I think there needs to be a whole set of FAQs written about #8. There is almost NO documentation written about the accounts APIs, and for some reason Google is not publishing the source to the accounts tester application.
I'd love for some google-dev comments on why that is... or where we can find it, if it indeed exists... On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 7:21 PM, Rachel Blackman <ceruleanspa...@gmail.com>wrote: > So, judging from list traffic, there's... confusion, let's say, surrounding > the Android 2.0 ContactsContract API. Some parts of the new API are fairly > straightforward, others? Not so much. > > Look at the threads about "How do I set a contact photo?" or "How do I > create a new contact under 2.0, from within my app?" (which, of course, > leads into the whole Accounts thing) or "What do I store as a single, > consistent value to tie data in my app to a contact, now? What's the > reliable key into that data?" or "OMG WTF WHERE ARE THE PHONE NUMBERS? I > THINK LITTLE PHONE GOBLINS ATE THEM!" or so on. > > (Well, maybe not the last one.) > > Some of the questions seem to occur over and over again. "I *still* can't > set contact photos!" "Can someone show me how to get the phone numbers for a > contact, hungry goblins notwithstanding?" Etc. I therefore suggest that > these qualify as FAQs. > > So, I'm going to suggest we as a community put together a quick list of > Common Contact Operations (or Ones People Are Likely To Want), and put > together some simple little tutorials which can be dumped somewhere on > GoogleCode. > > The questions I see occurring a lot on a couple of web searches are: > > 1) How do I just get ALL the contacts under the 2.0 API? > > 2) Given a contact, how do I get all the phone numbers? > > 3) Given a contact, how do I get all the email addresses? > > 4) What sort of identifier should I represent a contact with in my local > data, so I can later get their most-current data? > > 5) How do I set a contact photo? > > 6) How do I add a contact to the address book from within an app? > > 7) How do I add custom data to a contact? > > 8) How do I add an Account type, a'la Facebook, so that I can sync contact > data in from MySpace/Livejournal/whatever. > > 9) How do I /get/ the nifty status messages and the source for them (a'la > 'Away for lunch' on 'Google Talk,' or 'eating a pie!' on 'Facebook'), so I > can display them alongside a contact in my own app? (Alternatively, some > ask how they can set the nifty status messages and have them appear in the > QuickContact bar or in other apps.) > > 10) How do I add an action to the QuickContact bar for a contact? > > 1-7 seem to be the most-often-asked questions, but I've seen 8-10 around as > well. Does anyone else think that this would be worth putting together as a > little reference and set of samples for 2.0? Would anyone else be willing > to pitch in and write one or two of the samples? I figure, each of the > items could be tackled as a short write-up individually (and I'll certainly > do some as well, since I'm the one proposing this). Maybe we can even get > one or two of the Google folks to look at the samples when done and confirm > that the methods used /are/ the best-practice ones. :) > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "Android Developers" group. > To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com<android-developers%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com> > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
