Bit and pieces of android app development part 2 - DIY woodworking India

Bit and pieces of android app development part 2 - DIY woodworking India

Hey all! Welcome. Hope you have gone through the first part of bit and pieces of android app development. If not, here is the link. That part was kind of introductory. It was more about how to solve an existing problem with the means you already have! technically. After all, it is more about passion and motivation. If you really want to solve a real problem with your heart and soul, I know you will do it. For that reason, anything coming your way - may it be a new learning or a skill set, you will surely do it. Learning android app development is just an another dot in that context, but the diameter of that dot is huge.

Continuing the discussion from our last blog, let us put a high level use case of our application.

Pictures can convey the message more clearly. The app user 1 has encountered the pothole and the app has written the coordinates and timestamp into the local sqlite data base of the android phone. Time to time, the app will upload the data to the server. Lets assume, it has already uploaded the data. App user 2 is approaching the same pothole, but he will see in his app that there is a pothole nearby. The app will send him a cautious message in terms of a tone or an alarm. Does it sound good?

Lets draw a high level design of our application. It is little more technical. But I will explain it in simple language.

This is a flow chart of the application we are going to build.

START - implies the application has started.
LISTEN TO THE ACCELEROMETER - implies that inbuilt accelerometer of the android phone is reading the acceleration value in X,Y and Z direction.
VALUE > 15 - implies that acceleration in either direction is more than 15.
RECORD GEOGRAPHICAL COORDINATES INTO DB - implies that phone's sqlite DB table is updated with the coordinates.
SYNC DB TO CLOUD SERVER - implies that phone's DB is uploaded to cloud server and data are synced.

Y and N means Yes and No respectively. Below picture depicts multiple users using the app syncing their own DB with cloud.

So far so good. I hope the design is pretty clear now. Let me give you some more detail. Two more diagrams are listed below.

No sooner than I am writing this blog, I have completed the application. Let me give you a screenshot and the play store link.

Here is the link to the app.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sbordolo.potholefinder

You can install the app and try it out. If you find any difficulty, please comment.

Till this point, it has been only requirements and designs. You may be looking for the coding, of course. That will follow shortly in subsequent pages. Stay tuned.

Thanks for visiting DIY woodworking India.