I recently started a new project developing a simple Android App. Over the years, I have completed many apps, most for my own fun and not math related. The list is longer than I thought.
- Some word books, English-Spanish, English-German, English-Esperanto, German-Interlingua and English-Interlingua. I got the words for these apps for free. The apps simply search through the content.
- A Sudoku implementation, also generating problems.
- A Depth-Of-View Calculator.
- A Numbers game like the old quizz show Le Chiffre on French TV. You have to build a target using given numbers and basic arithmetic.
- A Kalah Game, playing stronger than I do.
- A Music Memory.
- A Prima Vista sight singing trainer.
- A Game for Kids to repeat light patterns on a 4×4 grid, optionally with sounds.
All of them are free and do not show any ads, a fact that Google does not like. I get offers to monetarize my apps from time to time which I reject.
The older apps were developed on Eclipse with the Android plugin. This does no longer work. I had a hard time to import them into Android Studio. I develop in Java and that is not the main target in Android Studio anymore. Some of my apps still do not work properly. I do no longer update them.
Now, I do no complicated layouts anymore. I try to get by with a simple canvas to draw on, plus a menu for help etc. The recent version of Android has made that more difficult than before. I still have no good way to prevent the menu bar from covering my content. Currently, I use guesswork and leave some space from the top with a top indent. It seems to be the case, that only newer Android versions can be asked for the necessary space for the indents. I hate that kind of version switches.
If you have a working app, you want to clone it for another app, and just modify the content. Google Play requires to have different name spaces. If you just refactor the sources, the R module will not be found. I still do not know a safe way to fix this. Just look through all your XML files and cradle scripts for anything that refers to the old name space.
Due to a crash of my main computer and my negligence to backup, I lost my keystore. Android Studio kann now generate a new key. But Google Play will no longer let me update my old apps. The only way you can prevent this, is by using Google App Signing. I am still trying to figure that out.
I test my apps on my devices using a sideload. Google does prevent this now. As soon, as you uploaded the app to Google Play, it will stop working. The solution is to use a different key for the sideloaded APK. Use another one for the AAB you upload to Google Play.
The included emulator stopped working. My tries to fix this may have been the cause of my computer crash. I reinstalled with a new Windows 11 version via a stick, generated by the Windows tool available on Microsoft’s page on my laptop. Make a backup stick now. Even better make one every month.
In the new Windows 11, I also have a new Android Studio. Gladly, I did backup my sources and was able to open them with the new version.
I had to create new Android devices for the emulator a few times, because it did not respond. There might be an easier fix for this. Now, everything is working.
So far about my recent Android Studio adventures. I will probably come back here and a bit more of that nuisance. This is really stealing my time.