Yaron

I don't think the AppBundle will become mandatory, but I wouldn't put it past google to down-grade your position in search results based on it.

We all knew it would come this August, but now the Google Play store is showing warning notifications on new uploads:

I am writing a remote control App that controls a PC.

I am sending commands over TCP/IP each time a user clicks a UI button and at the same time, listening to responses to my commands.

Presently, I am getting responses in the background "reading" thread and sending the command in the main thread.

After reading your comments I realize my issue is further complicated, as your recommend not calling any TCP/IP function at all in my main thread, which means my Read function can't be blocking at all, otherwise the user will experience input-lag.

Is it safe to call "IdTCPClient.IOHandler.WriteLn" in the main thread? If not, what is the best approach to check if there is data waiting without blocking?

I am trying to create a really simple TCP/IP connection to a server using Indy on Android.  All the communication between the client and server is text based.

I tried adjusting the code on Remi's answer from this thread to my needs:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17372366/delphi-indy-tidtcpclient-reading-data

However, what happens is that "FConn.IOHandler.ReadLn;" is blocking (at least under Android), so when the App closes and I try to terminate the thread, calling the thread's "WaitFor" method triggers a freeze as the thread never leaves the blocking "ReadLn" and never terminates.

Is there a way to instantly stop ReadLn from waiting so the thread could terminate cleanly?  Or should I use "FConn.IOHandler.ReadBytes" instead?

P.S.

I read this thread:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12507677/terminate-a-thread-and-disconnect-an-indy-client

And in it Remy writes that "Disconnecting the client will cause ReadLn() to raise an exception inside the thread.", which is not the case for me under Android (I'm trying to catch the exception and write a log entry when it triggers, but nothing gets written).

I also tried wrapping the disconnect method in a "try except" block, but it's not triggering any exception.

The code I'm using:

procedure TMainForm.CreateTCPIPConnection;
var
  B : Boolean;
begin
  IdTCPClient.Host := AddressEdit.Text;
  IdTCPClient.Port := StrToIntDef(PortEdit.Text,4769);

  B := False;
  Try
    IdTCPClient.Connect;
  except
    on E: Exception do
    Begin
      B := True;
      {$IFDEF TRACEDEBUG}AddDebugEntry('TCP/IP connect exception : '+E.Message);{$ENDIF}
    End;
  end;

  If B = False then
  Begin
    If Assigned(ZPReadThread) = False then
    try
      ZPReadThread        := TReadingThread.Create(IdTCPClient);
      ZPReadThread.OnData := DataReceived;
      ZPReadThread.Start;
    except
      on E: Exception do
      Begin
        IdTCPClient.Disconnect;
        {$IFDEF TRACEDEBUG}AddDebugEntry('TCP/IP exception creating read thread : '+E.Message);{$ENDIF}
      End;
    end;
  End;
end;


procedure TReadingThread.Execute;
begin
  {$IFDEF TRACEDEBUG}AddDebugEntry('Read thread created');{$ENDIF}
  while not Terminated do
  begin
    {$IFDEF TRACEDEBUG}AddDebugEntry('Read thread ReadLn (before)');{$ENDIF}
    Try
      FData := FClient.IOHandler.ReadLn;
    Except
      on E: Exception do
      Begin
        {$IFDEF TRACEDEBUG}AddDebugEntry('TCP/IP IOHandler.ReadLn exception : '+E.Message);{$ENDIF}
      End;
    End;
    //FClient.IOHandler.ReadBytes(AData, sizeof(TWaveFormSample), False);
    {$IFDEF TRACEDEBUG}AddDebugEntry('Read thread ReadLn (after)');{$ENDIF}
    if (FData <> '') and Assigned(FOnData) then
      Synchronize(DataReceived);
    //Sleep(1);
  end;
  {$IFDEF TRACEDEBUG}AddDebugEntry('Read thread about to terminate');{$ENDIF}
end;

 

procedure TMainForm.FormClose(Sender: TObject; var Action: TCloseAction);

begin

  If IdTCPClient.Connected = True then
  Begin
    try
      IdTCPClient.Disconnect;
    except
      on E: Exception do
      Begin
        {$IFDEF TRACEDEBUG}AddDebugEntry('TCP/IP Disconnect exception : '+E.Message);{$ENDIF}
      End;
    end;
  End;

  if Assigned(ZPReadThread) then
  Begin
    {$IFDEF TRACEDEBUG}AddDebugEntry('Terminating Read thread');{$ENDIF}
    ZPReadThread.Terminate;
    {$IFDEF TRACEDEBUG}AddDebugEntry('Waiting for read thread termination');{$ENDIF}
    ZPReadThread.WaitFor;
    {$IFDEF TRACEDEBUG}AddDebugEntry('Finished waiting for read thread termination');{$ENDIF}
    FreeAndNil(ZPReadThread);
  End;

end;

When specifying the multiple resolution images in the project's options page, there doesn't seem to be any relations between the device's screen resolution and the resolution of the splash image.

For example, on a Note4 device with a screen resolution of 1440x2560, the "470x320" (blurry) splash screen is displayed.

Is there a way to influence this selection?

I was doing this in v10.2.3 and it was not stable, I chronicled my experiences here:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/52168940/is-png-decoding-not-thread-safe-under-android

After replacing TBitmap PNG decoding with JBitmap, the issue was resolved, so I do believe that at least in v10.2.3 TBitmap is not thread safe.

I just realized that the "palette" window switches context between new project files or components based on whether you're editing code or the form. 🤯

1 minute ago, Uwe Raabe said:

In fact, you can even have both:

The Old Component Palette is simply a toolbar which can be made visible or hidden via  View - Toolbars - Component.

The New Component Palette is a tool window that can be reached via View - Tool Windows - Palette.

Make sure to save your layout to make your changes permanent.

For me "View - Tool Windows - Palette" shows a new project selection palette window (similar to File -> New) and not the components palette.

On 3/20/2019 at 4:02 PM, Uwe Raabe said:

Are people still using that old component pallet? 

I would actually like to switch to the new component pallet, but for the life of me, I can't find the setting that switches between the old and new layouts.

The last time I suffered from TBitmap threading instability was in v10.2, so perhaps that's been resolved.

Something weird happened in the post above, I can't edit it for some reason.

I tried doing the pre-calculations in a thread, but it resulted in instability. what I'm doing is resizing graphic elements and I simply can't get TBitmap to work without throwing exceptions in a thread on Android.

@Remy Lebeau

The problem causing my app not to show was that I had to create a separate "<intent-filter>" block, after doing that it seems to function correctly.

I managed to get the app listed in YouTube by modifying the manifest's intent using:
 

                <action android:name="android.intent.action.SEND" />
                <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
                <data android:mimeType="text/plain" />

However my app still doesn't show up on the device's app page.

I am trying to write a very basic Android app that will receive a share from the YouTube app and show the data in a memo.

I tried basing it on Embarcadero's Receive Intent sample:

https://sourceforge.net/p/radstudiodemos/code/HEAD/tree/branches/RADStudio_Seattle/Object Pascal/Mobile Snippets/AndroidIntents/ReceiveIntent/

The only thing I did to the sample was to change a line in AndroidManifest.template.xml from:

Quote

<data android:mimeType="text/pas" />

To:

Quote

<data android:mimeType="text/plain" />

However, I'm encountering two issues:

1. After installing the app on an Android device, it isn't listed in the app list.  I can see it on the "application manager" settings page, but not in the main app list.

2. YouTube is not listing the app as an option on the share dialog.

How can I resolve these 2 issues?

Just to make sure I understand, this implies I can't do UI updates in my main thread in the middle of a function?

I actually posted this question on stack overflow a while back, got what I thought was a working answer but over time realized that on different devices, waiting for "onIdle" doesn't actually work.

Here's the background, my app on first-load does some time-consuming (3-8 sec) pre-calculations so subsequent runs would be much faster.  During this processing period, I want to show a "loading %" track-bar.

However, for the life of me, I haven't been able to find the exact moment my form is visible and responsive for action.  I tried different approaches:

1. waiting for "OnActivate" event.

2. Implementing IFMXApplicationEventService.SetApplicationEventHandler and waiting for "TApplicationEvent.BecameActive".

3. Waiting for "TApplicationEvent.BecameActive" to trigger and then waiting for 3 "OnIdle" events to trigger (2 OnIdle events were not enough for my Galaxy Note 4 device).

Only #3 sort of worked on most devices using Delphi 10.2.3, but then when I upgraded to Delphi 10.3.1 even that stopped working (my progress bar shows up but the screen stops updating, so the bar remains on 0% until the pre-calculation function completes, even when calling Application.ProcessMessages after each update and no other code running in the background).

Is there a better solution to know the exact moment my app will start responding to screen updates on launch under Android?

@Dave Nottage

I can't really debug since I constantly suffer from the "Unable to start gdbserver on port '64311'. Port is already in use.", so instead I've added many more debug output lines.

I finally figured out what was going on, I was creating my bitmap inside a function that was triggered by a timage-clicked, that function then called the permission request with an anonymous function.

However, once the anonymous function was triggered, the bitmap var was no longer valid.

I fixed the issue by creating the bitmap within the anonymous function.

I am trying to save an image to the photo gallery using Delphi 10.3 and Android 6+

However, when the user accepts the access request prompt on the very first call, my entire app restarts all on it's own, is there any way to disable this behavior so my app doesn't restart?

I implemented the code based on this blog post:

http://blong.com/Articles/AndroidPermissions/DelphiAppPermissions.htm

After calling (on form create):

  FPermission_READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE  := JStringToString(TJManifest_permission.JavaClass.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE);
  FPermission_WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE := JStringToString(TJManifest_permission.JavaClass.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE);

I am calling this code to show the prompt and save the image:

      // Request permission
      PermissionsService.RequestPermissions([FPermission_WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE, FPermission_READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE],
        procedure(const APermissions: TArray<string>; const AGrantResults: TArray<TPermissionStatus>)
        begin
          if (Length(AGrantResults) = 2) and (AGrantResults[0] = TPermissionStatus.Granted) and (AGrantResults[1] = TPermissionStatus.Granted) then
          Begin
            { Save file }
            BaseFolder := System.IOUtils.TPath.GetSharedPicturesPath;
            If DirectoryExists(BaseFolder) = True then
            Begin
              PIKAFolder := BaseFolder+System.IOUtils.TPath.DirectorySeparatorChar+clientGameName;
              If DirectoryExists(PIKAFolder) = False then ForceDirectories(PIKAFolder);

              PIKAFile := PIKAFolder+System.IOUtils.TPath.DirectorySeparatorChar+clientGameName+'_'+ReplaceStr(ReplaceStr(DateTimeToStr(Now),':','.'),'/','.')+saveImageFileExt;
              Try
                MyImage.SaveToFile(PIKAFile);
              Except
                clientFadingMessage := strErrorSavingPicture;
              End;
              If FileExists(PIKAFile) = True then clientFadingMessage := strPictureSaved else If clientFadingMessage = '' then clientFadingMessage := strErrorSavingPicture2;
            End
            Else clientFadingMessage := strPictureFolderNotFound;
          End
            else
          begin
            clientFadingMessage := strErrorSavingPicture;
          end;
        end
      );

On 2/4/2019 at 1:06 PM, Cristian Peța said:

If adb connection is not working then installing a Log visualizer from the market is the easiest solution to see the log.

Can you post a link to one, I tried a search on the google play store and it only came back with text viewers.

On 2/5/2019 at 5:46 PM, John Kouraklis said:

Have you tried a simple project that does nothing? 

Yes, created a new multi-platform project, compiled & deployed it without any changes, installed the APK on Nox and it crashes with "Project1 keeps stopping" instantly when executed.

On 2/1/2019 at 3:08 AM, John Kouraklis said:

How did you manage to make Delphi recognise the emulator? I've got a similar situation and cant make it see the emulator. 

 

And something else? Do you use any virtual machines or directly on the main PC?

I am not trying to use NOX as the debugger, I'm trying to get it to run my compiled APKs simply by dragging the APK onto the NOX window which installs just fine.

But as soon as I try to run any Delphi 10.3 app on NOX, it instantly closes with an error message that the app has closed.

And I use it on my main PC, no virtual machines (other than NOX of course)

Which log are you referring to?  The app closes before it reaches my first line of code?

I believe it does, other apps and games work fine, my own apps used to work fine on v10.2 ...

It seems that Delphi 10.3 generated APKs are not compatible with the NOX emulator running Android 7.

The moment I try running the APK, I get a message that the application closed.

This happens with every APK I generate (e.g. https://github.com/bLightZP/ElegantCalculator).

Trying to debug the issue, it seems that my first line of code is not even executed before the app closes.

Any ideas?

Has anyone else experienced this or found a solution?

If there is no solution, how do I modify the XML manifest so the google play store only allows Android 6+ devices to install the app?