It’s been over 2 months since I last poked Abugadro’s code, and while I did commit most of the stuff I worked on, I apparently never finished the mythical OAuth implementation.

I’m trying to remember what I was working on, but don’t fret, it means I’m now documenting everything I took for granted.

In the end, it means cleaner code, at a slower pace, but if you’ve waited over 2 months for a update, I’m sure you won’t mind a slower pace if it means cleaner code and faster to fix and implement new stuff.

On an unrelated note, I just purchased a Live View, once I get one, I’ll see what I can or can’t do with it. I’m eager to find out.

I missed working on Android.

Now that Abugadro’s on the Market, I’ve found the lack of Android Market features disturbing. And I’m not alone at that.

Five Issues have stood out above them all, and I’d like to point them out today, in hopes that it’ll get someone at Google to pay attention and finally solve them.

• Issue 2851. Tag comments with the version they refer to.
• Issue 4738. Replying to user comments.
• Issue 2148. Add a ‘Changelog’ field to allow devs. to explain the contents of the update.
• Issue 4376. Share application statistics with developers.
• Issue 4851. Allow multiple APKs of the same Application.

The first problem, Tagging comments can be overlooked. It’d be nice, but I wouldn’t want to waste a wish on that.

The second one, Replying to user comments, would be nice. Sometimes the comments are from confused users that don’t know how to use our app. It’s our fault, sure. But sometimes, the comment is aggresive over a bug or a missing feature. If we could get an “eBay-like” reply system that let us say “Fixed in x.y.z”, the end users could give our app a second chance.

A new Changelog field, separate from description, would mean it would only work with Android 2.3 and above, and you know what? It doesn’t matter. It’s a very welcome change.
Currently, devs have to implement a Nag-screen, like on Google Maps. On launch? It displays an annoying “here’s what’s new” message. Completely unneeded. A standard way to check the changelog would be welcome, and failing that, extending beyond the twitter-like “325 characters” for description is a welcome change.

The fourth issue is self-explanatory. You guys made Google Analytics. Extend that for Android Apps. There’s currently libraries like Flurry that give us all that information, but “Phoning Home” is NOT cool. If the user is already downloading from the market, he’s not really “phoning home”, and if uninstalling, you already ask for the reason, but it isn’t fed back to the developer. While at it, the download stats refresh about once a day. Would it kill you to have them update more often? Share them stats, Google!

Finally, multiple APKs is something that’d be appreciated. You talk about Fragmentation as if its something mythical and non existant, and yet your own Platform Versions link says otherwise. To use the newest apis I have to sacrifice a huge part of the user base, and the current solution? Release an App called “Abugadro for Donut”, “Abugadro for Eclair”, “Abugadro for Froyo”? Horrible idea. What if it was a paid app? They wouldn’t be able to get the Eclair/Froyo version once the update was made available, because it would be marked as a separate app.

Finally, if you’d like to help out, Star those issues. Clicking the star icon gives it an ‘up vote’, and would help raise awareness/priority to the features we want. Developers are people too. We need these tools.

Update: It’s been pointed out to me by a lot of people that it is possible to include newer APIs while keeping compatibility. Google even released a video about it during the Google IO. For that reason, I’m eliminating the 5th point on the wishlist.

I really like blogging. Almost as much as coding itself. But today, I decided to stop typing and start showing some images of what’s up.

The URLs they’re at are kinda static, and I’ll be updating them from time to time, so look around and enjoy!

Please note that the app is still in heavy development, but these are *not* mockups. The code’s available at the Abugadro Code Site.

In case it wasn’t fairly obvious, the name ‘Abugadro’ is a mix between “Avogadro” and “Bugs”. You can call it “Abuga” if you want, since I hear “Abugadro” is kinda hard to pronounce for Portuguese-speakers (Or so my buddy Matruskan tells me).

This project is intended to make browsing Launchpad, Google Codes and Bugzilla projects a bit easier for Android devices.

The code’s starting to flow on the Google Code Project but its nowhere near ready for an early alpha test.

Abuga, the Android Bug Buddy

Abugadro is a Free and Open Sourced Android app that’ll help developers keep track of the different projects they’re involved in.

Its currently under heavy development, but screenshots and code will be flowing in on the following days.

I’d like to extend a gigantic “Thanks” to Matruskan, for creating “Abuga”, the Android Bug Buddy, and Abugadro’s icon.