drawer and goto the Memory page or History page, then pressing the back button will take you back to the previous page that you were on. This will continue until you get back to the very first Status page and then you will exit the app on back press. If this is not something that is desirable, I can put in an option that will essentially ignore the back history and always exit the app when you press the back button.

I think your app is tremendous and I couldn't live without it Curt. I hope you don't take any of these comments as complaints and I really appreciate all the hard work you put into keeping this app updated and improved. I just felt obligated to provide feedback in hopes it can help you perfect it.

Thanks for the feedback and compliments! It is nice to know that my app has been an improvement on your controller. As for the rest of your comments, see my first remark on this page.

Thanks again for your feedback. It's comments like this from you, steve, and all the others (sorry guys for not specifically mentioning your names but you know who you are) that helps me continue to improve the app and it keeps me going with working on it knowing that it is useful for people. So please keep the comments and feedback coming.

TanksNStuff wrote: 3. Is there any way you can reduce the fonts slightly or resize the "Relay" tabs so that all 8 ports fit on the page at once? As of right now, with both versions you need to scroll up to see the last 2 ports. It would be better if we could just see the whole thing on one page. And this is coming from someone with a Samsung Note Edge which has one of the largest screens for phones at this time.

5. On the "Commands" tab, when my phone is in vertical orientation, The "Clear Overheat" button text has the last letter "t" carried to the third row. A change in font may correct this. In landscape orientation, this is not an issue since the text is all on one line. Not a big deal, but aesthetically it looks like it needs to be fixed.

I just looked at both of my phones that I use for testing (Moto X 1st Gen and Samsung Galaxy Nexus) and I do not notice these problems. On both of my phones, I can only see ports 1 through 7 with port 8 being off the screen. On the Commands tab, the "Clear Overheat" text displays nicely on 2 lines and the "t" is not wrapped to the 3rd line.
I'm actually a little surprised my devices are like this when your device is not given the size of your phone. It could also have something to do with the screen resolution.
Nonetheless, I just wanted to share this with you. I'm still looking into it more though.

All looks fine on my Galaxy S5. I tried taking a screen shot, but couldn't get it.

cool. I've got an idea for something that I can try out. it may take some time to figure it out but I have ideas.

Sent from my Moto X

Ideas are good.

pandimus wrote:Hey curt, i noticed something.. Not sure if its the app or my phone.. I deleted the non beta app so not sure if it was affected there also..

Lets say im on the relay page.. Like when im testing my dosers. I set my phone down to play with the hose on my doser and the phone goes into landscape mode.. It changes back to the first page with the temp..

Ive noticed it does that on all pages.

Kinda inconvenient because i gotta scroll back to turn off doser

I tracked down this issue and fixed it. Will be in the next iteration of releases.

Turns out I was always resetting the value to be on the Controller page. I had 1 too many sanity checks to ensure the variable was set before using and that was causing the problem.

TanksNStuff wrote: 3. Is there any way you can reduce the fonts slightly or resize the "Relay" tabs so that all 8 ports fit on the page at once? As of right now, with both versions you need to scroll up to see the last 2 ports. It would be better if we could just see the whole thing on one page. And this is coming from someone with a Samsung Note Edge which has one of the largest screens for phones at this time.

I have looked at this and think I have it resolved. I have a Samsung Galaxy Nexus phone which has a screen resolution of 720x1280. All 8 relays fit on the screen. I removed extra padding between the rows to make it all fit. It does not look too cramped to me. So it should work for you.

5. On the "Commands" tab, when my phone is in vertical orientation, The "Clear Overheat" button text has the last letter "t" carried to the third row. A change in font may correct this. In landscape orientation, this is not an issue since the text is all on one line. Not a big deal, but aesthetically it looks like it needs to be fixed.

I figured out what was going on here. Since your phone is so big, it uses a style that is more for tablets. This was/is something that I have not looked into too much. BUT since you are letting me know it's being used more and giving me feedback on it, I must test it out further (which is good). Rest assured, the aesthetics will be improved for you large screen folks.

One thing I've noticed on tablets is that the relay screens become harder to use simply because the button is so far away from the label. It's a little harder to match up and hit the correct button (I know, I suck).

I like the idea of the relay screens being more like the commands screen, with a big square button that contains the label for each port.

--Colin

cosmith71 wrote:One thing I've noticed on tablets is that the relay screens become harder to use simply because the button is so far away from the label. It's a little harder to match up and hit the correct button (I know, I suck).

I like the idea of the relay screens being more like the commands screen, with a big square button that contains the label for each port.

--Colin

i have noticed that too. I honestly have not given much additional work to those devices but i need to. i could even have a slight alternating row color as well as larger buttons. i could even alter the layout and make it closer together. i will just have to play around with it and see what i come up with.


a side note, i have been working on perfecting the theming and layouts for the app. i want to try to follow the google material guidelines better. some things will match up properly and others might be slightly off but not terribly bad. it's just a work in progress.


Sent from my iPad mini

binder wrote:

cosmith71 wrote:One thing I've noticed on tablets is that the relay screens become harder to use simply because the button is so far away from the label. It's a little harder to match up and hit the correct button (I know, I suck).

I like the idea of the relay screens being more like the commands screen, with a big square button that contains the label for each port.

--Colin

i have noticed that too. I honestly have not given much additional work to those devices but i need to. i could even have a slight alternating row color as well as larger buttons. i could even alter the layout and make it closer together. i will just have to play around with it and see what i come up with.


a side note, i have been working on perfecting the theming and layouts for the app. i want to try to follow the google material guidelines better. some things will match up properly and others might be slightly off but not terribly bad. it's just a work in progress.


Sent from my iPad mini

Nice. I can help with the graphics if you need it. Let me know.

Since documentation is, how do you say, lacking for my app, I took the time yesterday (all day actually) to document the app and include screenshots. It started off as me learning to use markdown and writing up some info about the preferences and then it turned into me writing up something for the entire app. I figured it was necessary to explain how everything works with the app so there's no confusion. It can also be a better help for me to keep track of what is missing, needed, not needed, etc. I plan on updating it as more functionality is added and as the app evolves.

It's a start for now. Here's the link to it:
Android Status Manual

It is based off of the existing Beta 3 version. I may be pushing out a RC 1 release later today. I'm pretty sure I have things about as polished as I can have them.

Awesome!!!

Very nice Binder.

Excellent....

New update posted. Should be available in the store later tonight or tomorrow. Almost ready for official release. The theme should now be consistent all throughout. As long as it is, that will help for the addition of a Dark theme that so many have requested.

binder wrote:New update posted. Should be available in the store later tonight or tomorrow. Almost ready for official release. The theme should now be consistent all throughout. As long as it is, that will help for the addition of a Dark theme that so many have requested.

Havent seen this update hit yet..

I got it.

I got it a couple of days ago.

cosmith71 wrote:I got it.

Sacohen wrote:I got it a couple of days ago.

Ok thanks.. Lemme see what up

pandimus wrote:

cosmith71 wrote:I got it.

Sacohen wrote:I got it a couple of days ago.

Ok thanks.. Lemme see what up

it was only posted for the beta testers. so you need to be signed up for that from my google plus community. I have not pushed it out to everyone yet... making sure it passes the standard tests first.

Sent from my Nexus 7

binder wrote:

pandimus wrote:

cosmith71 wrote:I got it.

Sacohen wrote:I got it a couple of days ago.

Ok thanks.. Lemme see what up

it was only posted for the beta testers. so you need to be signed up for that from my google plus community. I have not pushed it out to everyone yet... making sure it passes the standard tests first.

Sent from my Nexus 7

Yeah i kinda figured that out when i reread your post. And realized it was only the old version on Google play

ok cool. so far things are looking and sounding good with it. if no other complaints about its functionality I will most likely release it to everyone this weekend.

Sent from my Moto X

Hold on to your hats folks, I just pushed out the official v2.0 release of my app.

Many thanks to all of you who tested and gave feedback during the long development phase.

I have updated all the screenshots on the playstore to reflect the latest design and layouts. I have included 7" tablet shots as well so you can see how it looks on those tablets too. The tablets screenshots also show what it looks like under the Android 5.0 and later. The standard phone screenshots are taken on KitKat.

Those people who did not test out the Beta versions, your app should update just fine (provided you have Android 4.0 or later....sorry guys that are still running 2.2 & 2.3, you won't be getting this update). If you have installed the Beta releases, you may have to re-do your homescreen launchers and re-add the app to your homescreen. Sorry for this problem but I fixed the issue with the release. I had changed a few internal names around and that initially screwed up the launcher. I just remembered that and fixed it for the official release. So, if you update your app and you notice that the launcher does not work, you know why.....my bad.

Otherwise, let me know if you encounter any issues with the update. I intentionally released it Friday night so I have the weekend to fix any "issues" that may come up from the updates. If no issues occur, then that's fantastic and it allows me to move onward to the next line of features and other misc projects.

Enjoy!

I don't like the colors, I loved the black background with the colored font.
otherwise seems to work the same.

I love it.. Seems to be flowing well right into lollipop

Ademster;
Binder is working on themes so you can choose the current white one or the older black one.

The only thing I've noticed since I installed the pushed version yesterday was that my icon to it from my home screen disappeared.
No big deal I just dragged another one out from the apps screen.

Sacohen wrote:Ademster;
Binder is working on themes so you can choose the current white one or the older black one.

yes, i am working on the black theme.

The only thing I've noticed since I installed the pushed version yesterday was that my icon to it from my home screen disappeared.
No big deal I just dragged another one out from the apps screen.

yeah, unfortunately the beta testers lost their home screen app.

Sent from my Moto X