MOTODEV Blog

[#1]

If you were at MOTODEV Summit last week, you may have come to the Tech Lab or to one of my talks and seen the first pack of UI samples we've released, the Widget Pack.

But if you weren't there, I can clue you in. We've heard from many of you that you want to create Android™ applications that users love, but that designing and building Android UIs can be a challenge, even with the XML layouts and UI framework built in to Android.

So we'd like to help by creating sample UI resources that you can extend or adapt. These can include XML layouts, 9-patch images, source images, Java classes, or anything that would help you.

The Widget Pack is the first group of UI samples. It's now available on the MOTODEV site, on the same page where you download MOTODEV Studio for Android. The Widget Pack has sample UI pieces for a widget that displays a photo slide show, including:

• Two widget layouts, one with a frame and one without
• A main activity layout
• Sample 3-state buttons with a virtual touch area
• A custom swipe class that works well on the Motorola CLIQ™
• A Toast that responds to a long press

The non-frame version of the widget fits the entire photo within the widget area, even if the photo takes less space than the full widget area. The frame version uses the full widget area, but centers the photo and crops it to fit. Some people prefer one, and some the other.

When you tap the widget, the main activity layout opens. You can swipe to move between photos, or touch the arrow buttons, or select a button with the 5-way navigation pad.

The sample UI code runs on the Android 1.5 or MB200 emulator. But if at all possible, run it on a CLIQ to experience the light and easy swipe, the virtual button touch area, and the aliveness when you long press a full photo screen.

You don't need to build a photo widget to use these samples. You can easily adapt them to another type of application or widget.

When you download the code, please remember:

• Add some photos of your own -- see the ReadMe file for instructions.
• The code is just UI samples, not a full working widget. You'll see some hard-coded values. You can replace these with dynamically obtained content in your code.
• This is an Alpha release, version 0.9. The samples are tested on only one device, the Motorola CLIQ. We'll release a 1.0 version soon.

The sample uses the design goals I mentioned in my talk - Simplicity, Layering, Aliveness, and Relevance.

We hope you like it. If you have feedback, questions, or requests for more UI samples, post on the MOTODEV Android developer boards. You can also follow me on Twitter for more tips on Android UI design.

Copyright (c) 2009 Motorola, Inc. All rights reserved.

[#2]

This is really exciting news.

[#3]

thank you so much

[#4]

thank you so much

[#5]

if i could just download all of the specs for moto developing and it's overall destination, i could show better solutions and new techno's for our future. if it's a thought it's concievable