Android 3.0 Honeycomb

[touchsquid]

I'm developing for the Honeycomb tablet platform. There are a number of new APIs and features.

Are ther any plans to add additional features to B4a for the 3.o platform? Perhaps just some additional libraries for the new APIs?

 

[marathon332]

That's something I've been wondering about too...

What's basically involved with progamming for HoneyComb?

--Steve

 

[peacemaker]

1/2 off: no idea about debugging 3.0 on a real device now, but the emulator v3.0 is sooooo sloooow, that ... not interesting to try more...

 

[Erel]

Are ther any plans to add additional features to B4a for the 3.o platform? Perhaps just some additional libraries for the new APIs?

There are plans to add support for the unique features of Honeycomb.

Note that Honeycomb is backwards compatible and runs regular Android applications.

 

[Smee]

There are plans to add support for the unique features of Honeycomb.

Note that Honeycomb is backwards compatible and runs regular Android applications.

I have been searching for quite a while but without success. I have an app that works ok on a viewsonic but when installed on a xoom the program crashes, says items have not been initialised when activity resume is called and just does not behave the same.

I looked in the avd manager to see if i could recompile for android 3 but there is no package there. The app also runs slower.

Any pointers as to how i can fix?

TIA

 

[Erel]

Basic4android fully supports Honeycomb devices as of B4A v1.6. For v1.6 there was a fix that you should apply: Fix for debugging / dialogs issue in Honeycomb devices

It is only needed for B4A v1.6.

 

[Smee]

Basic4android fully supports Honeycomb devices as of B4A v1.6. For v1.6 there was a fix that you should apply: Fix for debugging / dialogs issue in Honeycomb devices

It is only needed for B4A v1.6.

Thanks for the reply Erel,

However I am now using 1.7 and the problems still apply. I am going to recompile using API 11 when it has finished downloading. Hopefully that will give me the speed that i was getting with 2.2 on Viewsonic. I find it incredible that an OS upgrade actually gives an app worse performance.

Will let you know if it fixes

 

[Erel]

The referenced SDK doesn't matter in this case. You should check the error logs and post the error.

 

[Smee]

As usual Erel you are correct. The change made no difference. The app still runs slower. However i just realised that the Viewsonic's Atom processor is clocked at 1.83ghz whereas the xoom is 1ghz. As Andrew has pointed out in various threads the dual core dcoes not give any advantage.

To the problems that were caused. This works on the viewsonic

Sub Activity_Create(FirstTime As Boolean)
If FirstTime Then 
   Activity.LoadLayout("numPanelLayout")
   lvProducts.Initialize("lvProducts")
   pnlNum.LoadLayout("numpanel")
   pnlNum.Visible=True   
   pnlNum.Top=1010 'Xoom
   pnlNum.Width = 600
   
   OpenPictureTable
   Activity.AddMenuItem("Cats", "mnuCatalogues")
   PageTurner.Initialize("PageTurner", 20)
   Activity.AddView(PageTurner, 0, 0, Activity.Width, Activity.Height - 195dip)

   PageTurner.TwoPages = False 
   PageTurner.RenderLeftPage = False

   PageTurner.SetMargins(0.0,0.01, 0.0, 0.01)
   
   lvOrderPdct.Initialize("lvOrderPdct")
   Activity.AddView(lvOrderPdct,0,800,175,180) 'Viewsonic
'   Activity.AddView(lvOrderPdct,0,1030,175,180) 'Xoom
      
   pnlOptions.Top=495
   pnlOptions.Left=75
   pnlOptions.Height=280
   pnlOptions.Width=470
end if

yet on the xoom I have to remove the end if statement.

This only affects the program when i return to the activity. The whole code is contained in an activity module.

Obviously it is no big deal because it works correctly on both machines with slightly different code. I just find it strange.

 

[agraham]

You should not load your layouts inside that If block. They should always be loaded when Activity_Create is called. That may be the cause of the differing behaviour between the x86 based Android and the ARM based Android.

 

[Smee]

Thanks for the reply Andrew,

Yes i removed the end if but it seems strange that on the atom it runs correctly inside the end if. Although as i noticed a few times before the atom seems to always return false when calling the activity. It could be a bug inside the atom architecture? I understand that there is a new intel cpu designed for the android.

Also with the Atom when i set the mode to PORTRAIT only it does exactly the opposite and will not rotate into the portrait mode yet the Xoom with the same code works correctly

Maybe these idiosyncracies should be kept in a thread somewhere for future reference?

Anyway the atom does run the code SIGNIFICANTLY faster than the Xoom. It is a pity that the screen real estate is less on the Viewsonic and also there are issues such as above. It would be a great tablet otherwise

Joe

 

[agraham]

Yes i removed the end if

I assume you mean you removed the entire If /End If block otherwise I don't understand what you mean.

It could be a bug inside the atom architecture?

Nope, nothing to do with CPU architecture. These issues are probably because of a bad port to x86 code, probably at the native code and not the Java level. Take the Xoom behaviour as a reference as to what should be happening.

Anyway the atom does run the code SIGNIFICANTLY faster than the Xoom.

Not surprising, it's a lot more powerful processor than the ARM, not only because it is clocked faster, but uses a lot more power to do it.

 

[Smee]

I assume you mean you removed the entire If /End If block otherwise I don't understand what you mean.

Yes, the layouts are loaded each time now. There is no conditional If/End If statement.

Nope, nothing to do with CPU architecture. These issues are probably because of a bad port to x86 code, probably at the native code and not the Java level. Take the Xoom behaviour as a reference as to what should be happening.

This would explain many things as to why some things worked correctly and others did not. For instance with the Xoom i can now "lock in" portrait mode only whereas with the viewsonic i couldnt. The program did the reverse in fact, would only work in landscape. However there was no vice versa.

Thanks for the help Andrew