Weekend experiments: Dictionary Utility in Android - Stage 2

When I started this weekend development program (More details  here) I hardly knew this weekend experiment product will be used by users :) Well, as I can see now, I have certain user base who are using this product. A hearty thanks for trying this app out. However, for a couple of weekends I was occupied with some stuff and hence could not develop it further. It looks like this weekend I am free (as of now), so thought of giving this app a new version. For those who have no idea what I am talking about, you might want to read this before you proceed with this article.

Well, so here we are with the target features:

1. One option to save your data (Yes, and I mean save) in android device. Did I say that this is not allowed as per Wordnik policy? Well, I had a discussion with them and it looks like certain form of data can be stored without violating the policy. So, here we go. You will be able to save the data you like to view offline.

2. Word of the day feature. Everyday a new word. Sounds good deal for learners? It is for me. I sometimes wonder how I can survive speaking, writing and listening to English without knowing 80% of its vocabulary. I would love to have it :)

3. An iPhone version of this app. Some of my friends like Neeraj asked me whether there will be any iphone version of it. Lets have it this time, what say? Thanks Neeraj for triggering this thought in my mind :)

4. Will provide the bundled software this time provided the copyright issue is resolved. If not, then probably you need to wait some more time. Yes, I know this sucks. So does life :)

For two days of development these are enough I guess. Of course there are some usability enhancements, and some code level changes to optimize the performance. I won't disclose them here. Lets see if you can find the change in your user experience.

I hope you all will like it. The development to commence from 11 May 2012 night to 13 May 2012 midnight or till I can stay up :)

Once again, this is an open call. If you are willing to join me in developing apps and learning android, please feel free to drop a comment. Will contact you.

Thanks for your time in reading my blog.

See you this weekend.

Weekend Experiment: A Dictionary Utility For Android

Hi,

Thanks for stopping by :) Thought of using this space to share my thoughts on some projects that I am planning to take up as per my learning activities. For quite a long time this has been in my TODO list to learn and explore android. For one reason or another could not manage to start it off. So one fine evening finally told to myself, enough! lets try something.

So here is the idea of my first android app. The app is available in google play now. You can download it to have a feel of it.

What it is supposed to do

Well the idea is pretty simple. As the name suggests, this is a dictionary utility, so it is obvious this will find meaning of a word. The first screen will have a mechanism to enter the word and press search button. This will search in the dictionary using a freely available API, and will display the meaning of the word. here you will have an option to save the word in your phone, and view it offline at a later stage.

How it will be implemented:

I am planning to use Wordnik API and a tool called knicker, which does the search part automatically. When a word is entered and the search button is pressed, it will first check whether the word is available in your phone already. If it is already there, there is no meaning of hitting the service and consume your bandwidth, doesn't make sense isn't it. Also, the meaning of words are never going to change. So, the system will first do a search in the local database on whether the search string is already available. If yes, it will fetch the data from local db. If not available, this will hit the service to get the data.

Once the service returns the data, it will show it on the next screen. While displaying it, there will be option to save the result in database. If the word is already available in your database, this saving option will be disabled.

Oh did I forget to mention that you will get an option to see all stored data in your phone memory.

Plans of execution

Planning to do this project by this weekend (14 - 15 April 2012).

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Source code, screenshot, API level documentations coming soon. In the mean time why don't you pen down your thoughts on this concept, and what all features you would like to have in it as a user. Will be really helpful.

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14 April 2012:

There have been some changes in the project functionality. I was about to violate one term from Wordnik. Sorry for this goof up, but it seems storing the result in any form (DB/File etc) is forbidden.

However, the app is ready. Final touches are going on. For this app I am keeping it free of ads. This will work in any android device with Android 2.3.3 and above (API level 10 and above). Tried it in my HTC One v (Android 4.0) works like a charm :)

Will keep this post updated by tonight or tomorrow once the app is available for your use.

Thanks for reading till now.

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15 April 2012:

The app is available in Google Play for trials. Please feel free to download it and let me know your feedback. For now, this is the link to my app in google market place. The detailed project analysis coming soon

Some copyright issues.. Guys if you want to see the code, just put in as comment, I will send to you.

Screenshots

Thus I conclude this project. Keep visiting for the next project which will be definitely better than this.. Though could not see any comment, I am really glad to have all personal comments from many of you. Will come up with some other app in next weekend. Till then, Good Bye..