Gospel Library Android 4.0.3

Discussions around the Android version of the Gospel Library application.
lmcguire
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Re: Gospel Library Android 4.0.3

#11

Post by lmcguire »

sbradshaw wrote:I think I understand what you're suggesting now. There are two opposing use cases.

What if you follow a link from a manual to 1 Nephi 3:7, then want to go back to the manual? You wouldn't want back to take you to 1 Nephi, then to Book of Mormon. The way it's functioning currently, you can follow a scripture chain from one scripture to the next, then go back to the original scripture.

Another example: You want to see how a word is translated in Spanish, so you switch to the same chapter in Spanish, then press back – you wouldn't want the back button to take you through the Spanish content hierarchy.

How did the previous version of the app handle these cases – did the app history reset every time it hit the main library? I imagine it must have been some sort of hybrid between the two use cases.
In the old app, if you follow a link from a manual to 1 Nephi 3:7, the back button would take you back to the manual. If you went from the library home to Scriptures > Book of Mormon > 1 Nephi > 3, the back button would reverse that for you. That was what I wanted and is still something I would want. I am NOT asking to change that.

In the old app, the ONLY time the back button would exit the app is if you were on the library home page. If they don't want to change that functionality, fine, just give me another "Exit" option. Put it in the 3-box overflow menu, add an X icon somewhere, or whatever, I don't care which mechanism they use so long as I don't have to go back a zillion pages before the app will exit (it will exit via the back button now, but not until you've traversed back through all the pages you've visited since opening the app).

It's just avoiding going back through every page that I want.
lmcguire
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Re: Gospel Library Android 4.0.3

#12

Post by lmcguire »

sbradshaw wrote:Gospel Library 4.0.3 is now available on the Google Play store and will be available on the Amazon Appstore in the next few days.

Here are some of the improvements:
• Highlight colors are now indicated in the sidebar for user-created notes.
Nope, not really. In the scriptures, the little tiny verse number has the highlight color as its background, but in a manual, for example, where there is no verse number, there is no color in the related content pane. And that little tiny blot of color on the verse number isn't exactly easy to see. They need a bar the height of the footnote (like it was before), or the background or border color of the footnote box, or something along those lines to have a color to match the highlight.

Further:
I put three new highlights on a verse (not overlapping). On the third, I added a tag. When I returned from the tag window, the two non-highlighted tags (which were in different colors), were gone. I'm now going back to add them again, and we'll see what happens. It worked if I added a tag or note as I added the highlight.

PS: The new color selector for changing highlight colors stinks. I used to be able to see 8 colors in each of two options (highlight / underline) all at the same time. In the new version, despite tons of available screen space, I only see 4 highlight colors and one underline color, and I have to click the pallet icon to see more, which then hides the whole dang screen - with a mostly empty page with 10 colored boxes taking up a tiny fraction of that space in the middle. Seriously? Sorry, but someone needs to go back to GUI school. No device out there has fewer pixels than my tablet (except watches maybe), and it had tons of space for showing more on screen at once. This new policy of hiding stuff down under more taps when it could have been on the screen, is not user-friendly.
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sbradshaw
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Re: Gospel Library Android 4.0.3

#13

Post by sbradshaw »

lmcguire wrote:I put three new highlights on a verse (not overlapping). On the third, I added a tag. When I returned from the tag window, the two non-highlighted tags (which were in different colors), were gone. I'm now going back to add them again, and we'll see what happens.
I'm guessing you tapped and held to make your second selection while the first highlight was still selected, having never been saved. You'll need to tap off of the first highlight so it can save, then you can tap and hold to create the second highlight, and so forth. This is a known bug that will hopefully be fixed soon.
Samuel Bradshaw • If you desire to serve God, you are called to the work.
cdw3423lds
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Re: Gospel Library Android 4.0.3

#14

Post by cdw3423lds »

eblood66 wrote:Generally 'closing' an Android app is over-rated. Most normal (non-game) apps will not use up battery when in the background and will be closed down by Android automatically when it needs memory for other apps.

However, if you feel you do need to shut it down, just select the overview button and then swipe left or right. That will close it down with just a couple actions which is likely less than using the back button.
I'm about 99.9 percent the screen you are referring to does nothing to close apps. Apps on that screen may or may not be running. I have a standard utility (standard on my Samsung devices anyway) that will close running apps, I can force close every app, and that screen will still show them. That screen can have apps listed I haven't used in weeks, and have rebooted multiple times since I last used them, and these are apps that don't auto run to display notifications or things like that. I have one app that provides no method to close it and the only way it ever closes is if I do a force close or reboot.

There are plenty of apps that use significant battery while running in the background that aren't games. I don't have any games on any of my android devices. But making sure all apps are closed does improve battery life. On of the most common things I do with my phone is to play music through a Bluetooth speaker. Bluetooth requires a modest amount of CPU power to compress the audio stream in specific way before transmitting it. This is why there is always a delay when playing sound through Bluetooth. Often when I'm playing music via Bluetooth, there will be momentary, but very annoying, hiccups interrupting the music. The cause of this is insufficient CPU to compress the audio stream in real time. I have an older phone (Samsung Note 3) so this happens more often than I like, but if I remember to force close all the apps running in the background, it happens much less often. So clearly the Android OS is far from perfect in its allocation of resources that use the CPU and therefore also ram and battery. For any one who is about to reply and say the hiccup could be caused by RF interference, that is possible, but I am an amateur radio operator and know how to minimize the affect of RF noise and have done sufficient testing, in the right environment, to know it is NOT RF interference in my case.

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eblood66
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Re: Gospel Library Android 4.0.3

#15

Post by eblood66 »

cdw3423 wrote:I'm about 99.9 percent the screen you are referring to does nothing to close apps.
I don't want to get way off topic so I'll just point to this article concerning what swiping does do: http://www.itworld.com/article/2693446/ ... -does.html
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Re: Gospel Library Android 4.0.3

#16

Post by cdw3423lds »

sbradshaw wrote:I think I understand what you're suggesting now. There are two opposing use cases.
In the previous version there was a "home" button in the top left corner that would take you directly to the main catalog page, from there, a single press of the device back button would exit the app.

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sbradshaw
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Re: Gospel Library Android 4.0.3

#17

Post by sbradshaw »

I just tested the old version of the app (3.2.14) on an Android 4.1, Android 5, and Android 6 device. As described above, if you're on the main library screen in the old version of the app, pressing back will return to the home screen. This is different from the new version of the app. However, pressing back does not kill the app or even remove it from the Android overview screen. I couldn't find any other apps that do this, either. So, in Android 4.1, 5, and 6 pressing back to close the app is the same as pressing the home button to close the app. I didn't test in Android 4.0, and it's possible there are differences. it's also possible that different manufacturers' devices behave differently. But killing the app by pressing the back button doesn't seem to be standard OS behavior.
Samuel Bradshaw • If you desire to serve God, you are called to the work.
lmcguire
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Re: Gospel Library Android 4.0.3

#18

Post by lmcguire »

sbradshaw wrote:I just tested the old version of the app (3.2.14) on an Android 4.1, Android 5, and Android 6 device. As described above, if you're on the main library screen in the old version of the app, pressing back will return to the home screen. This is different from the new version of the app. However, pressing back does not kill the app or even remove it from the Android overview screen. I couldn't find any other apps that do this, either. So, in Android 4.1, 5, and 6 pressing back to close the app is the same as pressing the home button to close the app. I didn't test in Android 4.0, and it's possible there are differences. it's also possible that different manufacturers' devices behave differently. But killing the app by pressing the back button doesn't seem to be standard OS behavior.
There is a difference.

First, figure out for your device what you need to do to show "Active applications" - on mine, there's a widget you can put on your screen to show the active application count, and tapping on that shows the active applications (and allows you to switch to them, or force close), also holding the home button down until something pops up gives me a "Task manager" option (and others) at the very bottom (in addition to the equivalent of your "overview screen"). Choosing "Task manager" takes me to that list of active applications.

Once you've figure that out, with the old GL, open it, then hit the back button until it disappears. Go to Active applications - it's not there. Now open GL and hit the home button. Now go to Active applications - GL is there. That's the difference. Backing out of the app gets it out of Active applications, and that DOES free up resources. Just hitting the home button, or toggling to another app leaves GL running in the background and using resources.

All of my apps except the built-in web browser work the same way - back button exits them, home button leaves them active.

Again, tell me tough luck, tell me you disagree, tell me you think I'm an idiot for caring - fine, I don't mind any of that. But don't try to convince me the two are the same when Android is clearly telling me they're not the same, and don't try to tell me it's not using resources when Android is clearly telling me it's using resources, and don't try to tell me to to make a request that the new app have a corresponding feature, cuz I'm making the request whether anyone else wants it or not. :)

Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note 3 with Android 5.0 on it and the latest system updates.
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