Category: Android

Lexx Soundboard 0.3.4 Release

Updating this app to be able to set sound clips as notification tones was easier than I expected.  The way that it was originally built, it already saved the clips in a way that you could use them as notification sounds in the Android Sound Settings.  I only needed to add the logic to be able to set them as the default.

Secondly, I needed to change the way the select box works since from what I can see regular alert boxes only support three options (positive, neutral, negative).  Instead I implemented a list select box which would allow as many options as necessary.

Lexx Soundboard Request

I’m always happy to see a feature request from the android market, along with a few good reviews!  Most recently there was a request to save the sounds as a notification.  While it should be possible to do with a few work arounds, and a file management app, I don’t see why this feature shouldn’t be easy to implement now that it is possible to save the clips as ringtones.  Hopefully I’ll be able to have something to release by the end of this weekend.

Development Hardware / History

I’ve been interested in the emerging mobile platforms since I bought my first cell phone in 2004.  At that point in time, carriers had nearly full reign of what applications a device would or would not have.  Fortunately, I’ve always been the type to get the most out of my hardware which, for better or worse, usually involves warranty voiding shenanigans to work around the barriers. Read more »

Lexx Soundboard 0.3.2 Release

I’m happy to announce the release of this new version of the Lexx Soundboard containing sound clips from season 1 episode 2 “Super Nova” now available in the android market.  Now that the road is paved with all the content converted into individual video files, episode 3 “Eating Pattern” should be a much simpler task.

Onto the more technical side of thing, there  was able to fix a minor bug which with the method I was using to play the audio files which didn’t output any visible error message in the app, but it caught my eye in the development debugger.  This would only happen the first time a sound clip was played because of a missing check to make sure the media player was actually running before having it stop the previous clip.

Lexx DVDs Converted Successfully

I converted all four seasons of Lexx using the free and open source ripping tool HandBrake.  The whole process took slightly longer than I expected, but I added a step of backing up all the raw ISO files because I wasn’t sure what settings to use to optimize the quality/compression ratio.  These DVDs were unusual because instead of having dual audio tracks, they contain complete separate copies of each video.  The DVD video title numbers were not consistent throughout the entire collection, so for each disc I needed to make a note of which title went to which episode.  The most time consuming part was the actual ripping process.  My desktop has 6GB memory and an Intel i7 processor, and ripping season 4 (24 episodes) maxed our my CPU and took about 3 hours.

Lexx DVD Collection

To follow through with my promise of adding new sound clips to my Lexx SoundBoard app, as well as add to my digital collection, I began converting my Lexx DVD collection into DivV starting with Season 2.  Disc one and disc two ripped without a hitch, but I got stuck with the third.  This is extremely surprising to me because I’ve taken extreme care of them, and they haven’t been touched for at least a few years.  Fortunately it didn’t contain any of my favorite episodes.  I didn’t notice any obvious scratches that I could blame the problem on, but I will have to try and solve this problem.  This will also give me a chance to research the best techniques for DVD conversion.

Bridgekeeper Pitfalls and Progress

Coming back to a project I haven’t touched in six months was almost like looking at someone else’s code for the first time.  But after a some strategic archaeology, I was able to uncover the general idea of how everything was supposed to work, and remember my original basic plan.  While the app did run (somehow) there were a few major corrections to start off the resurrection.

  • The Player was walking in fast-forward speed  – The animation code was running in two places..
  • The Player sometimes continued to walk in place when it reached its destination time – the animation would only stop if the endpoint was an even pixel number.
  • The Player attacking animation wouldn’t repeat – the stop event was firing every frame the Player wasn’t in motion.

Bridgekeeper Introduction

Bridgekeeper was the first android app that I started working from scratch early in 2011.  This is a game based on the original Bridgekeeper game I developed with GameMaker which had two major releases begining in 2001.  It was a minigame based on an MMORPG called NexusTK.  Between a 2002 a  game graphics patch and better programming skills, a second version was in order.  Exactly ten years later I rediscovered this game in an archive folder, and decided to try and build it once more on a mobile platform.  This proved to be a little more challenging than I expected, so it sat on the back-burner which allowed me to release my first app (Lexx Soundboard) to be completed(?) and released into the Android market.

 

Lexx Soundboard 0.3.0 Release

A very obvious feature came across my feedback email earlier this week;  the ability to save the sound clips as ringtones.  I did some research on android forums and websites too see how other people may have been implementing this feature.  Fortunately enough for me, it wasn’t very difficult.  For this release, there is a new event for long presses on the sound buttons that opens a popup window for saving to your phone/memory card.

Lexx Soundboard 0.2.4 Release

By popular request (three, but hey I’ll take it!) “Yo Way Yo” has been added to the soundboard under the title “Brunnen-G”.  I am currently in the process of adding another batch of clips, and hopefully an interface upgrade in the near future.  As always, feel free to send requests to !

Update (12-12-2011): I received one more request to be able to save the sound clips as ringtones.  I believe this is a reasonable feature, and will look into deploying it.

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