Version 3.30.03 and new Android Software Remote

[Steve Horn]

I ran into another possible issue.In my Android theme's (Naninck/Incoronado) Jukebot panel there are several list controls, one of which ("Music Library") requires a double click on an entry to change the list from an Album list to Song list. This double click action - at least on my Android tablet - doesn't work. However, that same theme, when running on a Windows machine works as it should. Maybe someone can try to duplicate this with another list control to see if double click works on a touch screen Android?

[ScottBot]

In Android, use a 'long click' instead of the double click.

[Steve Horn]

Ahh hah, so it does.
I still have an issue with this particular use of the long/double click list control. But it's not related to the android app. I need to get into the jukebox code because it's returning "no records found" when it should be finding all songs from the long-clicked album. But thanks for the lesson in Androidism!

[Steve Horn]

Cockpit trouble... I suppose. I have to 'select' the album first with a single (short) click. (Places 'focus' on the album.) Then Long Click the selected album for the album/songs drill-down. Running the same theme on a Windows box, you can drill down with just a double click on the desired album, skipping the place focus step.

[ScottBot]

I guess it would make sense for the long press action to go ahead and do the single-click action first.

[Steve Horn]

Dunno. I feel strongly both ways.

(Somewhat related to that, I have a need to be able to replicate a double click on a list entry using a button control. I have several old windows touch screen tablets that don't reliably do double clicks on list control entries. So I thought it would be easier in the long run to have a separate "select" button that would determine where the focus in the list was, then do whatever the double click action normally does. Not looking for any support in that effort, just passing it along as an observation. I need to get into the jukebox script and figure a way. Basically, just thinking out Loud...)

[incoronado]

I'm seeing two issues with the Android Remote. The first issue, which is only a slight issue, is that I must load the remote twice before it loads. The first time I load it it I get an error Unfortunately, Housebot has stopped. When I load it a second time it works.

The second bigger issue that I'm seeing is that "Not enough memory for image transparency" errors. It appears that I'm overrunning the memory buffer that tracks transparency. If I remove one or two .png files the message goes away. If I add them again the message comes back. The actual images that are putting it over the limit are only 9K in size. Does this memory get cleared when you close a panel. If I create another theme with only one panel I do not get the same error, but only after I clear the program cache on the Android.

[Steve Horn]

I haven't seen your first - double load - issue. But I sometimes get an " not enough memory to load image..." for a static JPEG of weather radar. If I close the remote and restart it, I don't sem to get the message. I thought it might be AN android tablet memory issue but there are no other apps running at the time. And very few other apps installed at all other than what came with the tablet: total space 5.1 GB, 4.0 GB available. And with the software remote using 7.8 meg in my theme's case. (I just thought that the next time I get that msg I need to check how much app data storage is being used. Maybe it goes up over time instead of staying relatively constant @ 4.7 MB.)

[Steve Horn]

Also, a question: is there a specific version of Android OS and later that is required?

[incoronado]

I'm running Android version 4.4.2. I'm trying different things in an attempt to to isolate the problem. I really think it is related to collective transparency area. It looks like there is an upper limit. Hopefully this is dynamically allocated, but it is looking more-and-more like it is not since I get the message at load time. I think it is just running out of allocated memory. BTW The error message looks like a housebot message and not an android OS error message.

[incoronado]

I have solved the first issue where I have to load the remote twice by creating a theme and copying panels to this theme. There must have been some issue with the theme.xml file.

After considerable trial an error, I think I have found a reproducible workaround to the "Not enough memory for image transparency" issue-albeit a real painful solution. Clearing the ALL the application data on the android seems to solve it. That said, when a single theme change is made such as moving an image 1 pixel to the right and uploaded, the error returns.

I plan to do some more testing to further validate this.

There is an option on the windows software remote to delete the image control temporary files on startup. I'm not really sure what that does under the hood, but it sounds like this may be a similar issue.

[ScottBot]

Whenever you get an error that kills the app and has an option to "send the report", please send the report. It doesn't send any personal info, but gives me a nice stack trace to help diagnose the problem.

The image transparency and masking is very memory intensive and slow in Android. I've found in my own themes that there are a lot of buttons and images that have the transparency color selected even though it's not really needed (it's probably saved that way in the skin template). This will just slow the initial load down and require more memory, so double-check to make sure there is nothing selected that shouldn't be.

I've tried to duplicate prior memory issues, but have had limited success. It may be something particular to the image or theme or even the device. If you can send me a nice duplication theme or image, that might help me track it down.

There is an option on the windows software remote to delete the image control temporary files on startup. I'm not really sure what that does under the hood, but it sounds like this may be a similar issue.

This option will delete on startup any temporary files for dynamic images that have changed while running the previous time. In Android it just does this automatically.

[incoronado]

Scott,

I have spent a lot of time only to figure out I needed to wait about 5 seconds after closing the remote before reloading it. Steve pointed that out in above, but I failed to actually read what he said. It seems like it takes quite a while to clear the memory, and the behavior is very sporadic if you don't wait before reopening the remote. I Apologize for not posting this earlier, but I wanted to make sure I understood the issue.

[ScottBot]

Also, a question: is there a specific version of Android OS and later that is required?

It's built for version 3.0 (honeycomb) or higher. I've done some simple testing in the emulator at this level, but nothing exhaustive.

Since most of what the remote does is just recreating a bitmap image of the theme, it's pretty compatible. There are very few native controls or features that it actually uses, so compatibility hasn't been too much of an issue so far. Probably the biggest issue is memory, since some of the images that can be used to construct a theme can be pretty big. Depending on the hardware being used, that's the biggest issue.

[ScottBot]

... I needed to wait about 5 seconds after closing the remote before reloading it. ... It seems like it takes quite a while to clear the memory, and the behavior is very sporadic if you don't wait before reopening the remote.

I suppose it's possible that it takes a moment for Android to garbage collect all of the unused memory after an app closes. I haven't seen that myself, but it's good to keep in mind when looking into other memory related issues.