iBridalGown launched in Android Market as Freemium app

I've just completed porting iBridalGown to Android, and I'm really excited about it! It took a few weeks of day-and-night coding and testing, and at the end of that effort, I've been able to launch a great FREE Android app that serves a great purpose for women shopping for a wedding dress.


iBridalGown, designed by a bridal salon owner, puts all of your wedding gown details at your fingertips. It minimizes frustration and helps you enjoy your wedding gown shopping experience.

We embraced the Freemium app model for this version so that women everywhere can use iBridalGown, for free, to help organize their wedding dress searches. We also offer an additional paid in app upgrade to access premium features.

iBridalGown for Android is available for download from the Android Market:

iBridalGown for iPhone is available for download from the App Store:

Visit the iBridalGown Website and Blog at http://www.ibridalgown.com.

Android action_send multiple images

Android OS makes it really easy to share an image programmatically, using the ACTION_SEND intent. I had a situation recently, while porting my iBridalGown for iOS app to Android, where I wanted to send an email with multiple image attachments. As with most Android programming tasks, there were first a few snafus to overcome ;) A couple of the problems I was facing were:

1. ACTION_SEND actually can only handle one image attachment.
2. The images were saved in the "private" app directory (the one you get when you call getFilesDir()) , which is problematic when attaching images to emails this way.
3. There are not many clients that respond to ACTION_SEND which can accommodate text/html content and an attachment, let alone multiple attachments

So, what did I do? Three problems, three solutions:

1. I used the ACTION_SEND_MULTIPLE intent, in order to send multiple attachments.
2. I made temporary copies of the images in external storage before attaching them to the intent.
3. I made sure only Gmail would be launched, since it is the only app I found which can reliably handle sending text/html and multiple image attachments.

More details...

Android programmatic density independent pixels

I've been doing a bunch of Android programming lately, working on porting the iBridalGown iOS app to Android, so I've been using a lot of "dip" (density independent pixels) measuring in my layouts. For example, in a TextView, I might specify something like this in XML:

<TextView
      android:id="@+id/headertext"
      android:layout_width="wrap_content"
      android:layout_height="wrap_content"
      android:minHeight="48dip"
      android:textSize="24dip"
      android:text="My Dresses"
/>

But what if, within the Activity code, I want to change one of these measurements? There are no Java methods in the Android SDK that accept density independent pixels!

Well, here's how. Just multiply the size in pixels by a scale factor defined in the context's resources, like so:

float scale = context.getResources().getDisplayMetrics().density;
float size = sizeInPixels * scale;

And there's that. I hope it helps :) Please join the conversation with a comment.

Bunny's Easter Egg Hop N Drop now available on Android OS

Just in time for the springtime holidays, the Android port of Bunny's Easter Egg Hop 'N Drop is ready! You can get it on the Android Market: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.daveworldinc.hopndrop

Read more about Bunny's Easter Egg Hop 'N Drop in my previous blog entry...
http://blog.daveworld.net/2011/04/bunnys-easter-egg-hop-n-drop-in-app.html

A couple of interesting thoughts about this port from cocos2d-iPhone to cocos2d-Anroid:

Android app ports have begun... first up, i Pwn UR Mom

That's right, I've begun the process of porting my apps to the Android platform. I picked i Pwn UR Mom as the first one because it's fun and easy... I hope no one out there is particularly offended by Yo Momma jokes, it's just meant to be a lighthearted blast of entertainment ;)

I Pwn UR Mom is the obvious choice for Yo Momma joke lovers and a handy reference for Yo Momma scholars. Browse hundreds of hilarious Yo Momma jokes categorized for easy access. Sit back and listen to the jokes read aloud, lovingly narrated by Daveworld's in-house Stephen Hawking impersonator (sounds just like him, it's uncanny ;)  Then, automatically text or email the jokes directly to your friends (jokes are auto-converted 2 text shorthand 4 Ur convenience!), or Pwn all your Facebook friends’ moms at once by posting the joke to your Facebook wall! I Pwn UR Mom!

You can find i Pwn UR Mom available for Android here: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.daveworldinc.iPwnURMom

And, i Pwn UR Mom is still available for iPhone here: http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=Wf0an0o4HbQ&offerid=146261&type=3&subid=0&tmpid=1826&RD_PARM1=http%253A%252F%252Fitunes.apple.com%252Fus%252Fapp%252Fid398492404%253Fmt%253D8%2526uo%253D4%2526partnerId%253D30