Hello everyone, My name is Kyle, and as the title states, I'm very new to all of this programming. I've done a few of the Android learning classes, and am still a bit lost. Not sure if it's the difference in software versions between the video and what I've downloaded, but I'm struggling through the lessons. Anyway, I'm from southeast Georgia about an hour from the coast, and I'm looking to build a few apps for my businesses. Hopefully, I'll get the hang of it before too long. I'm mostly interested in Android (we don't have any Ios devices), but would eventually need my apps to also work on Apple products. (I'll worry about that later, lol) I'll be searching the net for even more tutorials on coding, but not exactly sure where to start. I've created a test app here in BuzzTouch, but can't get it to run under Eclipse. Hope to chat with a few of you in the future. Thanks for what seems to be a great place to learn and develop. Kyle

Welcome aboard Kyle! BuzzTouch is a great way to start your New Year off in the right direction! I do mostly iOS apps, but there's a ton of resources here for Android folks like yourself. BT is an amazing place to make your app ideas a reality. You'll also find this community to be a stellar one, full of knowledge and helpfulness. Have fun and enjoy the ride!

Waynesville. Not all that far from my old stomping grounds; Effingham/Chatham County. :) Along with the BT University stuff, you should probably head over to you tube and check out some of Marks stuff, especially the Android setup videos for your platform. He's done a bunch of different ones, so I'm pretty sure one of them will fit. https://www.youtube.com/user/GoNorthWest One small mention; Google is trying to herd people into using a newer version of the Android Studio, rather than the older Eclipse ADT bundle. You should use the Eclipse version, and you can find that here: http://enos.itcollege.ee/~jpoial/allalaadimised/AndroidSDK/ Hope all this helps! Welcome to buzztouch, and don't hesitate to yell if you have a question. Cheers! -- Smug

Thanks for the welcomes.... Here is the version of Eclipse I'm running Eclipse Java EE IDE for Web Developers. Version: Luna Service Release 1 (4.4.1) Build id: 20140925-1800 I've got the SDK Manager Rev 24.0.2 loaded in as well. I've tried creating a simple app with 2 pages on here, but after zipping and downloading, it won't run. Finally figured out how to reference the google play library, but that didn't help. Still playing around with figuring that out. I'll head to youtube, and take a look at his videos. Thanks.

Hi Kyle, Welcome to Buzztouch! If there is any way I can help you out, just let me know. Feel free to contact me directly at mrkfleming at gmail dot com. To get past your current issue, try doing a Project > Clean All from the menu bar. Sometimes that helps. If that fails, paste the error messages you're getting, and we'll get things sorted out! Mark

Thanks Mark, for the welcome and the offer to help. Hopefully I'll be able to dig back into this over the weekend. One thing I did figure out (sorta)..... For some of the emulators, it's asking for the HAXM hardware acceleration to be installed. I got it enabled in my BIOS, but it still won't install because it's not turned on. Can't get past that, yet. From what I've found online, it may only be available in Windows Pro versions. Obviously, I don't have Pro, just the basic Win 8 that came with the pc. I'm not sure this is required or not, but it's one thing that I was fighting with. I've done the 'clean all', and that did clear up a lot of issues, but I'm thinking I'm getting hung up on the emulator. I've gotten it to work, if I do the 'hello world' tutorial in Eclipse, but not with anything I've downloaded from BT. I'll keep plugging away at it after work, and dive in on the weekend, hopefully I'll make some head way. If not, I'll definitely be hitting the forum for some help. Thanks again, Kyle

You'll hear this a lot. If you have an Android device, they are *far* more desirable to use during development. Even when you get the emulator going, they are *dog slow* and don't always play nicely. Any old Android that you can get for $50 at a gas station is better than the emulator, if it can be done. Make sure the 'development mode' is enabled on the device. It's found in 'settings' on most devices. Cheers! -- Smug

I've got an old android phone laying around, but it's no longer on my active account. Can that be used? It's a Galaxy S2. I believe I'm not doing something right, as far as trying to run the simple app I created and downloaded. Simple, as in 1 menu and 2 text screens. I've got google-play-services_lib added, and referenced. I've cleaned it, shows 0 errors. Right click, Run As Android Application.... At bottom right of Eclipse, it show's launching app....get's up to 99%, then an error dialog box pops up with GC Overhead Limit Exceeded. Then suggests I close Eclipse. That's as far as I've been able to get to. Is there something else I should be doing before running? Thanks, Kyle

After some serious searching, I've gotten one step closer. At least concerning the GC overhead limit I've had to edit the .ini file in my eclipse folder to increase the virtual memory allocated to the program. Here are the new values that I changed. -Xms512m -Xmx1024m At least now the app runs, sorta.... states that it failed to load on device (emulator) I'll try again later, but I'm making progress. Thanks again everyone.

Fingers crossed. I won't be of much help on the Windows/Eclipse setup; I run a Mac (well, I run a few different machines, but my dev machine is a mac). But keep at it. One of the best tools I've found was passed on to me from another BT'er (Fred). The BT forum search is not nearly where we want it to be. A Better method is to use google, and isolate it to a site search. You would do this as follows (and it works good for other sites too!) In the google 'search' text box, type: site:buzztouch.com/forum <your search terms here> so for instance, you could type something like this: site:buzztouch.com/forum Android Windows configuration and you'll find a lot more returns (if any available) for those terms. Just be patient; Android is still a red-headed step child to me. Cantankerous, Unforgiving. But when it works, it works well. Some issues are just plain eclipse. I have few problems with my setup, but I run a mac loaded for bear. Lack of computer resources can sometimes affect your ability to keep a 'smooth' session going. Just restart and keep going. Cheers! -- Smug

Hi Kyle, The Android emulator is one of the worst pieces of technology I've ever had the misfortune to use. If you have a device...and it sounds like you do...follow Smugs advice and use that. I've spent more time waiting for the emulator to start, or my app to launch, then actually getting it to work. It's really not worth the effort. With respect to the error you're seeing, take some steps to make sure that any images you are using are optimized for the smallest file size possible. Android really doesn't like large file sizes for images, and crashes quite often when they are present. Weird about the HAXM stuff...I've never had to do that. A simple Android 4.0 emulator has always gotten me by. If you want me to TeamViewer into your system and check things out, just send me a PM or email! Mark

Smug, thanks for the low-down on how to search the forums. Thought it may have just been me, but could only see how to search the topic, but not content. Mark, thanks for the offer of help, may take you up on that in the near future. Just got home today, and tried running the same test app on my S2, and it worked. As well as any app with 2 pages and not much else in it, lol. I'm making headway, and will probably start on my main app soon. I've got my hopes up that I can design a top-notch app that will do all that I envision it will. Only issue I can forsee (for now), is eventually I'll be needing/wanting an IOS version for my iphone using clients. Thanks again, and if/when I encounter more issues, I'll post in another topic. Kyle

Hi Kyle, Way to persevere! You'll do extremely well here at Buzztouch...looking forward to seeing what you come up with! If you envision an iOS version, try only using plugins that work for both platforms. That way you can use the same control panel. Otherwise, you have to maintain two different apps with probably different features. Mark

Thanks. I'm hoping to stick with the plug-ins that work on both. I'm just wondering how I'm gonna compile and distribute the iOS version. That brings up a quick question.... If I finish the app to my liking, is there a way to send to friends/clients without having to publish to the play store? I'd like to have a few other people test it all out before I attempt publishing to an app market. I'm thinking I can just email the .apk file.... but, when they get it, do they just click it and it self installs? I know, I'm getting way ahead of myself.

Yep, just generate an APK file and make it available to them somehow. Via email, DropBox, or whatever. As long as they can tap on it, it'll install. For iOS, you'll have to join the Apple Developer program, and that costs $99/year. That's literally the only way you can distribute the apps...in fact, you can't compile without certificates required from the program (well, you can compile for a simulator, but that's it). So, if you want to get into the Apple game, you'll have to have a Mac to run Xcode on (won't work on Windows), and a yearly developer account. Mark

That's good news for me as far as Android goes, but not so good when it comes to iOS. Hmmmm, will have to think about that one. I wouldn't mind, if I could find an inexpensive Mac..... guess I'll cross that bridge when it comes time to put the app out there. Thanks for all the help so far.

You can rent a Mac in the cloud for a few months until the decision becomes imminent. http://www.macincloud.com/ Welcome and a mighty good accomplishment on that first app! Feels good, don't it? :-) -- Niraj

You should be able to find a Mac mini that suits your needs fairly inexpensively. Just make sure it has the Intel Processor and supports at least Mountain Lion. The dev program is kinda a bummer if you produce apps that you don't charge for, like I do. I literally make almost zero money off my apps, and have to pay out $99 a year! But, I like developing for iOS far more than for Android, which is a huge pain at times! Mark

Make sure you have all your ducks in a row before you cough up the $99 for an Apple iOS Dev account; You *must* develop on a Macintosh, and until your account is active, you can NOT test things on a real device. Fortunately, the iOS emulators are miles above anything for Android, so it's not as painful to test. But until your Dev Account is active, you won't be able to test on devices. Also, you have to register each device (up to 100) before you can test on them. This means finding out the hardware id BEFORE you have your friends download and test. All of this is easily done, but it's one of those details that sometimes are forgotten. And like Mark says; unlike Google Play/Android, which is $25 forever (at this time), Apple wants $99 per year. For those of us with 'free' apps, it's not a sensible business decision, lol! Not suggesting or warning, just informing. Cheers! -- Smug