Author Topic: LCARS.ANDROID (Read 4273 times)

AricwithanA · « **on:** March 08, 2011, 01:10:25 AM »

Hey all!

So as many of you know I finally joined the rest of the world with an updated phone. As we know, I lost my LCARS interface. While I wait for the software that I used to create that GUI to be ported over, I've started trying to learn about how to create apps for Android.

I have been learning a lot (and working on a non Star Trek app) but the hardest thing I've run into and trying to find information about is how Android handles the different screensizes, resolutions, dpi and all that jazz. I think I understand about the screen grid and all that stuff, but the problem with 24th Century LCARS is the damn elbos. Since I'm a noob, I can't find a way to make things move around, size right and all that fun without totally screwing up the elbos.

I'm no grand programmer and tend to hate programming....and to make things easier on myself (for now) I've instead decided to go with 22nd Century LCARS. Archer, NX Enterprise and the like. After doing research for designing, this version of LCARS should work rather well with the grid Android wants to use for interface stuff along with being able to adapt easier to all the different screens out there. Now that I've finally gotten OneNote working in Wine (broke down and picked up CrossOver) I'm starting to build the basis of things as I do more learning about the coding.

SDK, Eclipse and the plugin are installed and the first alpha will be very unfancy.

So, I give a call out to anyone here, if you have an Android phone and are interested...what kind of phone is it? It may take me a little bit to fully get going (on my second to last week of school) but yes.

Delan · « **Reply #1 on:** March 08, 2011, 01:32:39 AM »

Really would like to see and get it! if your able to get it going for "Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 mini pro" im the first that jumps around like a crazy tribble!

Michael · « **Reply #2 on:** March 09, 2011, 02:25:23 PM »

I have the big brother of that... Sony Ericsson X10

So I would definately try it out!

Josh · « **Reply #3 on:** March 09, 2011, 03:39:07 PM »

I would try it on my samsung galaxy s for sure

AricwithanA · « **Reply #4 on:** March 09, 2011, 06:21:11 PM »

Sweet, I'll take a look at the size differences and see what I need to do. Google's developer docs kinda suck! lol So it is a little slow going but I'm starting to get the basics.

If Adobe Air had access to the native Android API's, I could do this within the week with Actionscript3 and Flash. I wouldn't hardly even have to think but no access to the API's so I have to do this the hard way.

Photorp Tech · « **Reply #5 on:** March 10, 2011, 06:31:06 AM »

I'd try it out on a Motorola Droid X as well. Good luck! I just got into Android programming too.

spoondawg · « **Reply #6 on:** March 15, 2011, 02:52:05 AM »

AricwithanA · « **Reply #7 on:** March 25, 2011, 03:28:30 AM »

Quote from: spoondawg on March 15, 2011, 02:52:05 AM

=D

I'm jealous right now. I'd like at least SOMETHING LCARS for my phone, but no. Nothing so far.

I'm all graduated now! Woo! Taking a quarter or two off and going back for some IT Tech stuff I guess. lol

I've been slowly working on this and really, my brain is having a hard time wrapping itself around this real programming stuff. Really, I admire people that can do real programming. My brain freaks out. I can handle easier things like HTML, CSS, and Actionscript, but I'm trying.

Photorp Tech, where are you going for information, besides Google Docs? While I use Google itself for information, a lot of things do not explain things well and it is more "copy and paste", see you finished the guide! The prealpha of this thing will be basic, and without any type of customization. I want to try and include it at a later time as I try and learn this stuff so at the moment, I'm trying to figure out some of the basics. I have my buttons! They be clickable! I can't figure out this string stuff (if that is what I'm in the right place) to say, just launch the phone dialer app. lol It is like, why can't I just go to the onClick option and include a launch link to the app and all should be good! Grrr...lol. I'm a graphic designer Jim, not a programmer. lol

LCARS.MOBILE will stay a WAD theme once WAD is fully ported, but I'd really like to get some type of native Android app created also.

Photorp Tech · « **Reply #8 on:** March 25, 2011, 12:30:19 PM »

Yeah the google documentation stinks, you'd think as big as they are, and as much as they are pushing their platform they would have included better documentation

It depends what you want to do. Basically as with any program, I just google/bing/yahoo it, invariably someone else has had a similar problem or something I can tweak. Forums are also really really good for asking questions, I haven't joined an Android one yet as its not my primary focus. Other than that, I know Java so it helps alot with the syntax at first. The whole way android handles events, "messages" and other things is really neat and someways an improvement on Java, but some things are more difficult like scrolling.

If I ever get in way too deep, there is always the phone major (embedded systems) guys that I go to at school, and they tell me all about how to do it the right way

Of course they all hate us babbling about the coming of functional programming lol

Anyways, in short I haven't really done anything deep into the programming part of Android as I'm all booked up with school/work and haven't had the time.

As far as the string stuff, I'm not sure what you mean and you may find some help by looking at Java and inheritance. Yes, I wish (and someday it may come true) that OO languages become simpler and our computers are super fast... wait its coming! Bring on the quantum processors!

AricwithanA · « **Reply #9 on:** May 14, 2011, 07:10:13 AM »

Well I have to disappoint. Real programming just is not my cup of tea and Android has kicked my ass.

Right now LCARS.ANDROID is on standby in the sense that I can't program a native Android app. The sad part is, if I had access to the native API's (which there is some workaround hack trick supposedly) with Adobe Air when packaging a flash app, I could do this all in Actionscript in about a day or two. That being said, I didn't want to use flash, not at all but I am rather disappointed in Google in that they didn't have their app creation process a little more open to people like me. I could create a lot of awesome things if I was able to work with something closer to a scripting lang like actionscript or such. In the end, it is my fault of course.

On that note, that doesn't mean I'm not working on the project. I've put the ENT on the side and gone back to the 24th Century LCARS (it is what I prefer) and am just awaiting for the dev to finish porting his software over. The day that happens, I will have something out within a day or two. That is because I've been designing and creating all the graphical parts and how things will work and interact (since I know how the app I need works). I will be releasing those either as images or as a flash app demo because I'd like to have feedback as to the base design since I hope many of you will want to use it! I won't be supporting all resolutions right away, the first two will be 480x854 for droid x users (because that is what I physically have) and 480x800 because I can tweak away 54 pixels no problem.

So yes, that is where things stand at the moment. Cross my fingers beta for the app I use might be out this month if things are still anywhere near as planned.

Photorp Tech · « **Reply #10 on:** May 15, 2011, 01:32:26 AM »

Cool sounds good. Hey, at least you gave an update and a shot at it! Keep us informed and I'd definitely try it on my X when you get er running.

AricwithanA · « **Reply #11 on:** May 21, 2011, 10:11:33 AM »

Well here is a quick little update for ya'll.

http://photobucket.com/lcarsandroid

There is a spread of all three pages and the singles to show what the screen would look like on the phone. There is the general overview and then what each section looks like when interacting with the interface. The base design is pulled from the screens behind Harry Kim andTuvok along with a quick touch from TNG. For the most part the colors represent meanings for how you interact with the interface. My goal wasn't to create some random LCARS but to use the official LCARS as close as I can as the official design, hence basing it off my favorite series Operations panel. lol

When released, it will be easy for anyone to mod their own colors/buttons into place but I would like any suggestions or any mistake that I have missed. This goes from spelling, spacing that wasn't done quite right and such. I tried to keep specific rules for things but I'm sure I missed something here and there.

If there is something you hate/liked or is pulling too far from the source material, please say something. I have a few more things to tweak and finish the couple windows (communications and text) and a lock screen so not done yet!

Oh and the motion would be the swipe to next page scroll animation for the 3 main screens.

Aresius · « **Reply #12 on:** May 21, 2011, 04:40:44 PM »

When I first read that, I thought that someone had the idea to have Data be run on the LCARS system...

Sheesh.

Atlantisbase · « **Reply #13 on:** May 22, 2011, 01:02:47 AM »

Nice work. I wish I owned a smart phone now.

I think the only thing a little out of place are the gradated bars used for signal and power. When we see bar graphs like that, they're usually just a solid color or perhaps faded to a lighter shade of the same color.

I assume you're just skinning over the stock interface and that you can't rearrange the "levels" of the interface? I only ask this because from my interpretation of LCARS some of those buttons might be better as "sub-menus". So like in this one,

The "Alarm" and "Chronometer" items would be better as a sub menu of say "Clock". And "Phone" and "Wifi" might be better suited as a sub level of "Comm". Although I don't own a smart phone, I'm guessing that you can't really re-arrange the commands that much. For LCARS to be functional it has always struck me that it would have to make use of a series of nested menus that visually replace one another until a function was reached.

If you want a good try at functional LCARS check out a program called LCARS24. It's basically intended as a shell replacement, intended for a DOS system, but it can be run on top of Windows. It might not work on a desktop though as it was intended for laptops; I recall trying on a desktop once and it wouldn't run.

AricwithanA · « **Reply #14 on:** May 22, 2011, 05:49:02 AM »

Quote from: Atlantisbase on May 22, 2011, 01:02:47 AM

Nice work. I wish I owned a smart phone now.

I think the only thing a little out of place are the gradated bars used for signal and power. When we see bar graphs like that, they're usually just a solid color or perhaps faded to a lighter shade of the same color.

I assume you're just skinning over the stock interface and that you can't rearrange the "levels" of the interface? I only ask this because from my interpretation of LCARS some of those buttons might be better as "sub-menus". So like in this one,

The "Alarm" and "Chronometer" items would be better as a sub menu of say "Clock". And "Phone" and "Wifi" might be better suited as a sub level of "Comm". Although I don't own a smart phone, I'm guessing that you can't really re-arrange the commands that much. For LCARS to be functional it has always struck me that it would have to make use of a series of nested menus that visually replace one another until a function was reached.

If you want a good try at functional LCARS check out a program called LCARS24. It's basically intended as a shell replacement, intended for a DOS system, but it can be run on top of Windows. It might not work on a desktop though as it was intended for laptops; I recall trying on a desktop once and it wouldn't run.

Woot! This is the type of info I'm looking for. The meters are the way they were because that was how I did things with LCARS.MOBILE and I just brought that over first. I've yet not decided if I want the signal to be the antenna or wifi. My hope is that by hitting it, a new window will animate in allowing you to choose. If not, it is easy to change the meter type in the objects preferences within the base software. When it comes to the color I'll play around with a few colors and saturations.

LCARS.ANDROID will be built using a program called Wisbar Desktop Advance from Lakeridge Software. The dev says the goal is limited alpha mid June for the port to Android from Windows Mobile 6.x and I hope I can be a part of it. With this software, it doesn't matter what I end up finalizing with. If you don't like it, you can easily adapt things to your personal taste. I want to set all the commands, linking and objects to be easily adjusted for your personal taste. All the source image files will be available.

I didn't have a stock interface to use, just a couple screens of the operations station from voyager episodes to emulate for the base style. Everything you see there is hand created in photoshop so the levels can be whatever that they are decided to be. Yea, I threw that screen on the phone and the buttons are too small so I'm going to have to cut out a couple options and make them part of a sub menu. I'll keep Alarm as something right there under preferences. It is the main system setting I access and I think it is worthy to be a separate option. The rest I was trying to balance instant access links with submenus but yea, I'll have to combine a few. I'll go with your idea of having the phone and Wifi under a Comm option. I'll merge battery and display under a hardware tech term option. Because I want this to be an easy base for others to work with, I don't want to go with anything more than one sub-menu as the stock setup but that shouldn't stop any of these changes I don't think.

Awesome, you confirmed a couple things I was thinking and added a couple ideas to work with. Thanks! I'll update here in a couple days with a new image. I just can't wait till WAD is out. Even more so because I have a few things, that if all goes well, will be some neat surprises for everyone.

AricwithanA · « **Reply #15 on:** May 24, 2011, 07:50:32 AM »

Well here are some of the modifications.

http://photobucket.com/lcarsandroid

I enlarged the systems buttons and changed how the submenu works and allowed me to show a little more info on each sub level also. I also changed the meter bar levels to something more close to the original bars. What ya guys think?

Roar54 · « **Reply #16 on:** May 24, 2011, 02:47:39 PM »

I like it!

AricwithanA · « **Reply #17 on:** May 27, 2011, 08:40:36 AM »

Quote from: Roar54 on May 24, 2011, 02:47:39 PM

I like it!

Thanks!

Well here is the lockscreen.

If there are no other suggestions on the main stuff, I'll start pulling the individual assets apart and get things ready. When you hit access, other buttons light up/change color allowing further access. I've got a couple tweaks I have for the lock screen if there are any major complaints. Oh and the Self-D, well, that will be non-surprise surprise! lol

Oh and the Font.

I'm using the Swiss911 UCm BT Font. Photoshop doesn't do cleartype very well, so am I using the correct font? I'm going to see what I can do about cleaning up some of the smaller text. With Android you can't add new fonts to the system unless you root things. I've got the text problem solved for others to modify, but it all has to be done via image form and not through an actual custom via the system. Stupid Android.

Pendra · « **Reply #18 on:** June 07, 2011, 12:08:14 AM »

I made this app some time ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19z-rNx7R_Q

Unfortunately I hit some bad compatibility issues (cheap Chinese pads doh..), but it is fun nonetheless.

AricwithanA · « **Reply #19 on:** June 07, 2011, 12:24:43 AM »

Quote from: Pendra on June 07, 2011, 12:08:14 AM

I made this app some time ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19z-rNx7R_Q

Unfortunately I hit some bad compatibility issues (cheap Chinese pads doh..), but it is fun nonetheless.

NICE! You created YHTK or just the LCARS part or is the app itself LCARS or programmed with LCARS in mind? Either way, damn awesome there! I think this is an app I will be buying and try and make interfaces for. It says it works with all applications, does that include windows media player I wonder? It would be awesome to create a full on LCARS controller for it from my phone! Ohh it says it can be used with photoshop...hmm...oh my....that would be rather useful.

This is how I want to play STE, everything on a tablet device for my keyboard/mouse combo with an entirely new way to interact with a video game. You sir/miss, have made my day today!