[widget][2.1+][3.1+][retired] Scrollable news widget (2.1.2)

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djmcnz

Retired Recognized Developer
Oct 13, 2009
5,747
1,689
Auckland, NZ
OnePlus 8
Google Pixel 8

gdodinet

Senior Member
Sep 16, 2010
246
121
gilles.dodinet.fr
LauncherPro FC?

Hi,

Several users, in the market comments, reported FC with Launcher Pro. However they don't take the time to send me the logs. As i indicated, i've tested the widget against LP, ADW, Zeam and Go Launcher without encountering any particular issue.

So i don't think this has anything to do with LP but rather with a specific configuration (my wild guess is that a NPE is thrown somewhere while fetching feeds or refreshing the widget).

If you encounter this problem, I'd be grateful if you could send me the logs along with the widget configuration (feed, thumbnail configuration, etc..).

Thanks for helping me sorting this out!

EDIT. A new version has been pushed to the market. It seems the db version wasn't incremented causing no upgrade. This seems plausible as i was unable to reproduce this error. I took this opportunity to relocate the data folder to /sdcard/Android/data/fr.gdi.android.news.
 
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KarlchenK

New member
Dec 30, 2008
1
0
Hi,
this is far the best rss app I have seen. Just one thing is missing to my luck: Add a function to change the default font size of the widget, please. My device is 5'', so the default is something like ant footprints.

Great work, keep on going
Karlchen
 

gdodinet

Senior Member
Sep 16, 2010
246
121
gilles.dodinet.fr
Just one thing is missing to my luck: Add a function to change the default font size of the widget, please.

I will look into that, however i fear API v2 must be needed for that (still waiting fro LP support). In the mean time, i can try hard coding a larger font size.

But is there a reason it doesn't pick up certain feeds?

Cio.com to be exact

There may be several reasons for that. But they all come down to the simple fact that the loaded html doesn't include any feed references.

If the site does a special rendering for mobile devices (for instance engadget), it may omit to emit rss links, thus i can't retrieve them from the loaded html.

In the case of cio.com, the page (even the desktop version) doesn't include any rss link. Urls can be found there: http://www.cio.com/feeds, however even on that page, there's no way to automatically subscribe since listed urls are not exposed as "links" (<link> elements as opposed to <a> elements).

In such cases feed url must be entered manually.
 

stugots101

Member
Oct 1, 2010
42
0
I tried to look before asking but I am using Launcher pRO and I can only do the reuters feed. Is there anyway to browse for anymore feeds without having to manuelly type in each long address?
 

norkoastal

Senior Member
Dec 7, 2007
620
15
Bay Area
+1 for larger text options and widget sizes (for tablets especially - 7" Nook reader). Maybe include an option to hide widget sizes not used to unclutter the widgets menu?

Thanks!
 

raynerape

Senior Member
Aug 12, 2009
134
18
Sofia
New version is great after the critical bug fix. Hopefully next will bring more features like Google Reader support. Oh and I think its about time for you to go commercial with premium version, the widget is already the best there is for Android.

Few minor requests:

Optional 1 px border around thumbnail with customizable color.

Site favicon as bullet point before title, optionally, off by default.

Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk
 

raynerape

Senior Member
Aug 12, 2009
134
18
Sofia
...also please implement Google Feed Discovery API, its separate API for discovering RSS feed based on a website or search query.

example: search "Engadget" to get Engadget RSS feeds.

Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk
 

Sol Ido

Senior Member
Nov 3, 2010
98
78
BlueSky
robbieone.com
The widget install fail under zeam and LP under the tablet folio 100.

The process is killed directly, no preferences window. The widget is not visible after the process failed but sometimes when navigating on screen i got a pop up saying that the process failed ( again ! ).

The config ? i've removed your application, cleaned the prefs from previous install in data/data/ new Dl from the market.

I confirm that it was working previously using adw

Thx ! i still love this widget and i want it on my tablet like i've it on my HD.

edit : looking at the logs
DatabaseHelper:59
unable to get provider ... NewsProvider
 
Last edited:

gdodinet

Senior Member
Sep 16, 2010
246
121
gilles.dodinet.fr
stugots101 said:
Is there anyway to browse for anymore feeds without having to manuelly type in each long address?

As i indicated it depends on the target site. If the url you enter exposes rss links, then you can use the lookup button, else you have to manually enter the exact feed url. A more advanced lookup feature will be implemented soon.

norkoastal said:
Maybe include an option to hide widget sizes not used to unclutter the widgets menu?

Not sure how to do that but i will look into it. I didn't realize the menu was clutttered because on my device widgets are grouped by widget type (i'm using cyanogen 6.1.1).

raynerape said:
New version is great after the critical bug fix. Hopefully next will bring more features like Google Reader support. Oh and I think its about time for you to go commercial with premium version, the widget is already the best there is for Android.

Few minor requests:

Optional 1 px border around thumbnail with customizable color.

Site favicon as bullet point before title, optionally, off by default.

also please implement Google Feed Discovery API, its separate API for discovering RSS feed based on a website or search query.

example: search "Engadget" to get Engadget RSS feeds.

Thanks for your continuous support and all your suggestions :)

I will look into the 1px border. I'm not sure how to do it without more dynamic layouts, but this may be possible after all: Android Aganda Widget exposes a lot of customization options and runs against LP. I can't imagine all those options being statically hard-coded (but i'm may be wrong), so i asked on android-launcher-plus site (code.google) if this was indeed possible (i'm still waiting for an answer).

Thanks for suggesting Google Feed Discovery. I was thinking about api.microrss for feed search and lookup. Maybe i can integrate both.

Favicons are on the todo list (with a not so high priority, though).


Sol Ido said:
The widget install fail under zeam and LP under the tablet folio 100.

The process is killed directly, no preferences window. The widget is not visible after the process failed but sometimes when navigating on screen i got a pop up saying that the process failed ( again ! ).

edit : looking at the logs
DatabaseHelper:59
unable to get provider ... NewsProvider

I guess this also happens when run directly from the app drawer, right? Can you send me the logs, so that i can investigate a little bit. Also does the widget also fail with your desire, or does this only happen with the folio 100? Thanks for reporting this issue.



Thank you all for feedback and your suggestions. Please also note that I will take 3 weeks of vacation in a few days, and thus won't be able to reply until mid-january.
 

champkongen

Senior Member
Apr 8, 2010
1,134
162
Aalborg
www.blackbearblanc.tumblr.com
Best rss widget on the market. Works great!


Beamed from the great DesireHD while drunk
 

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Gnopps

Senior Member
Aug 4, 2010
100
9
Previously I've been using AtomaRSS but haven't been very pleased with it. This is just what I've been looking for, thank you for the widget!

Some things I'd like to change:

The colour picker will always start with white, it would be better if it started with the feed's current colour as you often will just want to tweak this a little.

I would like to see all my feed entries sorted by their date stamp. Now they seem to be semi-grouped by source instead.

Great work!!
 

Sol Ido

Senior Member
Nov 3, 2010
98
78
BlueSky
robbieone.com
The combinaison Zeam/Widget is ok on the Desire HD but not on the folio.
Not sure it depends of your application !

I can access the application ! after modifying some items and save
i has recreated required files with correct userID. Hoooo
my tablet was unsusable without your widget.

Bonnes vacances.
Cdt
 
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Azhad

Senior Member
Nov 20, 2005
387
26
Rome
Great widget, I love it.
But I would like two improvements: a darker "dark" background, I can't read the text if my wallpaper isn't almost black. And the option to increase the font size.
Anyway, tanks for this app, and put a donate version, I would surely buy it

Sent from my Milestone
 

joypunk

Senior Member
Jun 5, 2010
94
6
Love this widget. I'm bookmarking this to follow the development, but until it can use my Google Reader feed I simply don't have a use for it. (Hmm, where have you heard that before? ;) )

One of the features I like most is the ability to customize what happens when you click the news item. (Launch browser, dolphin browser hd, etc.) One suggestion I would have is to allow you to also launch another app. I would prefer having the Google Reader app launch when I click on an item in the widget.

Thanks for developing this app!
 

iTreezy

Senior Member
Nov 1, 2010
301
24
Detroit
Last edited:

rock you

Member
Nov 4, 2008
15
0
the best RSS widget ever;

but i have small problem with the built in browser, i'm only geting blank page !!

i'm using galaxy s with froyo 2.2 and Go luncher
 

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    [2014.01] This app has been revived thanks to rori~! Please find the latest version here.

    History

    ---

    Last edit 2012-11-04: version 2.1.2.

    ICS compatible [see history below]. Min compatibility: Android 3.1 (api level 12).

    Source is available on google code under a GPL 3 license: http://code.google.com/p/scrollable-news-widget/source/checkout

    Eclair, Froyo Gingerbread (and Honeycomb 3.0) users: please use v1.4.4.1.

    Previous versions are available form google code : http://code.google.com/p/scrollable-news-widget/downloads/list

    ---

    I've published yesterday [23 nov. 2010] the first version of a scrollable news widget. This is my first attempt at android development.

    I've tested the widget against Launcher Pro and ADW Launcher quickly and quite extensively with Zeam. It still needs some work (amonst other things: theming, feed validation, feed lookup, ...) but it is still usable -- meaning i use it.

    Since version 1.4.0 GReader and news sharing are supported through Scrollable News Addons (paid app).
    The addon has been unpublished as it won't be maintained anymore. Its features will in time be integrated into the main app.

    snw-lite.png


    screenshot_9.png
    snap20110130_165733.png


    Version history:

    2.1.2 (2012-11-04)
    - Add 2 and 3- column layout (not tested with HC)

    2.1.1 (2012-10-28)
    - minor bugs fixes and some sanity checks

    2.1.0 (2012-10-27)
    - Fix embedded browser menu (JB)
    - Google news thumbnail hack (url fix)
    - Stop loading option (reader menu)
    - Support media:content thumbnail
    - Fix media:description incorrect use
    - Add the option to hide story title
    - Get rid of the hideous orb icon
    - Add "mark all read" option"
    - Tweak main settings activity

    2.0.11 (2012-07-25)
    - Critical bug fix regarding wifi connected state

    2.0.10 (2012-07-24)
    - Fix a minor issue regarding non standard date formats

    2.0.9 (2012-06-21)
    - Minor bug fixes
    - More sanity checks

    2.0.8 (2012-06-05)
    - Allow to distribute stories evenly between feeds
    - Defaults update date to pub date if not set
    - Do no update date if no feed(s) not reloaded
    - Minor bug fixes

    2.0.7 (2012-05-21)
    - Fix overlapping elements in layouts 3 & 4

    2.0.6 (2012-05-20)
    - Improve background handling
    - Minor bug fixes
    - Fix thumbnail size
    - Improve layouts 2, 3 & 4

    2.0.5 (2012-05-18)
    - Add debug mode (unhide active areas)
    - Various ergonomics improvements
    - More support for malformed feeds!
    - Fix "Nothing to read" bug!
    - Show widget title while loading
    - Minor bug fixes

    2.0.4 (2012-05-17)
    - Fix HoneyComb updating bug
    - Improve background handling
    - Force title visibility on HC
    - Change theme to Holo dark
    - Add "what's new dialog"

    2.0.3 (2012-05-16) (version gap intended)
    - Offline cache browsing (LOAD_CACHE_ELSE_NETWORK when offline)
    - More sanity checks (empty description, null bmp, etc.)
    - Yahoo namespace support (http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/)
    - Fix widget size (250dp vs. 294dp)
    - add minResize[Width|Height] attributes

    2.0.1 (2012-05-15) {Maintenance release}
    - Fix image extractor bug (no body | bad image)
    - Reload widget on news deletion
    - Force extension on export (snb, snt, opml)
    - Ignore feed on import if title or url is null
    - Read feed color on import
    - Show file path on export success
    - Use item content if description not provided
    - Clear stories before loading new ones (option)

    2.0.0 (2012-05-13)
    - Add third active zone in widget title bar [config | refresh | reload]
    - Add FR translation
    - Add RU translation (thanks to ViNNNtalik@xda)
    - Minor bug fixes

    2.0.0-rc1 (2012-05-10)
    - Add the option to eagerly download thumbnails (global option, default=true)
    - Fix feed export
    - Remove doc! Replace with an About page

    2.0.0-beta-3 (2012-05-08)
    - Add maintenance operations (clear cache, etc.)
    - Hopefully improve in-body thumbnail handling
    - Lay out foundations of the user guide

    2.0.0-beta-2 (2012-05-07)
    - Widget config: automatically apply theme (resp. behaviour) if there's only one
    - Add default theme (default dark + default light)
    - Fix footer padding (layout 5)
    - Implement feed color (takes precedence in story title)
    - Minor fixes

    2.0.0-beta-1 (2012-05-06)
    - Complete rewrite of the widget to support ICS
    - Need Android > 3.1 (Honeycomb; API Level 12)
    - Hopefully much better ergonomics and slightly better performance
    - Sparse documentation (in progress)

    1.4.4.1 (2011-05-26)
    - Fix gap in news entry when content is hidden
    - Make center crop (full width thumbnails) optional

    1.4.4 (2011-05-25)
    - Add square corners backgrounds
    - Bring back plain backgrounds
    - Center thumbnail if content is hidden
    - Add thumbnail lookup priority option
    - Add minimum thumbnail size option
    - Increase max thumbnail size
    - Add large thumbnails warning
    - Workaround wrong enclosed image mimetype
    - Allow to clear thumbnail cache
    - Refine send logs content
    - Full title (not trimmed) if content is hidden
    - Skip share dialog (one click less)
    - Do not reload built-in browser if url not changed
    - Add built-in browser back button support
    - Fix built-in browser history navigation state
    - Fix browser and share activities flow

    1.4.3.1 (2011-05-15)
    - Render items before fetching images

    1.4.3 (2011-05-14)
    - Layout optimization: no more choppy scrolling!
    - Improve thumbnail support
    - Add visual indicator while fetching thumbs
    - Always reload after clicking "update configuration"
    - Single click edit feed
    - Remove widget title shadow
    - Readd widget scrollbar

    1.4.2 (2011-05-07)
    - Add option to use legacy parser instead of the new one
    - Add option to not lookup images in entry summary
    - Improve addon support / maintain feed source
    - Try and tweak scrolling
    - Fix feeds disappearing if not saved
    - Fix regular headline option

    1.4.1.2 (2011-05-01)
    - Fix encoding regression

    1.4.1.1 (2011-04-29)
    - Add OPML Support for import/export
    - Send custom user agent to prevent servers to detect mobile device (some servers can forward to a non rss feed page -- f.i. mobile tailored homepage)
    - When multiple urls are provided for an entry, try to select the most appropriate one

    1.4.1 (2011-04-28)
    - Fix same date issues (causing incomplete feed loading)
    - Fallback to today if date not retrieved
    - Prefer source feed title over registered feed name
    - Add option to show real entry author name
    - Improve layouts and add right thumbnail option

    1.4.0.3 (2011-04-27)
    - Fix date parsing issues

    1.4.0.2 (2011-04-26)
    - Fix encoding issues introduced by 1.4.0
    - Prevent potential name issue

    1.4.0.1 (2011-04-25)
    - Make feed parser more lenient
    - Fix refresh after thumbnail fetch

    1.4.0 (2011-04-24)
    - Add built-in navigation controls
    - Fix https feed issue
    - Add wide widgets for 5 column compatible launchers
    - Change thumbnail entry position (left)
    - Shorten footer date (MMM d, HH:mm)
    - Huge performance boost (dropped Rome parser)
    - Built-in browser now listed in recent activities
    - Properly lookup enclosed images (i think)
    - Prevent potential single quote issue
    - Add a search feed feature
    - Fix unneeded image fetching
    - Add simple addon support

    1.3.4 (2011-02-21)
    - Fix feed color persistency
    - Add plain background options
    - Alternative entry date parsing

    1.3.3 (2011-02-06)
    - Restore instapaper mobilizer alternative
    - Add font size tweaking options
    - Add headline bold font option
    - Fix FC when setting default preferences
    - Fix (caught) IllegalStateException when setting feed color
    - Try preventing OOME when dealing with insane thumbnail settings

    1.3.3-rc (2011-01-30)
    - Add a "Hide header" option
    - Fix the infamous "hard to hit refresh" issue
    - Improve no background layout
    - Integrate Instapaper text version
    - Notification support (ongoing and transient notifications)
    - Protect against AIOOBE (cannot reproduce)

    1.3.2 (2010-12-20)
    - Fix duplicate entries if changing feed color
    - Fix FC on orientation change
    - Try fixing FC on 1.3.1 (bad db upgrade)
    - Relocate data folder to /Android/data (should be transparent)

    1.3.1 (2010-12-19)
    - Allow for bigger thumb
    - Per widget thumb size
    - Change thumb position
    - Improve offline refresh
    - Feed color discriminant
    - Fix AM/PM summary (%a)

    1.3 (2010-12-12)
    - Add feed lookup feature
    - Add Full transparent background
    - Refine Widget reconfiguration
    - Add hide footer option
    - Show last update in widget title
    - Customize widget title format
    - Add clear cache option
    - Add Thumbnail support
    - Use progress dialog for long running operations
    - Minor fixes

    1.2 (2010-12-02)
    - Import/export feeds to SD
    - Save/restore preferences
    - Set/apply default preferences
    - Add Mobilizer option
    - Capitalize headline and footer option
    - Add transparent bg
    - Per widget BG (no change at runtime)
    - Auto prepend http:// if missing
    - Various fixes and improvements

    1.1 (2010-11-28)
    - Removed ads
    - Configurable tap action
    - Configurable summary crop
    - Allow hiding news summary
    - Organize preference screen
    - Add simple appearance tweaks
    - Add simple feed validation
    - Add more refresh intervals

    1.0.1 (2010-11-22)
    - Blind fix locked db issue
    - Do not crop news summary

    1.0 (2010-11-21)
    - Initial release
    2
    So true ... the "Scrollable news widget" is so much more neater, simpler and nicer. Feels so nice to use it and read news on this widget.

    Really, wish one of the experts out here could take on this and revive it!
    2
    1.3

    Hi,

    Thanks for sharing your thoughts about scrollable widget API and LP. As it turned out, i finally decided to continue supporting LP. So i rollbacked my changes and downgraded back to scrollable api v1.

    Version 1.3 has been published a bit earlier today (recent changes are listed in the first post) and is still compatible with LP. It includes some suggested improvements and a few minor fixes (most of them i had to blind code because i cannot reproduce them) .
    2
    How can I get this to get feeds from google reader?

    Use greader from a pc first. And make the feeds public. Watch ur public site and click atom link on the right. Copy That link.

    ____________
    Info, images & links to files:
    http://blackbearblanc.tumblr.com/
    Twitter:mad:jeppefoldager
    Blackbearblanc@gmail.com
    2
    True but I really think better feed discovery is required. It's the only reason I don't use this widget (and I really want to!). It is just painful to set up your feeds because sure-as-gravity I don't remember each of the URLs.

    Keyword search and find is required really... a search for "gizmodo" for example should return the appropriate feed IMHO.

    As stated here, this will be part of 1.4. 1.4 should also add some sort of news sharing feature (i'm working on it these days).