Automating a task for an app that isn't mine - java

I haven't found a proper answer for this so far so hopefully I can get one on this thread:
I need to automate a task as follows (on an app that isn't mine):
(1) Kill the android app
(2) Open it again
(3) Click a specific button in it (which is in fixed position) and wait 60 seconds.
I've found answers for 1&2, but I'm thinking 3 may be harder because I don't really have an API or something simple to access the button except tapping it in the screen (the application is not mine obviously), and I'm looking to find the best way to automate this task.

Is it a markup based app?
Unfortunately I don't have personal experience with this scenario, but it may be worth looking into WebDriver, or more specifically a tool called Appium. Appium is geared towards automated testing, but the jist as I understand it would be to use it to leverage WebDriver to target the button your looking for based on a selector.
The upside to this would be that if the author of the button changes attributes such as the location or size of the button, it would be less likely to affect your app. However this would only be relevant if it's markup based I'm pretty sure.

Related

libGDX as a "launcher" app

I have made a light weight java web-server serving html files and static content (made with pure java library nanohttpd), i have successfully made a javaFX launcher window that has a single button, clicking button simply runs the server in the background and opens the localhost URL in Android/PC browser (I was unsuccessful in making an IOS version using javaFX)
I am thinking of using libGDX as "launcher window" because of IOS support and access to mobile specific hardware like SMS/GPS which javaFX don't have.
I am targeting IOS/Android/PC, I'd like to ask libGDX developers how possible is this given my target platforms?
Yes you can
There's a catch though, you may have to build the UI the game dev way
I've made a game or two using it and had rather steep learning curve in the beginning to get a hold on to how it worked. For example you'll have to provide the images for button, background and also, the pressed view of the button... like that. But your app is not a game. So you won't have to worry that much.
Once you learned how to place them in the screen successfully, there is not much to worry about because the API provides everything you need to carry on from there.
Also I found enough resources/tutorials online enough to make a game from ground up. So you'll definitely can.
And there's very little to worry about your multi-platform problem.

Recording Touchscreen Interactions in Android outside Application

Is it possible to create a service that collect touch screen interaction data? I have seen that this could be possible in earlier versions of Android but seems to be much more difficult to achieve now. I have found many questions on Stack Overflow that already attempt this solution but don't offer a solution. The problem is also outlined here.
I wish to record the x and y coordinates of each tap and swipe interaction for medical analytics of different user groups. This includes recording scrolling data in (for example) the web browser. So far I can't get it to do this outside of the default application. How can I build a service for this?
I have tried adapting the code here, but nothing seems to work outside the application when other applications are running.

Custom Lock Screen Implementation Techniques

So, I have been exploring many similar questions across website (this, this and this and many more). People wanting to implement their own custom lock screen (not talking about widgets). So far there have been two implementation techniques which users are using.
Home Screen Replacement. In this technique its suggested to create a home screen application, where after unlock logic the default screen shows up. I believe that in this situation developer has to disable Home, Search, Menu and Back button when the lock screen is visible and to implement the Screen off-on logic.
An application. In this technique a normal app is made where after unlock logic the default screen shows up. I believe that in this situation developer has to disable Home, Search, Menu and Back button when the lock screen is visible and to implement the Screen off-on logic.
Now, I don't understand that what is the difference between two approaches? StackOverflow community seems to stress more on the home screen replacement technique. I am very new to Android development so I might be missing some aspect about it. Please suggest that which approach should I use and why? (also, which is easy?).
Thanks so much!
I would use the first method, but only for usability reasons. Because it gives the user a choice to easily revert back to the original homescreen/lockscreen if he chooses not to make the new one a default choice yet.
I'm afraid both strategies you described are quite difficult (depending on the api level range you want it to work on). The difficulty is not in their difference, the difficulty is in overriding the buttons (as Google makes it more difficult by closing down security loopholes for the newer api levels).
PS: Please note that Jellybean has a new Daydream functionality. If customizing the lockscreen is all you need. That may be the way to go since Jellybean is much more secure in that respect and more difficult to work with than the previous api levels otherwise.
Also, consider using the HTC screenlock api for HTC devices. This way, your solution won't be too hacky at least for their newer devices. And perhaps, do a version for rooted devices as well, since that too should be easy, for users who already have obtained root on their device. Don't discount the rooted market, users with root access do spend a disproportionate amount of money on applications in Google Play. That much is obvious if you just take a look at some of the rough numbers of downloads for paid applications that say (for root only) that Google Play gives you.

I need something to automate web browser tasks in its own virtual enviorment (Chrome)

Ever since i started learning java i wanted to create a way to automate a few actions on a couple websites,
For example, topline is a website that replaces all your ads with its own ads and pays you a bit of money for it, i want to emulate the act of just surfing the web, then start emulating specific tasks like clicking certain buttons or playing flash games (Actually playing the game by using image recognition) and this has to be written in java as i want to run this on a raspberry pi.
any help is appreciated, is there a class that i can use?
any help is appreciated!
Selenium is a good browser automation tool. Refer http://seleniumhq.org/
You can get more info on Google. Let me know if you need help finding resources.
Check the class Robot, it will help you to emulate mouse interactions with the screen, but you have to implement the image recognition though
Although I can't point you to a JAVA solution, I would like to advocate two very interesting tools: PhantomJS and CasperJS. The latter depends on the first, and with them, browser navigation scripting and testing are a breeze.
They both work on Linux, MAC OS and Windows and are as multiplatform as Javascript can be. Naturally, it will work just fine in you Raspberry Pi.

Design a GUI for a J2ME app

How do I create a J2ME app for cellphones with a GUI similar to the menus you see in Java games? I've tried MIDlets with Netbeans but they only show you one GUI element at a time. (textbox, choice, login, etc)
And which Java IDE would you typically design these GUIs in? Netbeans or Eclipse? and is IntelliJ IDEA usable for this aswell?
Do I have to write/get a library that draws GUI controls to screen via bitmap functions .. and keeps track of the keys pressed for focus?
Try to use LWUIT - nice UI toolkit for j2me:
https://lwuit.dev.java.net/
http://lwuit.blogspot.com/
You can also use minime: http://code.google.com/p/minime/
It's an open source GUI library for j2me. miniME works on canvas level (lowest level in j2me) to draw every control so your UI will look exactly the same whatever the handset it'll be running on. Other advantage are:
- miniME uses its own event loop to manage user controlled event (botton pressed, softbar, ..), so you Application will "behave" the same whatever the handset.
- miniME support the concept of Views and stack of view, in order to make navigation between different view/screens very easy.
Here is an example: A View is what you have on the screen at a given moment (for example the main menu screen), then to go to a sub menu, you create a new view, and by calling a simple API, you push it in the stack of Views. The previous view (the main menu) is still existing, but inactive. When the sub menu view complete his work (for example, user press back, or do a selection), you can just go back to the previous view by calling a pop api.
Your question is a bit vague to give a specific aswer, but you might want to check out LWUIT or Polish, you can develop both with either Eclipse or Netbeans.
As far as designing GUIs go, neither IDE will help from a visual perspective. J2ME UI development is all done in code, beyond creating any initial graphics in a proper graphics editor you don't get to see your output until you test.
Read up on the LCDUI package documentation which explains how the UI classes work and the differences between the 'High-level' and 'low-level' APIs.
I can't comment on which IDE to use - but I do know that to create custom UI (like the ones you see in J2ME games), you have to explicitly draw the GUI controls.
Beware that you may need to customize the GUI depending on the target phones. You have to cater for different screen sizes, key pad configurations, default theme etc. This would probably mean that you need different builds for things like different screen sizes which would drive up your Java Verified certification costs (if you need it).
You may be able to find a set of nice looking UI controls that you can buy online and use (try J2ME Polish). The easy way out of course, is to use default J2ME controls :)
Links to many j2me GUI libraries: link1, link2
I know that kuix is not bad and free - watch demo.
But i prefer to make my own gui elements - this is much more flexible (but takes some time).
As for IDE - you may want to make some kind of gui-editor tool, construct interface in it, save result to some file, and read it from your app.
It's way too cumbersome to write your own GUI, especially since there are so many available these days. If you're familiar with desktop development in VB.Net and C#, you might find "J2ME GUI" easy to use. You can download it from http://www.garcer.com/. It has a similar feel and makes it easy to learn. This is the kind of GUI that I expected to come standard with MIDP2 when I started mobile development. Would have solved a lot of issues.
If you are familiar with web stuffs then you can use KUIX (kalmeo.org/home/index) framework having xml and css supports. In place of It you can use also Polish framework (www.j2mepolish.org) it's also uses the xml in easy way rather than kalmeo kuix framework.

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