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This Is Not The Michael You're Looking For Adam, noticed the new update while browsing the phone this morning and tried it...BINGO! Authentication now works quickly and smoothly.

Now I just have to actually start using the app to see how it works :-)

One minor thing I immediately noticed: If I search for a book and go to a book page, there are a pair of tabs at the top: details and reviews (or something like that). On my phone, the unselected tab has white text on an almost white background (white to gray fade) making it almost impossible to read. In fact, I didn't even realize the second tab had text at all, but clicked on it because it looked like it should be clickable and it was only afterwards I discovered the faint text. The tabs also seem overly large (height), but that may not be controllable.


message 52: by Adam (new)

Adam (jademason) | 66 comments @This Is Not The Michael You're Looking For:

Awesome, glad the new release works for you!

The tab issue you are seeing is fairly unpleasant to solve. The tab behavior changes a bit between Android versions. In 1.6 the tab background follows the application style setting, which is why you are seeing nearly unreadable text on a white background. In 2.2 the background color is independent of app style. The extra space at the top is reserved for an icon. I've read a couple of articles on how to force the tabs to a particular color / font / size. It effectively involves creating custom tab widgets. I'd really like to solve it to have consistent and efficient use of that space on all versions, but I haven't gotten there yet.


This Is Not The Michael You're Looking For If you can't control the background color, can you control the text color? In the minimal Android coding I've done, one of the few things that was often easy to control (often...not always, unfortunately) was text color.


message 54: by Adam (new)

Adam (jademason) | 66 comments That's a good idea, I'll see what I can do.


message 55: by Lazyknight (new)

Lazyknight | 4 comments Hey,

Just installed this app to try to gain some kind of control over my library, but on clicking the Login button I get a toast popup with an error about not being able to contact http://www.goodreads.com/oauth/reques...

Data access on the phone is fine though.


message 56: by Adam (new)

Adam (jademason) | 66 comments @Lazyknight - http://www.goodreads.com/oauth/reques... is the URL that YAGRAC needs to be able to access in order to get permission to perform actions on your behalf. If you enter that URL into your mobile browser, do you get a response that says "Invalid OAuth Request", or does it instead say that the page is unreachable?

Are you behind some sort of firewall or proxy that would prevent you from accessing the Goodreads site?


message 57: by Lazyknight (new)

Lazyknight | 4 comments Thanks for the prompt response, Adam.

Yeah, I had a bit a of a rummage about on the oauth API before I commented.

Should've said: the URL works fine both via the browser on the phone and my desktop. i.e. I get the "Invalid OAuth Request" response.

The exact message in the popup is "Communication with the service provider failed: " followed by the OAuth URL.

Phone is a HTC Magic running Android 1.6. It's vodaphone in the uk. I can search for books via YAGRAC just fine. Just not the auth url :-/


message 58: by Adam (new)

Adam (jademason) | 66 comments @Lazyknight - I'm in the US on Verizon with a Moto DROID (v1) running 2.2. I went through the oauth process again and everything worked. I then tried the same in my 1.6 emulator that I setup when working with @This_Is_Not_The_Michael_You're_Looking_For and it worked as well. This leads me to believe that the source of the issue is something I can't emulate locally. It could be that I have a bug in my code that only manifests on your phone model, phone setup, or carrier. Do you get the same results if your phone is connected via WiFi rather than mobile data? When you visit your account details on Goodreads, do you have any apps authorized? Does @Casper's Gready-Android app succeed where mine fails?

Thanks for your help in getting this debugged!


message 59: by Lazyknight (new)

Lazyknight | 4 comments Gready-Android takes me through the authentication process cleanly -- I'd had it on the phone previously, so I revoked access and re-installed to double check, but that goes through fine.

Not been able to test via WiFi instead of via 3g yet, will do so when I get home.


message 60: by Adam (new)

Adam (jademason) | 66 comments @Lazyknight - that pretty well seals it that I have a code issue in some way. I will take a look tonight to see if I can figure out what it is.


message 61: by Lazyknight (new)

Lazyknight | 4 comments Adam,

Oh, now that *is* interesting. At home, on WiFi, the browser pops straight up and goes to the authentication page -- authentication and access works just fine and I can add books via the scan.

Turn wifi off, logout and go to 3g -- exactly the same message as before, browser still doesn't get triggered.

Login via wifi, then revert to 3g *without* logging out and I can access my shelves, friends updates etc. But if I try to do anything that requires write priveleges (such as adding a new book) I get a "HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized" toast message.


message 62: by Adam (new)

Adam (jademason) | 66 comments @Lazyknight that is totally bizarre! I would say it is an issue with your carrier, but the fact that Casper's app works on both seems to indicate that there is some setting I have missed that will get it working for you on both.

I suppose the good news is that you can use the app on wifi. I will keep investigating to see if there is something I can do to get it working on GPRS.


message 63: by Adam (new)

Adam (jademason) | 66 comments This Is Not The Michael You're Looking For wrote: "If you can't control the background color, can you control the text color? In the minimal Android coding I've done, one of the few things that was often easy to control (often...not always, unfortu..."

I took your advice and set all the tabs to a white background with black text. This makes the text visible, but it is difficult to tell which tab is selected. The theme is ignored in later version of Android. I also squished down the tab button height. If you would like to give it a try the APK is available from the project site: http://code.google.com/p/yagrac/downl...

I have a couple of other features and bugs I would like to address before I push this to the market, which should be in a week or so.


message 64: by Adam (new)

Adam (jademason) | 66 comments Version 1.4 of YAGRAC is now available both from the project site and the market.

Changes in 1.4:
- Added 'Events' screen which displays upcoming events near you.
- Able to view comments on a review
- Bulk scan mode which allows scanning a collection of books to selected shelves all at one go.
- Lots of UI tweaks, fixes, and changes to improve usability and performance


message 65: by Wes (new)

Wes | 1 comments Downloaded, works great (friends, search via barcode, add to shelf.)

A tad slow, but mostly on API calls.

EVO on 2.2 over wifi.


message 66: by Ettore (new)

Ettore Pasquini Adam, I checked out YAGRAC from svn and built it, I authenticated, but then the app is just loading the actual Goodreads website in a web view of sorts (for example review/list)... Is this normal? How do I get to a page implemented with actual Java layouts/buttons/etc? I seem stuck in web-view land.

I only ran the app in the android simulator BTW.


message 67: by Ettore (new)

Ettore Pasquini Nevermind, I got it... The simulator was acting funky. Nice work!


message 68: by Adam (new)

Adam (jademason) | 66 comments The app kicks you into the browser to oauth authenticate. I can't force the browser to close, so you need to close it to get back to the app. I pop a toast with that instruction, but it is easy to miss.


message 69: by Mackenzie (new)

Mackenzie | 1 comments On the YAGRAC app where is the bar scanner?


message 70: by Adam (new)

Adam (jademason) | 66 comments Mackenzie wrote: "On the YAGRAC app where is the bar scanner?"

Click the 'Find Books' button. On this screen, click the menu button on your phone and you will get the option to scan / batch scan


message 71: by K.S.SHARANYA (new)

K.S.SHARANYA IYER (sharanya_iyer) | 8 comments is there an example api of goodreads for an android and coded in eclipse? Please do help me with that!


message 72: by Michael (new)

Michael Economy (michaeleconomy) I think this thread is for a 3rd party app, but we're planing a release early next year for the official Goodreads Android app.


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