Related
I would like to dedicate one homescreen to show all (or as many as possible) of my Dolphin bookmarks, either with a fullscreen widet, an app that syncs shortcuts on the screen to the bookmarks, or even a folder icon that would open to the bookmarks. So far I have searched in vain. The widgets I have found are not big enough.
Would appreciate any help.
If you use launcher pro plus it has a bookmark widget that is scrollable. LP plus isn't free but it's worth every penny.
i dont know how many bookmarks you have, but I also love LP's swipe gesture to show the widgets when swiping up on Dolphin in the dock. All the LP widgets are awesome
Over the years I grew tired of syncing bookmarks among computers and between different browsers on the same computer (and now the tablet). The ISP includes a bit of disc space for hosting pages as part of the account. I use an editor (jedit.org) with FTP within it to edit very-straight-forward HTML pages directly on the server. Each browser on my cell phone, tablet, and computers has its homepage set to an appropriate page; a mobile sites page for the phone, a "tablet" page for the stuff I use daily. It sounds like a lot of work, but not so. It takes me only a few seconds to open a page to update and resave the page. The pages are quick to load. No more losing bookmarks when something fails or when changing computers. Just an idea as an alternative to looking for a piece of software... hope it helps.
Tom
Well, I found a solution, kind of. I switched to the Notion Ink browser, which uses stock bookmarks. (To see how to update the NI browser to the latest version, which fixes a couple of nasty bugs, see http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=928832&page=19). Then I got DMarks from the market, to sort the bookmarks automatically. Then I got Live Bookmarks, which shows all the bookmarks on an overlay on your screen. Works great for me.
***** Updated June 3, 2011 *****
Thanks again to everyone who helped with the beta testing. Just wanted you to know that I just posted version 1 to the Android Market. It's free and you can get it here:
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.greggreno.whattowatch
-Gregg
***** Updated May 5, 2011 *****
Uploaded a new version to the same location. Here are the changes:
- Improved the scrolling position after adding more titles to the bottom, but still not perfect
- Fix bug leaving the Netflix registration window open
- Set maximum title list retrieval to 50 at a time
- Fixed bug with extra Edit Search Criteria icon showing in apps list
- Fixed size and look of loading images
- Added ability to turn off ads by buying an unlocker from the Android market
Netflix still hasn't fixed their problems with TV series and getting the data right in their API
***************************
Hi all. I've been working on a new Honeycomb only app called What To Watch, and I'm looking for some beta testers. Anyone interested in helping out?
I wanted a better way to browse for Netflix movies and also manage my queues. For example, I wanted to do something like "show me all Sci Fi movies available on Instant with a 3 star rating or higher, rated PG-13 or R, sorted by release date". I couldn't find any other web site or app to do this, so I figured I would build it myself.
There are 3 main sections:
1) My Searches - this is where you can create your own searches and save them for later. I create two to start with. Click on one and it will display the list in the panel on the right, 25 at a time. Once you click on one of the My Seaches items, you can edit it by long pressing it or clicking the Edit button at the top. Note that this uses a beta API from Netflix called OData. It's the only API that lets you do sophisticated searches like this, but unfortunately it is subject to change from Netflix and it may not always be current with the main Netflix library.
2) Netflix Queues - what you would expect. For example, what is in your DVD and Instant queues.
3) Top Lists - this comes from the Netflix web site rather than the API. It shows what the top titles are for each category. This method won't show the star ratings until you drill into a particular title.
You can download the apk here (note this is case sensitive):
http://jigawattlabs.com/temp/WhatToWatch.apk
Known issues:
This is the first release. Should probably call it an Alpha!
Authenticating with Netflix isn't quite right yet. You may wind up with the web browser still open after exiting the app, and you may get another instance of the app. But just exit everything and it should be ok
There is a bug with the Netflix API with TV series and specials. This is a problem on their end, so you might get some unexpected results when browsing TV shows
I would appreciate any and all comments in terms of general UI impressions, bugs, performance, usability.
You can reach me directly at [email protected].
Thanks!
-Gregg Reno
I just tried it out, seems to work great. I just wish there was a way to actually watch Netflix on my zoom
Thanks for trying it out. I'd love to be able to watch netflix movies as well, and I think we will see that at some point. Hopefully once Netflix makes that possible, I can integrate that into the app.
I'm also going to implement a friends feature, where you can mark your favorite movies and share it with friends, and see what their favorites are.
Comments from other folks are welcome!
My first impression of the app is that it has some shared elements with amazon's web page, which is great. But the reason I say first impression is that it isn't registering with netflix.
Sent from my Xoom the way it should be, rooted and with SD card.
chbennett - thanks for testing. Can you give me some more info on the problem you had registering? When clicking almost anything it should prompt you to register. If you say ok, it should take you to a Netflix web page. You may have to log in and then it should prompt you to give permission to the What To Watch application. If you approve,it should take you back to the app and you should be able to run any of the searches on the left.
Where did you run into problems?
I installed it on my XOOM. Log in into Netflix without any problems. Searching also good, but could be good to add additional information about movie like Availability (for some of it shows when it will be available in stream).
It's a pity that we still missing Hulu or Netflix apps on our XOOM. Get used to watch it on my iPad(
greno1 said:
chbennett - thanks for testing. Can you give me some more info on the problem you had registering? When clicking almost anything it should prompt you to register. If you say ok, it should take you to a Netflix web page. You may have to log in and then it should prompt you to give permission to the What To Watch application. If you approve,it should take you back to the app and you should be able to run any of the searches on the left.
Where did you run into problems?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Basically all it did for me (ill try it again) was stall out on the "registering with netflix" in app pop up, going no further.
Edit: still doesn't work
Sent from my Xoom the way it should be, rooted and with SD card.
Great app! Forcecloses when I click on New Instant Choices under Top Lists category
Also when going into the Instant Que list; I click one of the movies and it takes me to the description. I can also click on Similar, Drop from Instant or Add to Disc. If I choose Drop from Instant and click the back arrow it still shows in the Instant Que listing. Can we have the option of clicking the Instant Que button on the top left corner in the movie description to go back to the Instant Que listing and if we do happen to press the back arrow could the Instant Que listing automatically update with the removal of the movie?
Kozdoba - I will be adding additional information like directors and awards, but I'll also look at adding availability. Do you have an example title in mind I can test with?
bishop72 - thanks for finding the problem with the New Instant choices. I'll look at that one, but it may be because that's a really big list and I'm not handling it correctly. Also, good idea about removing titles from the instant titles if you click the remove from instant button. But the problem with that for me is if I remove it from the list, it should probably close that title window because it's no longer in the instant queue. Maybe someone hit the remove button by mistake and they want to re-add it?
Also I notice that there is some type of caching going on with the adding and removing from queues. When you add or remove, it does that action and then sends another request to netflix to get the current status. But it may not register that quickly. So you may hit remove from instant, and then I get back a status from Netflix saying it's still in the instant queue. If you click it again, it shows up ok.
I appreciate the feedback - good or bad!
greno1 said:
Kozdoba - I will be adding additional information like directors and awards, but I'll also look at adding availability. Do you have an example title in mind I can test with?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Look this series soon will be available online.
http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Death_Note/70081003?trkid=2361637
downloaded the apk to nook but just got a parse error failed to load. I really love my netflix and was looking forward to tablet style look on nc.
The app installed fine, the Netflix login auth worked fine as well. The fit & finish look good as well. Some of the images and searches render a bit slow, but that could be my wifi. I will play with it more through the day and report back.
I believe i heard that Netflix was going to do a live stream with Netflix only productions, so a Top List of Netflix Original or something would be good.
Everyone - thanks for testing and for the comments. I really appreciate it! It's interesting it worked for some but didn't work for dbolton. Not sure why that is.
dbolton - can you post a screen shot of your error, or email it to me at [email protected]? I also took a few screen shots so you can see what it should look like:
http://jigawattlabs.com/w2w/screen1.png
http://jigawattlabs.com/w2w/screen2.png
kiteOregon - once Netflix posts a list of their own content in some type of list, I'll definitely look at adding that. For the Top Lists section, I'm just using the Netflix RSS feeds linked from the bottom of the page. Modified it somewhat to return no more that 50 at a time though since it would load too slow.
Thanks again!
-Gregg
Thus far all is working well. I really like the interface too, great job!
I am going to keep tinkering with it and let you know if I run into any issues or have any suggestions.
Thanks for the great app!
chbennett said:
Basically all it did for me (ill try it again) was stall out on the "registering with netflix" in app pop up, going no further.
Edit: still doesn't work
Sent from my Xoom the way it should be, rooted and with SD card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I heard that Netflix was having problems with authorization from 3rd party apps. As a work around the suggest launching your browser and log into Netflix. Leave the browser running, and then launch the app and try to register again. Can you let me know if that works?
-Gregg
garyh2 said:
Thus far all is working well. I really like the interface too, great job!
I am going to keep tinkering with it and let you know if I run into any issues or have any suggestions.
Thanks for the great app!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! Working to add more features.
somehow I now have a 'edit search criteria' icon (same as main apps icon) in my app drawer as if it were a separate app.
My initial reaction is very positive, but I have the same issue as garyh2. When I tell it to uninstall, I am informed that it is part of the main application so obviously I left it there. This is a weird bug though...
The only other thing I noticed is that the placeholder icons that appear before titles and images populate are slightly larger than the images and titles that replace them. This doesn't really cause problems but is slightly distracting.
I really like the power search function and the ability to save searches and haven't really seen this functionality elsewhere. Good job!
Thanks garyh2 and vidriera - ill take a look at that. The edit screen is a separate activity rather than a fragment, which is probably its somehow getting its own icon. Just one of the differences with honeycomb I need to figure out.
Also good point about the loading graphic. I'll fix that too.
How can I 'star' articles? Also, any way to turn off the swiping between articles?
Sent from my NookColor using Tapatalk
I looked at a lot of RSS readers before settling on NewsRob. It has a star in the top right to star an item. It has thumb buttons on both sides for next/previous articles (like Kindle hard buttons).
Very nice app and completely free. Give it a try.
in landscape mode with simple article view, its in the upper right hand corner.
in other other modes / view modes, not 100% sure
i have tried newsrob, greader, googles own app, and finally gave up on all of them being too slow and am currently using google reader mobile webpage in dolphinHD, its sad that google cant make their own app to be as functional as the website.
my only complaints about using google reader mobile website, is 1. the share button is small, so its hard to quickly hit; 2. i have to click-though the page of rss feeds when clicking on a tag, to get through to the articles, i wish i could just skip that, since thats the reason i tagged certain rss feeds together in the first place.
maybe some screenshots i have seen from some honeycomb reader that are faster switching back and forth between the list and individual article than the current 2.x apps. i guess thats where i am picking up speed using the google reader mobile website, since it allows you to open an article and read it while maintaining the unread article list.
5-31-21 I've ceased development on this app because I think there is a better alternative. See post #7.
*updated to version 1.3, adding error trap for discontinued or blank feeds*
It's been awhile since the demise of the last working version of Genie Widget (aka Google News and Weather) but not so long since the big G retooled news.google.com so that our browsers can no longer deal with it and also put the kibosh on the Google News RSS feeds. Sigh.
I have a work-around
Google News 1.3 for the NST/G exploits the "alerts" that Google offers on news topics. These alerts can be optioned in the form of RSS feeds. My app downloads the HTML source for the feed, picks out all the good stuff and trashes all the rest, then builds up a local HTML document which is easily displayed by our browsers (I highly recommend Opera Mobile for ease of scrolling and general all-around function). You can build up your own topics, change your mind, mix them about, read that one more story you didn't get to the first time around, etc. I'm not saying that your browser will negotiate every target link. Some newspaper sites have just become too much. That was true even when Genie Widget was still working. But updating Opera Mobile for TLS 1.2 solves much of that. See this post for details.. The beauty of this app is in the simplicity. It's entirely browser-based once the feeds are downloaded, so you're not going back and forth between the app and your browser (like the current Google News app.......). Designed for both portrait and landscape.
Requirements
1. Android 2.1 has a security issue with opening local HTML files. In order for Google News to work properly you need to address that. Included in the zip below is a tiny app, android-open-in-browser-0.0.4-4-debug. Install that. It's not my app but I have used it for years and wish I could credit the originator.
2. This is a Tasker-generated app. If you already have one of my other Tasker-generated apps or have previously installed GApps, you don't need the two Google maps library files included in the zip and can delete them. If you do need them, copy the two files into the locations shown below:
/system/etc/permissions/com.google.android.maps.xml
/system/framework/com.google.android.maps.jar
Set permissions for both files to rw-r--r-- and reboot. Without these files resident, the app will not install.
3. Create a folder in the root directory of your sdcard: Google News (exactly as shown)
4. Install the app itself, Google News.1.apk
How to use
Before you run the app you need to select some news categories, set up the feeds, get the URLs, blah-blah-blah. All of this is covered in the PDF included with the zip. It may seem a little annoying at the start, but it goes quickly once you get started and it's not like you have to do it every time you use the app. You're just setting up your news topics, just as if you were using the current Google News (either the app or the web version). Once you have your topics and URLs and have edited the included text file google_rss_feeds.txt, copy that into the Google News folder of your sdcard.
Note: recently (June 2019) the big G has not been very consistent with the RSS feeds. Some days they are "empty" but come back the next day with lots of stories. Some feed topics simply "die" and a minor change in the topic will resurrect them (change "World" to "World news", as an example). Version 1.3 includes a trap for these eventualities so that the app should not crash, even if your first feed comes up empty. To inspect/edit your feeds, point your browser (on your PC) to your Google Alerts page. If you are signed in this will be found among the options on the Google home page, in the upper right corner where the "apps" grid is shown.
Now you're good to go. Start the app, make sure you're connected to WiFi. There are only three buttons on the app screen. The first one, "Fetch the news" does just that. You will see a little toast that the first news category is being prepared. Once that is done, you will be taken to the browser and that page will open. Meanwhile the remaining pages are being downloaded and reconstructed in the background.
The news page is very simple. I tried to aim for readability over all other considerations (this is the reason the news items are in bold black, even though they are the external links). I have my Opera Mobile set to 100% page zoom. It looks good to me, but you could probably get away with 75%. External websites are another matter. At the title bar left is a drop-down menu button that gives you access to your other news topics. Since no fixed navbar schemes work under Android 2.1, there is a duplicate drop-up menu bar at the end of the page. The use of NoRefresh, or to a lesser extent FastMode, is a plus.
Edit: you cannot use this app with Opera Mini. It lacks the ability to open local HTML files.
The second option on the opening screen, "Read old news" sounds a bit daft, but I just thought maybe someone might have been looking at the topic pages, saw something that interested them and then got interrupted. So this option opens the first local file in the browser again and you can navigate from there. Strictly speaking, WiFi is not needed to browse the local files once they have been created, but it is needed to pursue any stories.
The third option simply dismisses the app screen.
Whew! So this is new...and I think I exterminated all the bugs, but I did not try other browsers. I'm open to suggestions and would appreciate feedback.
Google alert change? No option for RSS alerts anymore...
First off, thanks so much for putting the time and effort into this app. I would love to have a more "future-proof" news reader solution for my NST. Sadly however, in typical Google fashion of constantly dropping/messing with feature support, it seems that there is no longer an option to deliver Google alerts to RSS feeds (only email addresses). If I'm reading this thread and your PDF correctly, I'm worried that this may break the app. In any case I'm stuck on page 3 of your setup PDF since I can't figure out how to get the RSS alert string from Google anymore. Any advice you can offer would be greatly appreciated!
v619284 said:
First off, thanks so much for putting the time and effort into this app. I would love to have a more "future-proof" news reader solution for my NST. Sadly however, in typical Google fashion of constantly dropping/messing with feature support, it seems that there is no longer an option to deliver Google alerts to RSS feeds (only email addresses). If I'm reading this thread and your PDF correctly, I'm worried that this may break the app. In any case I'm stuck on page 3 of your setup PDF since I can't figure out how to get the RSS alert string from Google anymore. Any advice you can offer would be greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm away from home right now but my copy of the app is working so the RSS feeds must still exist. I'll have to sit down with my instructions in front of the computer and see what mischief they've done. Thanks for letting me know.
v619284 said:
If I'm reading this thread and your PDF correctly, I'm worried that this may break the app. In any case I'm stuck on page 3 of your setup PDF since I can't figure out how to get the RSS alert string from Google anymore. Any advice you can offer would be greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK, so I've run through the instructions sitting at my PC. Everything is correct although Firefox no longer wants to open the RSS feed page as anything other than an xml "text" file. That just means the image on page 4 needs updating.
As far as page 3, everything is currently exactly as shown. Just to be sure, you have to be signed in to Google on your browser before you do any of this. Then when you get to the screen depicted on page 3 you need to change the "Deliver to" option to RSS feed. But even before that, it's important not to get sucked into the email alert business back on page 2. Do NOT click on "Create Alert" there, only on "Show options". That's how you get to the screen I show on page 3.
When you finally get to click on the little RSS symbol shown on the lower half of page 3, you (at least on Firefox) may end up at a page of xml code, or perhaps your browser may show a news feed page. Regardless, the URL shown for the page is the same and it's what you need to copy, just as described on page 4.
Let me know if you are still having issues with this.
v619284 said:
First off, thanks so much for putting the time and effort into this app. I would love to have a more "future-proof" news reader solution for my NST. Sadly however, in typical Google fashion of constantly dropping/messing with feature support, it seems that there is no longer an option to deliver Google alerts to RSS feeds (only email addresses). If I'm reading this thread and your PDF correctly, I'm worried that this may break the app. In any case I'm stuck on page 3 of your setup PDF since I can't figure out how to get the RSS alert string from Google anymore. Any advice you can offer would be greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So a few days after I wrote my last post, the app stopped working for me. It just hangs on "Preparing......News"
Google has apparently changed the format of their RSS xml file. Right in the middle of something else at the moment, but I will get it fixed.
Nope, nix that. After fooling around with the app and an xml file from the Big G, I find nothing out of place and it seems the app is now working again
They're just messing with us.
Edit: Indeed they are. Today I caught another malfunction but this time looked at the Tasker routines for an error. Google is sending out (at least today) RSS feeds with empty content fields. That messes up my app. So I wrote an error trap for that. Updated in first post. Have to watch the big G like a hawk....
v619284 said:
If I'm reading this thread and your PDF correctly, I'm worried that this may break the app. In any case I'm stuck on page 3 of your setup PDF since I can't figure out how to get the RSS alert string from Google anymore. Any advice you can offer would be greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Whilst looking around for a solution to a different issue, I came across this: https://medium.com/@cassandragraft/...tion-not-appearing-heres-the-fix-bf842ca32b88
It appears to address the issue you describe. I never encountered the issue, but obviously some people have.
The Big G is making me very angry lately. Even version 1.2 with a new error trap is crashing. I'm finding that some of my feeds are "empty". The skeleton of the RSS file is there but there is no content populating the file. A category as ordinary as "world" is simply blank. This is new and very annoying. Just a change of topic to "world news" brings up a list of stories longer than your arm. I encountered this before with "science" and fixed it with a slight change in name, so I should have seen this coming. It's a nasty game Google seems to be playing....
Anyway, if the app crashes on the first topic it leaves an overlay artifact behind when you exit. To remove this, go to the App Manager and force stop the app. I will work on a fix which will alert you to the effect that the feed appears dead but allow the app to complete the download of whatever is still working and exit properly.
Grr....
Edit: App updated to v1.3 in first post. I hope that solves the problems. For now.
As I mentioned in my edit of the first post, I think my app is exhibiting creakiness already owing to Opera Mobile's increasing difficulty negotiating many websites.
I have an alternative to suggest, however, that is totally browser based. It seems to work "OK" with Opera Mobile although text display is a bit small with a default zoom of 100%. In Opera Mini, however, it shines, especially with NoRefresh.
Thanks to XDA member @SJT75 , I found out about a list of text-only news sites. One of them is a text version of Google News! The list is at: https://greycoder.com/a-list-of-text-only-new-sites/
While the Google News option does not allow for custom categories (hey, there's an app for that!), it does cover all the usual suspects. Even better, all of the links lead to text-only versions of the sources. Occasionally you go to a page and find it could not be fetched by whatever mechanism the author is using, but pages (even those error ones) include a link to the original source
Also notable on the list are the NPR and CNN sites. Both work well.
Back in Nov. 2018, the BBC News app (1.3.4) finally stopped working. Here's a browser-based replacement similar to my Google News app.
The BBC News website gives access to a considerable number of RSS feeds, likely much of the source of the old "carousel" of stories in the now-defunct app. My app collects the information from the RSS feeds of your choice and assembles them into a series of HTML pages suitable for Opera Mobile (see attached images below). It turns out that the actual BBC News website is pretty friendly to Opera Mobile, although--of course--a little slow, so any stories you choose to pursue are very readable. NoRefresh is nice.
Requirements
1. Android 2.1 has a security issue with opening local HTML files. In order for BBC News to work properly you need to address that. Included in the zip below is a tiny app, android-open-in-browser-0.0.4-4-debug. Install that. It's not my app but I have used it for years and wish I could credit the originator.
2. This is a Tasker-generated app. If you already have one of my other Tasker-generated apps or have previously installed GApps, you don't need the two Google maps library files included in the zip and can delete them. If you do need them, copy the two files into the locations shown below:
/system/etc/permissions/com.google.android.maps.xml
/system/framework/com.google.android.maps.jar
Set permissions for both files to rw-r--r-- and reboot. Without these files resident, the app will not install.
3. Create a folder in the root directory of your sdcard: BBC News (exactly as shown)
4. Install the app itself, BBC_News.1.apk
How to use
Before you run the app you need to select some news categories. You can get the feed URLs from the BBC News RSS page linked earlier. Only part of the URL is used in the file bbc_rss_feeds.txt. Here is the file as I have supplied it in the attached zip:
Code:
<cat>World</cat>
<url>/news/world/rss.xml</url>
<cat>US & Canada</cat>
<url>/news/world/us_and_canada/rss.xml</url>
I've just used two example feeds. You can see that the first line in each pair is a news category name (don't use names with "." in them). The second line in each pair is the last part of the RSS feed URL from the BBC News site. Be sure to edit out the first part of the URL or the app will not work. You can, of course, choose other/additional categories. Just follow my example. When the file is complete, copy it to the "BBC News" folder on your SD card.
Now you're good to go. Start the app, make sure you're connected to WiFi. There are only three buttons on the app screen. The first one, "Fetch the news" does just that. You will see a little toast that the first news category is being prepared. Once that is done, you will be taken to the browser and that page will open. Meanwhile the remaining pages are being downloaded and reconstructed in the background.
The news page is very simple. I tried to aim for readability over all other considerations (this is the reason the news items are in bold black, even though they are the external links). I have my Opera Mobile set to 100% page zoom. It looks good to me, but you could probably get away with 75%. External websites are another matter. At the title bar left is a drop-down menu button that gives you access to your other news topics. Since no fixed navbar schemes work under Android 2.1, there is a duplicate drop-up menu bar at the end of the page.
Edit: you cannot use this app with Opera Mini. It lacks the ability to open local HTML files.
The second option on the opening screen, "Read old news" sounds a bit daft, but I just thought maybe someone might have been looking at the topic pages, saw something that interested them and then got interrupted. So this option opens the first local file in the browser again and you can navigate from there. Strictly speaking, WiFi is not needed to browse the local files once they have been created, but it is needed to pursue any stories.
The third option simply dismisses the app screen.
Enjoy!