Creating a mobile guided tour application for the Android platform

Remaining features:

3. Round out the points of interest.  Just gotta flex my creative writing skills.

Remaining tweaks:

None, but I’m sure I’ll find something.

There’s not much left to do!  Only a handful of major features:

1. Add image gallery of campus landmarks.  Currently 65% complete – I have the images, and the Android SDK provides a fairly nifty Gallery class.
2. Link the image gallery to the points of interest thumbtacks on the map.  This means have a button link to #1.
3. Round out the points of interest.  Adding them to the map is only a single line of code (with a description of the landmark) and an index in the list of tour stops.

I also keep finding UI tweaks I want to make; I could probably futz with the interface indefinitely.  (I’ll bet that’s what Steve Jobs does to ensure the continued success of the Macintosh platform.)  Most of these are pretty small:

1. Highlight the next stop on the tour to make it stand out from the other destinations on campus.
2. Have the tour advance/reverse buttons appear contextually.  I let you skip ahead and go back in the guided tour, but it doesn’t make sense to “go back” before the first destination or to “skip” the last destination.  Unless I have an infinite, circular tour.  If you’re at the first destination, the “back” button should be hidden; if you’re at the last destination, the “skip” button should be hidden.
3. Rename the “On Map” buttons to something more indicative of their function – “Jump To” or “Center Map On This Point” or the like.
4. Dismiss dialogs when you click a button in addition to the default Android behavior of making you press the “back/return” key on your phone.
5. Remove my house from the points of interest.  It is no longer relevant for debugging, and I’d hate to have someone discover this “Easter egg.”

Finally, I need to post some documentation.  I’d like to say all of my code is “self documenting,” but that would probably get the wrong kind of chuckle.  There are some particularly nifty sections that would be worth explaining in detail, like the interaction between the MapView and related classes.

The remaining features are the best combination of “simple” and “mostly done.”  The UI tweaks are quicker, but I’m sure I’ll have more ideas for improvements after subjecting the app to my parents.

The first schedule is posted!

1. A “hello world” program proving my IDE, emulator, and device are cooperating and in good order
2. A proof-of-concept with GPS and Google Maps functionality, but a dummy data set. It may not be able to tell you about the history of Cofrin Hall, but it will respond to simulated GPS tracks in the debugger. It is here I will develop my first test cases.
3. A third prototype will be made with real data (images, locations, and factoids). I anticipate architectural changes in response to new insights from the second prototype. I do not intend to supply a schedule for the third prototype until Fred Brooks has told me how much of prototype two I’m throwing away.

On a related note, open source project management software leaves much to be desired, especially to someone who had to Google “Gantt Chart.”  I anticipate prettier output from a trial of Microsoft Project.