PNRStatusApp for Android

    The PNRStatusApp for Android, which was not working because of broken Service Providers interface has been fixed. The app is still not available in the Google Play Store and is under Alpha testing phase. Following are some screen shots of the app in action.

Home Screen to add PNRNumbers

Detailed Status of the PNRNumber

About the App Screen

As mentioned in the About screen, this application does not store any information retrieved about the PNR number and also is not commercial in nature.

This application is a part of self learning to the Android Application development. The following details were explored in this application.

• Skinning applications, buttons etc
• Custom Adapter for a List View
• Calling a web service and parsing the response
• Check if Internet connection is available
• Moving between activities
• Passing custom objects between activities
• Sharing content
• Different layouts used in Android (and how to optimally use them)

That's a good number of features to learn using a simple application. 

Designing the PNRStatusApp Promo Poster

In the following post, I will describe my designing experience for the Promo Poster for the PNRStatusApp.

Step One as always will be to make a drawing on paper, preferably with pencil, though I used a Pen here. The layout, elements, white spaces are all mentioned in a rough manner. It is important that the design does not look busy or over crowded. We would not be thinking about colors or font faces at this point. And I made this mockup for the promo.

 Next step is to fire up a graphics program, in my case I am comfortable with Adobe Fireworks. It is quite easy to learn and work with especially for doing designs like this and also for web developments.

You can digitize the drawing if you want and keep it in a background layer of the application as a reference or visually look at your drawing for reference.

Once you start with the digital tool, it's important that you choose and use few fonts and colors. The colors used for the promo poster here are taken from the application itself, a shade of blue. Limit the use of fonts, usually one for headings and another one for body. And that's pretty much that for this design :)

Android Share Icon Vector

Since I couldn't find a Share Icon for android, I decided to create one myself. So here is the Share Icon Vector created using Adobe Illustrator. Find the download link at the bottom of this post.

Downlaod from here :
http://www.mediafire.com/?cx7d84vx321geor

"Share via" feature of the pnrstatusapp for Android

My PNR Status is Confirmed , RAC 1,GNWL #PNRStatusApp

Android apps usage tips

After using the gingerbread flavor of the android is on my phone for the past few months, I am embarrassed to admit that I as able to figure out a few things only recently.
firstly most applications have a facility to respond to the "search" hard button on the phone. for example the built-in "messaging " application. I thought it would be a cool idea to search among your message inbox for finding something . and Viola, it is already there. many other applications have also implemented the search functionality from the search key.
secondly the "menu " button for the built-in apps was also overlooked. it took me 4 months to figure out I could enable "delivery reports " for the messages that I send. lot of customizations were tucked away in the menu.
so my tip - check out the search and menu buttons on your android device for each apparently.

Update: Composed on Blogger App for Android.