So bob, explain to me why might manifest with the settings I listed here
works appropriately and shows ONLY devices with ~10" screens getting my
tablet apk? Have you considered that the documentation about
requiresSmallestWidthDp being 720 might be wrong for a landscape only
app? I originally used that when the tablet version was first released
in 2011 and it excluded my 10" Acer 500 which I of course tested the app
on. Using 1280 brought it back in the supported list (BTW the A500 is
no longer listed but it's essentially the same as the A510 which is).
What I did for the revision is:
1) create an test app with the supports-screens setting I used below
2) posted that apk as a draft to Play
3) the developer console will report what devices will be supported with
that setting and what ones will be excluded.
4) I also reposted the draft apk with the other supports-screens setting
for the phone setting and collected those lists.
5) Satisfied, I updated the published app with the new settings.
6) This has worked fine except in the case of this screwball cheap 10"
tablet with only 1024x768 resolution. BTW, the user is being kind in
admitting it was his mistake for purchasing it. Like we used to say in
the old computer club days "don't be penny wise and pound foolish."
I've also noticed that dimens.xml files don't work like they are
documented either. This from extensive testing with both emulators and
devices. This behavior has also been observed by other developers.
But I didn't come here to ask developers to troubleshoot my app but to
point out we still don't have the support we were promised. I already
pointed out the sizing problems some time back on the developer group.
- Brian
On 04/16/2013 08:33 AM, bob wrote:
Well, setting requiresSmallestWidthDp to 1280 should never permit a 10 inch
tablet.
1280 dp is 8 inches
The smallest permitted would be 8 inches by 8 inches.
Thus the diagonal is 8 times the square root of two.
This is 11.31". Thus, that is definitely not for a 10 inch tablet.
Also, please see this:
<https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-VuMueJoPtrA/UW1vMBs1yMI/AAAAAAAAAX0/CXwrMxsrdM8/s1600/tablet.png>
Thanks.
On Monday, April 15, 2013 6:02:31 PM UTC-5, jtoolsdev wrote:
No, I'm not confusing Dp with Px. This probably has to do with a tablet
Google doesn't have in the database yet. You do know you can get a list
of what is in the database and it certainly isn't there. The user also
supplied me a screen capture and indeed it lacks a 1280 width covering
only the first 1024 pixels. Before changing any of my manifest elements
in the app I created a draft test app on Play so I could change the
elements and get lists of supported and unsupported devices. The lists
confirmed how I wanted it to work with what devices they have in the
database. A lot of the cheaper tablets aren't in their database even if
they are using the Google API. My app has Maps so it requires the Google
API. If the tablet didn't have the Google API it wouldn't have installed.
This is for the 10" tablet:
<supports-screens android:smallScreens="false"
android:normalScreens="false"
android:largeScreens="false"
android:xlargeScreens="true"
android:requiresSmallestWidthDp="1280" />
Note that the requiresSmallestWidthDp is 1280 instead of 720. With 720
it allowed 7" tablets. The app is landscape so 1280 is what should work
against their instructions but I posted about this on the developer
group and I think also on the issues page a few months back. You are
correct, this stuff is very poorly explained if not very confusing.
They seem to have a problem in breaking down information into A,B,C,D
steps though revisions are getting better at it.
We also know that these manifest elements only are used by Play for
determining whether an app is compatible with a user's device. The
emulators care not about them. A number of developers requested that
the emulators should do this too.
- Brian
On 04/15/2013 02:17 PM, bob wrote:
Please post your *<supports-screens>* XML.
I'm suspecting you have confused Dp with Px.
I'm looking here, and I'm seeing a lot of potential for confusion in the
parameters:
*
http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/manifest/supports-screens-element.html
*
I'm not sure you can even specify a screen ought to be a minimum of
1280x720 px with those parameters. If it is even possible, I would
expect
the correct solution to be non-trivial.
Thanks.
On Monday, April 15, 2013 1:32:46 PM UTC-5, jtoolsdev wrote:
You think I haven't read all of those? Multiple times in fact and
through the well needed document revisions too. In fact they even
mentioned an example of using a different APK for tablets and one for
phones.
Over two years ago I got an Acer 500 which has a 10" screen and
1280x800
resolution. I created a Fragment using layout for it. All the
information done by page views on the phone version is present on one
screen. So I offered it for my users and many liked it but what
happened was that the manifest elements (there are two ways you do
this)
mentioned in the documentation wasn't even implemented on Play yet!
So
some 7" tablet users got the 10" version with part of the screen
cropped. I found a fix for this which worked until recently and then
it
kept users who bought some of the newer 5" phones with 1080x1920
displays from being able to purchase the app at all. I also kept 10"
tablet users with that resolution from getting the app. However it did
not keep users with the Nexus 10 which has a 2560x1600 display from
getting the app which is fine because it scales okay for that.
Back in 2009 I was one of the developers contacted by Samsung asking
me
to support their forthcoming 10" tablet. I recall that Android wasn't
too happy about Samsung jumping the gun before they had a chance to
create developer support for it. And you may have read recently that
Google is tightening the license to avoid crazy or marketing driven
fragmentation.
This issue if with a tablet not even listed as a supported device in
spite of having Google Play on it. The user even contacted me in
advance of purchase and I warned him it needed at least a 1280x720
display for the 10" tablet version to work properly. So he's not
exactly faulting me since I warned him.
- Brian
On 04/15/2013 07:10 AM, bob wrote:
Why exactly are you using multiple APKs?
Have you seen this:
http://developer.android.com/google/play/publishing/multiple-apks.html
In particular, you may want to read this:
*Supporting multiple screens*
Unless your APK file exceeds the Google Play size limit of 50MB,
supporting
multiple screens should always be done with a *single APK*. Since
Android
1.6, the Android system manages most of the work required for your
application to run successfully on a variety of screen sizes and
densities.
Thanks.
On Sunday, April 14, 2013 5:21:17 PM UTC-5, jtoolsdev wrote:
I had a user in India who bought an iberry x4 which is rebranded
Chinese Auxus 10" tablet but with 1024x768 display. For some reason
despite my manifest settings he got the tablet apk for 10" tablets
with
AT LEAST 1280x720 resolution. Neither iberry or Auxus are listed as
supported the Play listing of devices. Unfortunately there seems to
be
no way to sort this out with Google. I want him to have the APK for
phones with smaller size screens. As it is the display is cutting
off
some of the information. My manifest settings have worked perfectly
up
until this and it may be due to Google not having any information on
that model. I don't know how it managed to have Google Play on it
but
then Play doesn't list Coby tablets either but I checked an
inexpensive
Coby tablet at Fry's yesterday which was advertised as having Google
Play and indeed it was installed.
I've suggested that the user contact Play support and tell them the
developer said he got the wrong APK! Or that he take the tablet
back,
get a refund and stick to name brands only.
If you're looked at the developer support contact form for Play there
is
nothing there for this kind of issue. Very, very amateur.
- Brian
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