My "Crosswords" app from Standalone recently died. No more puzzle downloads from any sources. To my knowledge that was the only crossword app that would run on the NST/G without pieces of the onscreen keyboard disappearing during use (and leaving the lower part of your screen a mess, to boot). @pinguy1982 commented on this in the past, noting that the NookClearScreen app would "fix" the problem. The trouble is, you spend more time "clearing" the screen than entering clues.
I searched through the forum for other possibilities but they all had the same issue. One app, Shortyz, was touted very early in the forum history, but although I managed to find a long list of versions to download and try, none would get past the opening changelog screen. I could not figure this out but eventually checked a logcat and found that a funny encoding method was being used by the app (Cp1252). I could only find this once in all the smali files after taking the app apart and a little sleuthing (with confirmation from @Renate) suggested that I might just replace that with "utf-8" or even "iso-8859-1". I tried that and voilà! Very weird. Perhaps early firmwares for the NST had the capability to deal with Cp1252. But this solved the problem and Shortyz worked! It even downloaded some puzzles!
Shortyz is da bomb
But it's not perfect. It, too, has a soft keyboard that plays a vanishing act and leaves your screen messed up. Here's what the screen looks like before you use the keyboard:
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
And here is what it looks like after filling in the first clue (and I had to guess at some buttons which disappeared as groups!):
BUT, there is a setting to use the "native" (i.e., stock or currently installed) keyboard! Yay! The theme may not match and you may lose some extra navigational keys, but it works.
Of all the versions that would run on Eclair, I picked the one with the most working downloads. There may be minor issues which were fixed later on (I'm sure I'll either hear about them or discover them myself), but this seemed a good place to start. Of course, eventually the downloads will fail. The fact that they still work is actually shocking given the state of the SSL on the device. Still, this story does not end like my late, great "Crosswords" app, and this is where Shortyz "stands alone" (just a tiny pun there):
As long as there are .puz files out there somewhere, Shortyz will continue to work for you because it is, in essence, an Android Across Lite player. All you have to do is download a .puz file on your own (some sources to follow), place it in the folder /sdcard/crosswords, and Shortyz will do the rest. So thank you, Robert Cooper, wherever you are!
What I did
While I had the app decompiled I tried to do a little modifying. Here's a quick list:
1. Change character encoding from Cp1252 to iso-8859-1
(note, there is not a direct correspondence of all characters, so some punctuation in puzzle titles or clues does not always display properly--like the apostrophe; same result with utf-8)
2. Change all "help" screens to black text on white background
3. Change puzzle listing to black text on white background
(recurring theme: I do not like white text on a black background for the NST/G)
4. Uncheck non-working puzzles for download
What I wanted to do, but could not
1. Force keyboard choice to system default (I made the change in the preferences xml but the app ignores it--you must set this yourself, but only once)
2. Change other white text/black background instances (layouts strongly influenced by smali actions proved too much of a challenge for my modest talents)
Things to know
1. The help screens are context driven, so there is probably a help screen for each different view. Status-bar menu button, bottom of screen "Help".
2. Very little is gained by running the app full-screen as you need the back and menu buttons now and then (see #1) and this places the clue bar right up against the bezel (in portrait) which can make it harder to read and access.
3. This must be somewhere but it's worth mentioning anyway: a tap on the clue bar at the top of the screen opens a listing of clues, both Across and Down. The back arrow, twice, returns you to the main play view.
4. The most important context menu, IMO, is found by long pressing on the play view (the grid). There you can increase the size of the clue in the top bar (large!) and change the zoom size.
5. Navigational settings may not work with all keyboards. The back and forward arrows on the stock keyboard work, but only to the end of a line. You must tap on a new line to proceed to the next clue. Directional arrows in my usual keyboard (AIType) had no effect. Your mileage may vary.
6. The view in landscape is significantly different:
More clues always visible but more panning is required on the play grid.
7. Do not try to use the "force keyboard" visibility setting. It makes it nearly impossible to exit the app, and if you manage to get out, the keyboard is still there, no matter where you go!
8. If you add puzzles of your own, they will be placed under the date when you added them, so there's no point in renaming the file excessively. You can rename to clean up the display (the file name will be the display name in the list).
Installing and setting up
Download the modded app from below and install as you would any other app. If you are connected to WiFi when you first start the app it will download the puzzles for that day while you peruse the changelog. Puzzle downloads that still work are:
Mon-Sat--LA Times, Newsday, USA Today, Universal
Sun--Newsday, Universal
This is the only version for Eclair that gets the daily LA Times. Additional sources below.
After you dismiss the changelog if the app closes, open it again and you will see the puzzle listing. Tap on the status bar "menu" button and go to Settings. "Select Puzzle Settings" is effectively useless. Nothing works there except what I listed above. Checking anything else will just waste bandwidth. "Application Settings" contains some stuff which may suit the way you use the app in terms of moving around on the screen or having the play grid move by itself. I haven't done a lot of testing there. Some keyboard effects may or may not work with the stock or your favorite keyboard. You just have to try.
Keep scrolling down the list of settings until you find "Keyboard Style" (just about at the end). Tap that and select "Native". Exit Settings and return to the puzzle listing. Have fun!
Additional .puz sources
I am not claiming this list is exhaustive. Unfortunately a lot of the quicker and smaller puzzles like Joseph and Sheffer are now obscured behind real-time player applications and can't be downloaded by mere mortals. Such puzzles must be "scraped" from the host sites and fixing this sort of thing is not within my realm of expertise. However, here are a few additional sources for puzzles that once could be downloaded using Shortyz (and might be again in a current version):
Jonesin' (Thursdays) [archive] 2022 through 2014 (change year digits in URL)
Universal Daily Crossword (Daily) [archive] 2022 through 2019 (change year digits in URL)
Chronicle of Higher Education (Fridays--now dead) [archive] 2020 and 2019 (change year digits in URL)
Wall Street Journal (Monday-Saturday) [archive] 2022 through 2014 (change year digits in URL)
*Washington Post (Sunday magazine, Evan Birnholz) [archive] 2022 and 2021 (change year digits in URL)
*these are what Shortyz calls "large format" puzzles and may present additional panning challenges on the NST/G screen
I have tried downloading some of these directly on the NST/G with Opera Mini and have been successful. They can go straight to the /sdcard/crosswords folder. A quick file rename and you're good to go!
I've extracted the puzzles from the Nook Color crossword app which, while it installs and "runs" on the NST, isn't really useful since some of the grid is always obscured by the keyboard and there is no way to change the zoom or to pan.
The puzzles are from the NY Sun, ca. 2000. There are four categories:
Easy (50)
Medium (50)
Hard (39)
Themeless (50)
Oddly, the puzzles were saved with the grid completely filled in, so I installed an Across Lite player on my PC, opened each file, cleared the grid and resaved.
Attached below. Enjoy!
Related
androidslide has just released Photo BURST - a unique picture gallery app with the following features :
full 360° rotation
tree folder hierarchical view
zoomable thumbnails
swipe to next picture
double tap to circular zoom, scroll to pan
stunning slideshows (zoom n’ pan, collage, transitions)
exif + map display
fully customizable
More information is available on our website :
http://www.androidslide.com/photoburst
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
All feedback / feature requests are welcome as always!
how do I actually get this? Is there an apk for it or is available on the market or something? Cuz I didn't see a link for downloading it when i checked the website. Just more information about what it did. Thanks in advance.
Search for 'Photo BURST' in the market.
thanks for the quick response. Checking now..
Just checked this on Market.
Wanted to say thanks for an amazing app!
The stock gallery app was pretty poor especially compared to iphone etc, but with this new app I can really enjoy my pics in style! Slideshow is a standout - especially collage!
Suggestions would be to add exclude folder option and tagged images.
Keep up the good work!
Thanks for all the feedback on this app.
We have just released an update 1.0.1 which improves picture quality and fixes all known bugs from the original release.
Please let us know how everyone gets on with the new update.
Much more coming soon ...
Wow just tried the demo of this app and it's looking good. Like the features you've introduce so far. Could be a really good app.
It does keep crashing after the phone goes to sleep though for me. I'm on CyanogenMOD 4.0.4 ATM. If this can be fixed I think it will be one of my next purchases.
Thanks for the feedback.
Another user just reported going to sleep resume issue so we'll look into that next.
Released update 1.1 :
- Ping.Fm = 1 click send to Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, etc.
- Zoom sensitivity option
- Folder gallery bg color option
More coming soon ...
Awesome looking app. Seems like after a few minutes it just goes to sleep and my phone is totally unresponsive for a minute.
Running on a G1 with apps on SD card
Great job so far.
Some ideas/thoughts:
1. The scrolling is a bit weird. Almost like it's scrolling faster than I'm moving my finger. Instead of it being 1:1 it seems to be scrolling further than I want as I move.
2. It would help a lot if the size of the folder buttons was larger. The first screen where you see the listing of all the directories on your card that have photos. I've missed the button I want a few times since they aren't tall enough for a satisfying hit area.
3. If I choose "share" from any image, choose gmail for instance, and send or discard the message, when it drops me back into the app I see the splash screen and then the directory chooser again. Not the image I was just looking at. Frustrating!
4. That splash screen has to go. It makes sense for the indexing part, but when there is no indexing, or in the case of coming back to the app like I mentioned above, it's annoying.
That aside, it's looking pretty good! The last update improved IQ greatly. No more color banding on gradients!
The latest update (1.1.2) fixed #3 from my previous post. Nice!
Thanks for feedback - released update 1.1.2 :
- Ping.Fm = 1 click send to Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, etc.
- Zoom sensitivity option
- Folder gallery bg color option
- Help guide
More coming soon including delete option.
Very nice app, however i find the double tap / circular zoom procedure a bit difficult to master. I would certainly pay for app if it supported multi touch zoom as well.
Best rgds,
Geir
features to add
this application is great as it stands, beautiful UI very well done transitions its great, but a couple of features i would really like to see would be the ability for this applications to be the default picture grabber for aplications and such instead of the gallery(though this would probably have to be edited on both sides of it yours and the sides of the applications themselves), the second being easily enough done would be the ability to hide folders of pictures from the main page and/or the ability to sort the picture folders as this would eliminate need to remove them just place them somewhere else
There's another bug I found: view a picture, open the hardware keyboard on a G1. The app will exit back out to the splash screen and show you the folder picker again.
Happens on any open/close of the keyboard.
Thanks for the feedback. We'll look into and implement all the suggestions mentioned above :
- flip open issue
- hide folders
- multitouch for rooted / supported phones
- single tap to get zoom wheel
- splash screen only during indexing
- folder icons bigger
- more standard scrolling
Look out for updates soon - also feel free to join our Facebook group :
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=145074374594&ref=mf
We have just set up a Facebook group for Photo BURST ... whether you have a G1, Magic, Hero, MyTouch, this page is for your Photo BURST FAQS, tips, hints, requests and anything else you can think of!
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=145074374594&ref=mf
Would love a default folder or "exclude" folder option.
I want to show people pics without them having to go through every stupid jpg on the memory card from apps , and would like to avoid them stumbling into pics I want private.
Im aware of privacy folder apps but this app could kill 2 birds with one stone but letting us have the option to open a default folder that it always looks into and opens on program.
Splash screen and indexing need to be minimized and "when needed" only.
Finger swipe and zoom functions are fantastic but cant use as default until those things are implemented.
Thanks for the suggestions. Default folder and exclude folders are both planned for a future update.
We are 50% complete on the new update which significantly reduces loading time and only indexes required thumbnails.
We are also updating all of our apps to include support for Droid so it may take a liitle longer.
We are open to any suggestions for future updates so keep the ideas coming.
TIPS, TRICKS, GUIDES and SHORTCUTS
Graphics Software Help for Themers
I created this thread for anyone who would like help or want to learn quick ways in which to make theming and/or modding easier while using various graphics software. This software includes Adobe CS(Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.), GIMP, Paint.NET, Xara, CorelDRAW, Painter, etc.
This thread ideally should be able to help those who would like to use a particular program to create icons, launcher themes, boot animations, wallpapers, etc. There are lots of great theming help threads but within these threads there may be a few questions on how to use certain software to accomplish various tasks. A thread dedicated to just that would be ideal so as to not to deviate from the main topics of those threads.
All questions pertaining to how you would use a particular software for your creation are welcome and I would encourage other themers or anyone else who has knowledge and would like help, to please do so.
I am mostly familiar with Photoshop. I'm by no means an expert but I'm comfortable enough with the program to be able to be helpful wherever and whenever I can. There are XDA members who know more than I about this particular program as well the others mentioned.
I will add to this thread as much as I can and will also add helpful posts of other users to the OP.
Lets start:
How to open multiple images as Photoshop layers:
1. Opening Adobe Bridge and navigate to the folder that contains the images you want to add to your document. I have Bridge open to a folder on my Desktop with five images inside of it. I’ll select the first image (the one on the left) by clicking on its thumbnail.
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
2. Then, to select the other two images as well, I’ll hold down my Shift key and individually select images or click on the last of the five images (the one on the right). All five images are now highlighted and selected. Or CTRL+A to select everything in your folder.
3. With all of the images selected, go up to the Tools menu in the Menu Bar along the top of the screen in Bridge, choose Photoshop for a list of Photoshop-specific options, then choose Load Files into Photoshop Layers.
4. Photoshop will open automatically, if it’s not open already, and will add all five images (or as many images that you have selected) into the same document. It may take a few moments for Photoshop to process everything, but when it’s done, you’ll see a single document open on your screen containing all of your photos.
(Photoshop) How to apply an action for your images. You can record an action and set it to one to three buttons. (Photos may be provided later)
1. Go to Window and click Action and the Action popup or menu will show on the right.
2. Click the drop-down next to Action and click New Action.
3. Name your action whatever you'd like. Where it says Function, I would recommend creating one so you don't have to keep selecting your action and clicking the Play button every time you want to use your action. For example, you can make F2, Shift+F2, or Ctrl+F2 a function and anytime you you want your action to start, just click the button or button combinations you made.
4. Click Record and perform your action from start to finish then click the Stop button. Now all you have to do is keep clicking your pre-programmed button anytime you want to use these actions on your images.
(Photoshop) How to batch apply one action to multiple images. Once you have a recorded action you can apply it to an endless amount of images at one time without pressing anything.
1. Go to File > Automate > Batch.
2. At the top in the Play section, where it says Set, find your folder in the drop-down.
3. Underneath Set you will see Action. The drop-down will have your pre-programmed actions and select the one you want.
4. Now go to the Source section. Click the Choose button and select the folder in which you would like your image files saved then Click Ok.
Reserved
One more
vanessaem said:
One more
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
cool work......this will help new members
Good job, are you still playing on adding more to this thread?
mloc33 said:
Good job, are you still playing on adding more to this thread?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks a lot. I would like to but don't have the time at the moment. This thread was also created for the community. It's for anyone looking for troubleshooting with the various graphics programs used to theme. Any and everyone could take part and is encouraged to do so. But I guess no one needs the help...lol.
However, the thread is still here.
On gimp, I opened a .PNG file, a quick setting toggle icon to be specific, it is in a greenish-yellow color and I wanted to change to white. So I set the foreground color to absolute white and picked the pencil tool, lower its size down to a pixel then I clicked on the image,expecting white color to fill the pixel, instead it "popped" out the same greenish-yellow color of the original image. Tried another tool, still the same result. But tried another .PNG image and BAM! white comes out.......then I realized some .PNG images worked while some didn't. Does anybody know what's causing this?
I'm still new to GIMP
And also the foreground color never changed from white and background never changed from black......... also if black is used as foreground color it works. So what's wrong with white??
Samuel2599 said:
On gimp, I opened a .PNG file, a quick setting toggle icon to be specific, it is in a greenish-yellow color and I wanted to change to white. So I set the foreground color to absolute white and picked the pencil tool, lower its size down to a pixel then I clicked on the image,expecting white color to fill the pixel, instead it "popped" out the same greenish-yellow color of the original image. Tried another tool, still the same result. But tried another .PNG image and BAM! white comes out.......then I realized some .PNG images worked while some didn't. Does anybody know what's causing this?
I'm still new to GIMP
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you trying to do image masking in order to fill a particular area white?
Actually, Im trying to add white on top of the old color to as to change the whole icon to white. If that is what you also meant, then yes....
Samuel2599 said:
Actually, Im trying to add white on top of the old color to as to change the whole icon to white. If that is what you also meant, then yes....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not sure if GIMP had anything to do with one .png's ability to work properly over another. However, it may depend on the quality of the actual image itself.
New NST Weather Widget is done! https://forum.xda-developers.com/nook-touch/themes-apps/app-nst-weather-widget-t3946270
Updated to v1.1
--fixed issue that often caused app crash if initial contact with OWM was unsuccessful
--added sunrise/sunset update for condition icon
--added "current value" display in Settings for Lat., Long. and API
--some cosmetic changes to forecast panel
Everybody talks about the weather...
I miss WeatherAce, but when WeatherUnderground deep-sixed their free API service, there was nothing left in the app that worked. I made a few half-hearted attempts at updating the APIs for some of the other services included in the app but it became clear that my approach was too simple-minded and I gave up.
NSTWeather is my "learning app" for figuring out how to deal with xml weather data. It's a simple weather display and forecast app just for the NST (and sort of the NSTG...read on). Because Tasker (which I used to make this app) cannot create widgets, I started looking for some screen real estate that would (almost) always be visible. There is a small "blank" section of the status bar to the right of the soft Menu button. On the NST, this area is large enough for a temperature (no F or C) and a small condition icon. On the rare occasion that sync arrows appear, they overlap the condition icon. Alas, if you have an NSTG, the Glowlight indicator overlaps the condition icon when WiFi is on and, I suppose, sync arrows displayed with the WiFi on might overlap the temperature. So this might not be the best thing for NSTG users.
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
"What about apps that run full-screen?", you ask. I have only one or two, including the stock reader. I have made the weather information the same color as the reading page background. That's one reason the icons look a little rough. Only 2 colors. If you have other full-screen apps and the weather display is annoying you, it can be toggled by a long press once the app is activated.
This app is not quite experimental, but it is not a destination for me. This is a way for me to work out various issues leading up to an eventual Widget.
With that out of the way...
What it does
This app uses your latitude, longitude and free OpenWeatherMap API to fetch a 3-hr, 5-day forecast for your locale. The app makes up to two attempts to contact the OWM servers each morning, at 4:30 am. The xml file from OWM is then processed to extract sunrise/sunset times, and temperatures and precipitation amounts for each 3-hr period over the 5-day forecast. All this data is massaged to get the time zone corrected, adjust the day/night condition icons for sunrise/sunset (OWM has them wrong...) and convert the precipitation into the units you desire. There is lots of other information in the xml file, but I decided to keep this "simple" (it is anything but) and just go for this essential information.
At each 3-hr interval, starting at 2:00 am, the temperature/condition display is updated from the forecast data. In addition, a tap on the temperature display will open a panel with the forecast for all 5 days, at 3-hr intervals (see screenshot below).
If the app fails to contact OWM (their servers are sulking or you have arrived in a hotel the previous evening and your NST can't make a WiFi connection...), it will re-sort the panel data to keep the day display correct and continue to display whatever information it has in the last forecast received until it runs out of data. I don't know what happens then! Of course, one could hope that in the course of 5 days it will eventually reach OWM.
What it doesn't do
The app--as configured--does not display "tiny" amounts of precipitation. I have it set to indicate "trace" (tr.) when the value falls below a tenth of whatever unit is selected. Also, I make no distinction among the types of precipitation other than by the condition icon.
Unfortunately, in the old version of Tasker that runs on the NST there is no way to directly address the changes at sunrise or sunset since they are variable, and variable time contexts were added only to later versions of Tasker. In the current version of NSTWeather I have added a routine for updating the condition icon within 15 minutes of sunrise or sunset, always on the early side rather than later. I based my range of potential times on Anchorage and Oslo. If you live at even more extreme northerly or correspondingly southerly latitudes, this will not work for you all the time. Also, since the weather data is updated at 4:30 am, I did not include the entire potential sunrise range (as early as 3 am), but rather settled for 4:45 am as my starting value. Hopefully you are asleep at that point...
Requirements
1. 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.
2. Copy the folder "NSTWeather" and its contents from the zip below to the root of your sdcard. This contains all the condition icons and is where the weather.xml file from OWM will be stored.
3. Go to https://openweathermap.org/ and find the current weather for your locale. When this is displayed you will also see the "geocoordinates" (i.e., the latitude and longitude). Copy these two values.
4. Go to https://openweathermap.org/api and sign up for a free API (right there in the opening paragraph, click on the words "sign up"). You will eventually receive an email with the API.
Installation and Use
Install the app from the zip below either by side-loading or ADB. The only user interface of the app is a Settings page. Open NST Weather and enter your latitude and longitude, as well as your API. Be especially careful with the API and make sure to include any negative signs with the geocoordinates.
Next, make your selection of the units you want displayed. Finally, to make the app fully functional you need to check both of the boxes in the lower section (you can disable the app temporarily by unchecking these). When you've made all the selections, tap on the bottom box to start a manual data retrieval. The Settings page will close and you should see WiFi come on for a bit. It will then turn off. If a successful connection was made with OWM and if you entered your information correctly, you will eventually see a weather display in the status bar. How long will it take? About 3 minutes. There's an awful lot of stuff to be done. That's one reason for having the data update done at 4:30 am when you are hopefully snoozing.
If nothing seems to happen and you see WiFi come back on again in 15 minutes, then it failed to contact OWM the first time and is trying again. If the second time fails, you will get a notification telling you that download failed, assuming there is nothing wrong with the values you entered. Go back to the Settings page and carefully check your API. That's where the most likely error will occur. Of course you should check your geocoordinates, too, just to be sure.
If you have made a successful connection with OWM before and one day there is a notification saying download failed, you can just ignore it and hope for better luck the next day unless you absolutely must have an updated forecast. In that case, you can use the manual retrieval option. There is no need to re-enter the latitude, longitude and API each time you open the Settings page once they have been entered correctly. They are stored in the /data/data/app folder for the app. Also, if you decide to change the locale, you only need to enter the new latitude and longitude, not the API.
The 5-day forecast panel is updated daily even if a download fails (data is just shifted to the left and the names of the days are changed). You access the panel by tapping on the temperature display.
If you want to hide the weather display, a long press on the temperature will make it invisible, but the area on the status bar adjacent to the soft Menu button remains active. Another long press will re-display the weather information.
Widgets?
As I said early on, Tasker cannot make widgets on its own, although it can share data with some other apps which can. Of these, only one will still work on the NST/G: Minimalistic Text. The current version of NSTWeather shares the current temperature value display with Minimalistic Text as a "Locale" variable called CURRTEMP. If you have a working install of Minimalistic Text and some familiarity with the app, you can play with this just to get a feel for the possibilities (that's what I'm doing!). To do so, create a widget (1x1 or perhaps 2x1), and select "Custom" for the format/layout. Get rid of all the stuff that is there by default and tap on the "Misc" tab. One of the options there is "Locale". If you drag that up to the working area you can enter the name of the variable CURRTEMP. If you want to add a degree symbol and F or C, or perhaps your location, you can use the "Static Text" option. I've done this and it works wonderfully well, updating right along with the normal status bar temperature display of NSTWeather. There's still a tremendous amount of work to be done to get to the actual Widget with the condition icons, etc., but it's a start
PerfectViewer is a reader application for image-based files such as CBR and CBZ and, with the proper plugin, PDF. It works well on the NSTG (best in low-memory mode) but is plagued by a lot of invisible text in the Preferences screens and many dialog boxes. Also, the PDF plugin that is supposed to work with the version that runs best on the device always crashes.
I recently came by a slew of CBZ files that I wanted to look over and decided to dust off this old app and then I remembered all of the above. I decided to try and fix some of the issues. Along the way I discovered a version of the PDF plugin that actually does work with the app, further extending its capabilities.
What I did
1. Essentially I forced all text to black. This solved a lot of problems in itself, with only a few layout files requiring minor edits. One unanticipated side-effect was to make the window title text also black (it was white on a grey background). But this is the only artifact of this kind and I feel it is a small price to pay. The text (which you probably never look at anyway) is still quite readable, although it would look better white. Couldn't fix it. There are issues with the framework-res.apk. To decompile and compile the app without errors requires a KitKat framework. Obviously there are going to be issues when that app runs on an Eclair device. So I did the best I could.
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
2. Next I tried to change all the white text on black backgrounds to the opposite. I succeeded in all but one case where the ListView used was impervious to my persuasions, that is in the setup for the quick bar menu. I could see the two ListViews in one smali file and could also see where text might be set but could not figure out how to force the text color to black.
3. Speaking of the quick bar, while using the app I kept squinting at the icons there. It seemed to me the background color was too dark for many of the icon options. So I lightened that.
4. I resized the Quick Setup and Adjust Color windows so they display properly on the NSTG.
5. I increased the maximum zoom to 100%. I sometimes found myself tapping the screen multiple times with the maximum setting of 20%. You can still set it to 5% or 15% or whatever, but the slider is just a bit more touchy with the larger range.
6. I removed Shelf Style #5 (the ugliest of an unattractive set, IMO), and created a new solid color shelf (now #1) and renumbered the rest. (looks best with dark grey or black text and no text effect)
A PDF reader?
So, what's the PDF plugin like? Well, PerfectViewer is a page-centered reader. That does not change with the PDF plugin. There is no re-flow option. A regular book in PDF format is really only readable in landscape mode. Otherwise the font is too small and/or you are panning all over an enlarged page. The landscape option is actually pretty normal for reading PDF text on the NST (unless you have really good eyes). What PerfectViewer lacks is the ability to smoothly scroll across pages like, for example, EBookDroid. Instead you move in chunks of the page (adjustable). Also, NoRefresh has issues with PerfectViewer in landscape mode. Not sure why. One good thing is that you can adjust the text contrast (gamma, under AdjustColor) to achieve something like the great contrast found in the @nivieru version of EBookDroid. And while EBookDroid renders pages rather slowly so that you sometimes scroll to a blank page and then wait, PerfectViewer renders much faster. So there are trade-offs.
Installation
Unfortunately if you are currently using PerfectViewer you will have to uninstall it since the MOD has a different signature. You can save your Preferences (Preferences Management, then tap the bottom blank "button") since uninstalling PerfectViewer does not delete the folder on the sdcard. Then you can read those Preferences back in once the MOD is installed. I have to say that I was less than impressed with this. It seemed to ignore quite a few settings I had made, so I'm just warning you. At least you'll be able to see what you're doing! There's no interface for the PDF plugin. It just makes the app work with PDF files.
Downloads
PerfectViewer_1.9.2.2MOD
PDF Plugin 1.2
EBookDroid 1.5.7 (nivieru MOD) is a reader for PDFs, DjVU, CBZ, CBR and some other less common formats (not ebooks like epub or mobi--not in this older version anyway). As demonstrated by @ALinkToTao, it has one of the best text/background contrast ratios of the common PDF readers that work on the NST/G. It is particularly good for PDF texts in landscape mode where it can be set for continuous vertical scroll. In conjunction with NoRefresh mode this makes for a comfortable reading of books in PDF format without messy reflowing.
That said, page rendering is sometimes slow and you may arrive at a page to find a white screen until the device catches up with you. It's not as bad as it sounds for a PDF book, but it's not as fluid as something like PerfectViewer, for example. I hasten to add that there are many, many arcane rendering settings which I do not understand and which might actually improve performance significantly. I just use things more or less at default levels.
A quick comparison of version 1.5.7 on the developer's Google Code archive reveals that some theming adjustment was done by @nivieru along with the contrast adjustment. After using the app for some years I feel there are still too many visual distractions in the settings in the form of missing text and murky/muddy backgrounds behind black text. I've spent some time with the app trying to clean things up.
What I did
1. Changed the ancient app icon to the current EBookDroid icon.
2. Went through the various menus and dialog boxes to make sure all the text that is supposed to be there (and even functional icons) is actually visible.
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
3. Went through various menu/settings options and forced all backgrounds to white and text to black.
4. Changed the colors in the overlay for tap setup to shades of grey. You can actually see now that there are 4 tap zones (two of which overlap). That may not sound like much, I guess, but you have three options with each zone (which you can now read) so I guess that's like 12 zones, assuming you can remember what is a single, double or two-finger tap...
Edit: I spoke too soon. See Spoiler below for more information on the tap zones.
Spoiler: More than you ever wanted to know about Tap Zones
I've discovered there is more to the tap zones than meets the eye AND that they are a pain to sort out.
1. First, although it seems you can delete a zone as one option when you have tapped on it to set it up, you actually can't. You are dumped back at the Bookshelf screen if you try. There is a way to delete tap zones, although maybe not the 4 default ones (my results have not been consistent). The only way I have found to do this is to edit the file /data/data/org.ebookdroid/shared_prefs/org.ebookdroid_preferences.xml
Copy the file to another location for editing. Find the field <string name="tapprofiles">. You can probably just parse out the format of the entries, but although it may be possible to edit at this level, I just prefer to wipe out the entire entry until you get to </string>. Then save the modified file and copy it back to where it came from, overwriting the existing file. If you do this all on the NST/G you won't have to worry about permissions. If you edit off the device and copy it back to the device, be sure the file permissions are rw-rw-
2. Second, the coordinate system used to describe the zones. The overlay screen is a 10x10 grid. The origin (0,0) is the upper left corner. So the default zone at the top of the screen is described as 0,0-100,10 (x1,y1-x2,y2). Just FYI.
3. Third, you can add tap zones, although you may be adding overlays if you can't delete the default four zones. However, they seem to work. To add a zone, place your finger on the zone overlay grid where you want the zone to start, and drag it to where you want it to stop. You should notice some highlighting. That's it! Unfortunately as disclosed in #1, removing the zone seems to be very difficult, unless you remove them all.
4. At least in my experience, setting the zones up seems very squirrely. My most consistent results were obtained making only one change at a time. Use the "Clear" option before selecting a new or different action (even if that action is "None"), then return to the document before making another change. You may find that you need to close the document and return to the bookshelf before setting another zone.
Installation
Unfortunately if you have a current EBookDroid installation you will need to remove it because the signature has changed. First do a backup of your configuration because the /sdcard/.org.ebookdroid folder is not removed during uninstall and that's where the backup file lives. Then you can read in your configuration after installing the MOD.
Modded apk file attached below.
@nmyshkin You the man!!
I'll be implementing this app ASAP. Thank you so much!