Tag Archives: PNG

Reader Widget updates for large screens

I have just uploaded updates to both Reader Widget Small and Reader Widget Pro. Both have a tweaked layout which is tidier and supports large screens like the one in the new Motorola Droid. Here are the full change logs:

Reader Widget Small V1.7:

  • New layout using 9 patch PNG file
  • Built with Android 1.6 SDK
  • Supports larger screens e.g. WVGA 800×480
  • PNG files run through optipng to save space
  • zipaligned APK file to improve performance

Reader Widget Pro V1.8:

  • New layout using 9 patch PNG file. This saves space compared to the old separate backgrounds for each widget size.
  • Built with Android 1.6 SDK
  • Supports larger screens e.g. WVGA 800×480

Reader Widget Pro V1.7

I have just uploaded Reader Widget Pro V1.7 to the market. Changes include:

  • Time shown next to headlines in pop-up list.
  • Sort headlines by feed name or time in ascending or descending order.
  • Bug fix: on boot up with no network connection widgets would be blank. Now the data is loaded from the local database.
  • Ran zipalign on the apk file. This should improve performance.
  • Ran Optipng on all the PNG files to compress them.

I also experimented with showing the unread count in the notification bar but found it to be not that useful. The text doesn’t stay in the notification bar (like when an SMS is received it just flashes up the message for a few seconds) and so the bar has to be dragged open to see the unread count. Ideally I want the unread count to persist in the notification bar so it can be seen even if the phone is locked. I haven’t found a way to do this yet.