Share My Creation Compass GM a gyro-magnetic compass app featuring true and magnetic heading

PhilN · Aug 15, 2020

Hi everyone, you are all welcome to download and install my free and newly released gyro-magnetic compass app "Compass GM" written in B4A from the Play Store. As long as your device has a compass. Please let me know what you think and if you want to please rate and write a review on it in the Store. You may also post comments here of course.

I also want to thank this amazing B4X community for helping me and especially Erel, who on numerous occasions has helped me in the past.

Credit and thanks also goes to:

AccelratedSurface(ver 1.12) Informatix
Gestures(ver 1.20) Agraham
GoogleMapsExtras(ver 1.34) Warwound
Magnetics(ver 1.00) Derez
Reflection(ver 2.20) Agraham
SensorExtender(ver 0.01) MikieK
Erel for creating such an amazing dev tool as B4A.

Edit: I am glad to announce the compass Day/Night modes. I created a red night view to reduce night blinding due to bright light. Please check it out on Google Play in the link provided above.

The red tint was achieved by using the ImageProcessing (Version: 1.06) library. When the user selects night mode, the activity is recreated and all the images are loaded normally as bitmaps and then image processed with the tint applied. When the user again selects day mode, the activity is recreated again but without any image processing. Buttons had to be dealt with in a slightly different way.

mario.berardo · Mar 31, 2021

How did you make the graphics ?

PhilN · Apr 1, 2021

mario.berardo said:
How did you make the graphics ?

Hi Mario. Yes, I did.

mario.berardo · Apr 7, 2021

PhilN said:
Hi Mario. Yes, I did.

Please, could you explain me how you build the wonderfull UI ?

PhilN · Apr 8, 2021

mario.berardo said:
Please, could you explain me how you build the wonderfull UI ?

Hi Mario. Sorry about my first reply to your question. I misunderstood what you said. I thought you said: Did you make the graphics?

To answer your question: I used Corel Draw, a vector based drawing and layout package. You can use Inkscape as it is free, to do the same. I searched for GUI elements that were free and that I liked and then down loaded the bitmap as a reference. I then painstakingly took the time to recreate my buttons using a similar look and feel to the reference GUI. It is quite a lot of work and takes a lot of time. I am quite good with graphic design, so to me it was easy. To someone with no experience in graphic design it will take a long time, but it still is possible. Once you enable yourself by getting to know a graphics program like Inkscape, you can fly and continue to create amazing content. If you really do not have a creative flare for graphic design, perhaps you can hire someone online to do the work for you. If you hire someone, you must be very clear about what you want to do and at what price. I hope this answers your question more clearly.

mario.berardo · Apr 8, 2021

PhilN said:
Hi Mario. Sorry about my first reply to your question. I misunderstood what you said. I thought you said: Did you make the graphics?

To answer your question: I used Corel Draw, a vector based drawing and layout package. You can use Inkscape as it is free, to do the same. I searched for GUI elements that were free and that I liked and then down loaded the bitmap as a reference. I then painstakingly took the time to recreate my buttons using a similar look and feel to the reference GUI. It is quite a lot of work and takes a lot of time. I am quite good with graphic design, so to me it was easy. To someone with no experience in graphic design it will take a long time, but it still is possible. Once you enable yourself by getting to know a graphics program like Inkscape, you can fly and continue to create amazing content. If you really do not have a creative flare for graphic design, perhaps you can hire someone online to do the work for you. If you hire someone, you must be very clear about what you want to do and at what price. I hope this answers your question more clearly.

Very good ! Thank you !!
And...how did you insert your corelDraw graphics into B4X ?

asales · Apr 8, 2021

mario.berardo said:
And...how did you insert your corelDraw graphics into B4X ?

I don't think that he uses a CDR file in the app. Maybe a PNG or JPEG files.

PhilN · Apr 9, 2021

mario.berardo said:
Very good ! Thank you !!
And...how did you insert your corelDraw graphics into B4X ?

Hi Mario. Asales is correct. I export the graphics at any DPI that I want since my artwork is in vector graphic format. I have selected a resolution that is roughly HD (1920 x 1080), and then export the button graphics (3 x PNG images that include transparency), for NORMAL, PRESSED and DISABLED states. Here Corel Draw is very nice in that it allows me to create 3 state buttons. I also export the backgrounds as JPG if they do not have transparency. Some of the panels that hold the buttons have transparency, so they are PNG images. I use the Designer in B4A to do my layout of all the buttons and text. In the Designer you can load all the graphic bitmaps, PNG or JPG, into buttons or images that you can resize and position. I look at my layout that I have made in Corel Draw as a reference to see where each element must be placed. I sometimes measure them and work out scaling factors accordingly especially when their aspect ratio must be retained. I also use layout scripts to make the design layout to work on various screen aspect ratios. I test them. I hope this helps you.

Almora · Apr 16, 2021

Works well

BlueVision · Jul 3, 2021

Phil, I like your app very much. It's design is awesome, functionality too. Send me a PM and tell me about the trick to get an awesome fast position fix, after starting the app. It's almost immediately. Only thing really annoying me is probably fast to fix for you. In my eyes a small mistake in design. Have a look at the compass rose in your posted picture above. There is a problem with the orientation of the large letters for east, south and west inside the blue ring. "W" and "E" should rotate about 90 degrees, "S" is upside down. The smaller letters for NW, NE, SE and SW are correct. There is always something, I know... But, it is an awesome piece of software. I like it, when an app "physically" redesigns my mobile phone into something completely different. Exactly my approach in design, honestly I am not that perfect. We should talk...

PhilN · Jul 3, 2021

BlueVision said:
Phil, I like your app very much. It's design is awesome, functionality too. Send me a PM and tell me about the trick to get an awesome fast position fix, after starting the app. It's almost immediately. Only thing really annoying me is probably fast to fix for you. In my eyes a small mistake in design. Have a look at the compass rose in your posted picture above. There is a problem with the orientation of the large letters for east, south and west inside the blue ring. "W" and "E" should rotate about 90 degrees, "S" is upside down. The smaller letters for NW, NE, SE and SW are correct. There is always something, I know... But, it is an awesome piece of software. I like it, when an app "physically" redesigns my mobile phone into something completely different. Exactly my approach in design, honestly I am not that perfect. We should talk...

Thank you for the complement. Much appreciated. Actually I use the FLP (Fused Location Provider) to get a geolocation. It uses WiFi or GPS depending on which is available as I understand it. I agree with you concerning the E, S and W letters. I might fix them in the next release.

Share My Creation Compass GM a gyro-magnetic compass app featuring true and magnetic heading

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