Which Libraries to you use most?

[PhilipBrown]

Given the limited time available to write and limited space available within the forthcoming book on B4A (Basic4Android Book | Penny Press) I'm going to have to concentrate on the most popular Additional Libraries. So which ones do you use most? I can't run a poll since polls can only have 10 options, so if you could just pick your favourites that would be most helpful.

Thank you.

 

[moster67]

Well there are many good third-party libraries available. To mention a few:

1) Reflection-library by Agraham (see http://www.b4x.com/forum/additional-libraries-classes-official-updates/6767-reflection-library.html#post39256). This is probably the most used third-library of them all and in my opinion it should be part of the standard distribution of B4A. However, the library is not straight-forward and easy to learn as many others since it requires some understanding of JAVA. Many developers use this library in their projects because there are so many samples available here on the forum where it is being used. I think this library should be covered in your book with many examples how to use it.

2) AHViewPager-library by Corwin42 (see http://www.b4x.com/forum/additional-libraries-classes-official-updates/14165-ahviewpager-library-sliding-panels-now-perfect.html)

3) AHQuickAction-library by Corwin42 (see http://www.b4x.com/forum/additional-libraries-classes-official-updates/14563-ahquickaction-library-nice-looking-popup-menus.html)

4) TabHostExtras by Warwound (see http://www.b4x.com/forum/additional-libraries-classes-official-updates/11056-tabhostextras.html#post61757)

5) CheckList-class by Informatix (see http://www.b4x.com/forum/additional-libraries-classes-official-updates/18853-class-checklist.html). This is a class but very useful. The same author has written another excellent library, namely UltimateListView (see http://www.b4x.com/forum/additional-libraries-classes-official-updates/22736-lib-chargeable-ultimatelistview.html) but it is not free but well worth its cost.

There are so many more one should mention because the B4A-community is very fortunate to have such great library developers who are sharing their work with us. Those mentioned above were just a selection. For a complete list, see Libraries - Basic4android Wiki). It should be mentioned that there are some other libraries published in the forum but not mentioned in above list.

 

[warwound]

You could browse each post where a library is available for download and look at the download count.
That won't be perfect as the download count is reset to zero whenever a library is updated.
But it'll give you an idea of how many people have downloaded the latest version of each library.

Martin.

 

[thedesolatesoul]

Or you could view the Library threads sorted by views: Additional libraries, classes and official updates - Android Development Forum - Basic4android

 

[Erel]

The problem with the "views" list is that it favors older libraries. Here is another list sorted by ViewsPerDay. This list slightly favors new libraries.

 

[PhilipBrown]

What's the URL for the view sorted by ViewsPerDay

The problem with the "views" list is that it favors older libraries. Here is another list sorted by ViewsPerDay. This list slightly favors new libraries.

Erel

I think the view sorted by ViewsPerDay is just what I need to prioritise my time on the libraries. Thank you.

I'd like to include a link to it in the book, but can't figure out the syntax. Can you let me know the URL to get it please?

 

[Erel]

I'm afraid that there isn't such a page in the forum. I used PhpMyAdmin to run a custom SQL query on the forum database and took a screenshot of the result.

 

[Informatix]

Erel

I think the view sorted by ViewsPerDay is just what I need to prioritise my time on the libraries. Thank you.

If you do so, you're going to speak of the Coverflow library as a popular library despite that's probably far from being true. It is a recent library with only 95 downloads. My Scrollview2D library has more than 1300 downloads and is not even in this list. To do a list of popular libraries, you should forget any selection based on numbers because these numbers won't tell you if the library is appreciated and really used by the downloaders; they won't tell you if the library is still fully functional; they won't tell you how many real downloads have been done (the counter is reset when the file is updated)... I think that a better approach would be to ask users what's their favorite list as you did initially, but how many of us are going to participate? If you have only 10 answers, that will be difficult to have an opinion on the subject. For my part, I would mention my own libraries (I use them and they are suited to my needs, of course!) but that would tell you nothing about their intrinsic quality or their popularity. So your question is a pretty complex question, but frankly speaking, if you're an experienced user (and I hope you are if you write a book) you should have already a clear idea of the top five. The Reflection library is probably the most useful library and the Dialogs lib one of the most popular. After that it depends on what you are focused: gaming, DB, social network, file exchange, etc.

 

[Jim Brown]

I reckon this is quite hard to gauge. I would take a broad range of libraries to show just what is possible with B4a. Different libraries appeal to people depending on their needs. There are little gems out there that might get missed entirely if you go by most popular/most dowloaded.

For me, I tend to use Reflection, OpenGL , and Advanced Camera, and Expression Library.
Again, that's just a personal choice on my wants and needs.

 

[stevel05]

I think Reflection is used in most my projects.

Of the others I probably use ABZipUnzip and Dialogs most.

 

[Informatix]

I think Reflection is used in most my projects.

Of the others I probably use ABZipUnzip and Dialogs most.

ABZipUnzip is a good example of the popular library that should not be in a book because:
1) It's a project not maintained and not supported by his author (Alain is probably too busy), with an annoying bug still to fix;
2) It exists a much better library built on the same basis: Archiver. It does all what ABZipUnzip does, has more features, and seems until now to be reliable so there's no more reason to use ABZipUnzip.
That being said, I don't think that Archiver deserves more than just a mention. It's good to know that you can zip/unzip your files, but no one will exclaim "hey, that's cool ! I can do that with B4A!" Same thing for a bunch of other good libraries. They are useful, but not very sexy.

 

[stevel05]

I've used ABZipUnzip for two years + and not had a problem with it, so have had no reason to look else where, but point taken. Phil can pick the bones out of the lists and discussions in this thread.

 

[Informatix]

I've used ABZipUnzip for two years + and not had a problem with it, so have had no reason to look else where, but point taken. Phil can pick the bones out of the lists and discussions in this thread.

My intent was not to discourage you from using it. I'm sure there are many devs happy with it (and thus, they have no good reason to change). It was just an example of the difficulty to build a list of "good" libraries. Since users reported a bug, still unfixed, and since it exists an alternative, what's the most important? Popularity or reliability (and features)?

Some libraries are probably very useful but I never used them (webview, advanced camera, etc.) or they can be useful but they are poorly written and I won't advise others to use them. I suppose that Philip Brown is in the same trouble to build a list. So I try to think about it, aloud, with my posts.

 

[stevel05]

I didn't take it as such, discussion is healthy and hopefully helps Phil get a balanced view of what's available, reliable and popular for his unenviable task.

 

[thedesolatesoul]

With regards to libraries, all of them are so different, it is hard to say which ones to include.
Things like Camera, Bluetooth, RAF should probably be included since they people will be expecting those (though the Camera lib will be difficult).

It is true that Reflection is a very useful library but the truth is, that it is only useful because we are being lazy. In reality, you could write a tiny library to run that one method you need instead of using Reflection (and you still need a lot of java knowledge to be able to use Reflection). If you want to add this, I believe it should be written by someone very knowledgeable and should be put into an Advanced section.

Also, there are some other libraries which require some external knowledge. Like corwin's AHActionBar or AHQuickActions require you to copy resources and mark them as read-only. While it is simple to explain the actions, a book is supposed to explain the reasons and theory behind the actions as well.

One suggestion is to pick up a project, and as you go through the book, try to build the project along. We are willing to help in writing the code etc. Also a short section on Library development, and especially for ba components can be used will be useful (although maybe out of the scope of the book).

 

[Beja]

Wish you total success with your book.
I am using phonesms lib for communication