My Android app does not scale on a Samsung Galaxy Tab

Posted on Mar. 13 in Android, Java with no comments

Google Android Operating SystemI had built an Android app requiring a minimum Android SDK of 3 (Android version 1.5), in order to make sure that it would run on as many platforms as possible – and it does. It even runs on a Samsung Galaxy Tab, so I rejoiced. However, on the tablet, the app shows up very tiny, using the resolution it would have on a mobile phone.

Now on an iPad, I know that apps developed for the iPhone can be “zoomed 2x”, thus filling the iPad screen nicely. It would naturally be better to produce a HD version of the app, but at least zooming allows the original app to be readable. This doesn’t happen with Android. Google says it will add a zoom feature in Android 3.2, but since my tablet (and others) uses Android 3.1, it doesn’t solve my problem.

I did however find a way to stretch (not zoom) the app on a tablet. Apparently stretching is only possible from SDK version 7 onwards. Setting the minimum SDK level in your Android manifest to 7 will do the trick:

<uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="7" />

Now the app stretches on the tablet, at least using all screen real estate available. It’s not pretty, since the controls remain small. Apparently the way to go is creating a Processing app, as explained here.

Simple XML yields ClassNotFoundException on Android

Posted on Mar. 13 in Android, Java with no comments

Google Android Operating SystemI’m writing an Android app that uses Simple XML to parse XML directly into class instances. Simple XML works wonders, but a problem occurs when using polymorphism. My application stores and retrieves surveys. A survey contains a list of questions, and questions can be of various types. There are text questions, numeric questions, list questions etc. Polymorphism is used to implement all these question types.
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