The Grind

This week has been the same grind as the last. We're still working on that database. It's making progress slowly, and we're still waiting on an email from the disabilities services at RPI to send us information on the academic buildings' accessibility.

Also, we've fixed the bugs that we had experienced during the last presentation such as the notification time mistake.

We have also moved over to Google Maps and we are working on changing over to a tabbed layout. Progress is being made!

Optimization

This week we've been working on optimizing the RPI Walk android app. The main screen of the app was pretty slow so we tried a few different things such as changing the background image size and reducing the number of functions it has to work out.

Another thing we've been working on in regards to optimization is the "end point" of the buildings. By default, the map points to the center of the building. In an app meant for walking, this is inconvenient. We are creating a database that contains the name of the buildings and the latitude and longitudes of their entrances. This is a long and tedious task which will probably take up a while to finish up.

We have also changed the original backgrounds we had to coordinate them around the background we liked the most. Now they have a theme to them.

We are also creating a settings menu to allow users to customize the app and make it their own. We are still working on what other options we want to put into the settings menu.

Polishing up

This week, we've worked on finishing up the backgrounds and fixing the notifications.

We've settled on the following backgrounds for our screens. They fit with the mainly red theme we have going. They were created on Adobe Photoshop.

The first one belongs to the directions screen, followed by the about screen and finally, the scheduling screen.

We finally have the scheduling notifications working with the notification icon. The notification pops up as a reminder for the given event. The user is able to pick how long before the event the notification should pop up. Clicking on the notification redirects you to the map that shows how to get to the designated area from the current location.  

Finally, we've started creating a database with the names and acronyms/abbreviations of the locations around campus along with the geopoints of the different entrances to the buildings.

Clean Up

This week we've done a bunch of fine tuning for our app.

We worked on the Graphical User Interface. We designed a few more icons for the map and we sketched up a few different background ideas for the different screens.

We also fixed up some things with the scheduling part of the app, making it more user friendly. The scheduling now works smoothly with adding and deleting items, as well as sustaining the events beyond the session. 

To Be Continued

We've made further developments to the map prototype to make it more user friendly. The app now also has an about screen. Finally, we started work on the scheduling part of our application that will allow students to enter their schedules so the app can send reminders for when they should leave their current location to get to their destination on time.

We took our icon drafts from last week and came up with our final icon concept. We incorporated RPI's school colors, and used Photoshop CC to make the final icon design.

We've created a few other icons for use in the app such as the notification icon and location cursor icons, etc. These icons have already been incorporated into the app.

Under Construction

Our app is shaping up!

We've started to work on the basic framework for our app, and things are starting to come together. This week we've made progress in the following ways:

Basic path finding prototype: 

The app uses OpenStreetMap to convert inputted addresses to GeoPoints. The produced JSON file is parsed for longitude and latitude which is directed to the MapQuest Road Manager to find a feasible route between the given locations. 

Developed several concept for icon:

As an android app, RPI Walk will require a launcher icon and a notification icon. We've drawn up a few different artworks for the launcher icon using Adobe Photoshop Elements under the guidelines from Android Developers.

Initial setup complete!

Hello everyone!

The initial project setup has been completed.

What's been done so far:

• Github page set up
• Blog set up
• IDEs set up and linked to Github

Goals for the week to come:

• Begin development
• Begin UI development

Thanks for reading!

-Ezra Dowd