A6f. Alerts for Courses The mobile application allows the user to set alerts for either the start or the end date of each course, or the alerts do not trigger when the application is not running. A7a. Assessments for each Course The mobile application allows the user to add performance and objective assessments for each course but cannot include the title of the assessment and the end date for each assessment. A7c. Alerts for Goal Dates The mobile application allows the user to set alerts for either the start or the end dates for each assessment.
1 Mobile Application Development Report Guru Katuwal Mobile Application Development – C196 Carolyn Sher-DeCusatis 12/30/2021 Mobile Application Development Report The storyboard The application starts with a home activity that has an edittext to enter the term’s name and two date pickers to pick a start and an end date. Below the edittext, there are two buttons one to save the terms details and the other one to navigate to a page for viewing all terms added. On the view terms page, there is a recyclerview that list all terms added. If a user clicks a single view, another activity opens that show a detailed term view. On a long press of a view, a dialog with four buttons appears. The buttons are named as follows. Update Term, Add Course, View Course, and Delete Course. On a click of Update Term button, an activity opens where user can edit and saved term’s details. Add Course button opens an activity to add as many courses as possible for that particular term. Delete Course deletes the clicked term. View Course opens an activity that has a list of all added courses of that term displayed using a recyclerview. On a click of a course, an activity with a detailed course view opens. On a long press of a course, 7 options are displayed using a dialog as follows. Update Course, Add Assessment, View Assessment, Add Optional Note, View Optional Note, Share Optional Note, Delete Course and Delete Note. Update option opens an activity where user can update course details. Add Assessment adds an assessment to the selected course. Add optional notes adds an optional note to the course selected. View Optional Note opens an activity that displays the added optional note. . To view course notes, you long press a course, and a dialog appears with several options. There is an option to view optional notes. If you click on the option, an activity with course notes opens. Above the notes, there are two buttons for updating and deleting the notes. Share optional note opens an activity that ask user for recipient phone number to send the optional note via SMS. Delete Course deletes the course selected. View assessment options opens an activity that has a list of all assessment associated with the course selected. On a click of an assessment, an activity opens that displays a detailed assessment view. On long press of an assessment, two options to update and delete assessment appears About adding assessment type, when you long press a course, there is an option to add an assessment. There are several edittext to enter assessment data assessment type included. A user enters either performance or objectives. The application has a notification function that checks and alert users on the start and end dates of a terms, courses and assessments. Below are the screenshots of the flow of the application Home Page View terms page Dialog when term is long presses Add Course Screen Screen to view all courses Dialog for long press of a course Screen to add an assessment Screen to view all assessment Screenshot for generating APK file For successful build For the generated APK file How the application would be different if it was to be developed for a tablet If the app was to be used on a tablet, some layouts and element properties would have changed. Tablets have a larger screen as compared to smart phones thus there is need to change some properties to make the output be proportional to screen size. For instance, I would have used a relative layout rather than using constraints layout or linear layout with a gravity of center. In case of using a linear layout, instead of making the gravity of layout to be center, I would use margins instead. For width and height of elements such as Edittext, buttons and textviews, instead of using match_parent property, I would define the height and width using sp. Fragments would also be different. I would arrange fragments in rows and columns form if I was to make the application for tablets. This would help to utilize the large screen of a tablet well and also to arrange items displayed in an attractive way. To achieve this, a linear layout with multiple frames that will hold the fragments would be used. The minimum and target operating system. The minimum operating system for the app Android 5.0 (API level 21) and the target operating system is Android 12 (API level 31). Challenges faced while developing the app 1. Syntax error. 2. Error while generating APK file 3. Dependencies failed to sync. 4. Apk app crash while launching using an android device due to database failure to create a table How I overcame the challenges 1. For the syntax error, I used to google on the how the syntax of a certain code to perform a certain task should look like. 2. Error while generating APK file was as a result of syntax error or some dependencies not working. I solved this be debugging the project and fixing the error that make it difficult to generate an apk file. 3. Dependency failure was as a result of using old dependencies that are not compatible with the Sdk version I was using. The solution was to google for the latest dependencies and replace them with the old ones. 4. The reason for app crashing was that I fast created the first table and tested it using the android device. When I add the second table, it failed to create successfully. I fixed this by uninstalling the app and installing it again to create a new database with the two tables. How I would do differently if I was to develop the app again I would use another database that can be hosted in an online server such as MySQL. The reason for using this database is that the data is safe and cannot be lost if you uninstall the app. To connect to MySQL database, I would use PHP to create a REST API for my backend and use androidnetworking of volley to send requests and receive responses. How emulators are used. Emulated are applications or programs used to simulate other devices. They are used to run apps that cannot run on a certain operating system. For instance, an android app cannot run on a windows PC (Emulators can turn your PC into a Mac, let you play games from any era, and more — here's what you should know about the potential benefits and risks of using one, 2020). To run the app, you need to install an emulator that is capable of running android apps. While developing android apps using android studio, you need an emulator to test then. When you run a project, it builds an APK file and installed it on a virtual machine that works just like a smart phone. They are mainly used by developers to test apps over many devices to test their app functionality efficiently. Pros of emulators 1. Emulators simulate both hardware and software. 2. They are free and open source 3. There is no need to modify apps in order to run then over emulators. 4. It is easy to connect them to IDE for early testing of app. 5. It is cheap. Pros of development devices. 1. Most of them comes with IDE thus no installation needed. 2. Are free and easy to use. 3. They are compatible with applications developed using the IDE. 4. They are fast in running applications. Cons of emulators 1. They are sometimes slow as a result of simulating both software and hardware. 2. Factors such as conflict with other apps or overheating are not put into consideration while using emulators 3. It is time consuming to setup a good emulator and test apps. 4. Some apps might be incompatible with certain emulators. 5. They usually support only a particular OS version. Cons of development devices. 1. They lack additional to customize running of apps 2. They support only one operating system 3. Some produces result that are different in other android devices such as smartphone References Emulators can turn your PC into a Mac, let you play games from any era, and more — here's what you should know about the potential benefits and risks of using one. (2020, October 16). Business Insider Africa. https://africa.businessinsider.com/tech-insider/emulators-can-turn-your-pc-into-a-mac-let-you-play-games-from-any-era-and-more-heres/1hzq5xt