Conference2Go EclipseCon Updated: dynamic Overview

EclipseCon Boston just closed the door and next EclipseCon conferences are waiting in the queue:

• EclipseCon France
• EclipseCon Europe

so I’m doing some more work on my brandnew Conference2Go EclipseCon APP built with Eclipse Momentics IDE and Cascades as native app.

Feedback of first version from EclipseCon Boston was great – please let me know what you’re missing for a perfect Conference App.

Update at BlackBerry World (FREE)

Today an update was approved at BlackBerry World.

New Video available

There’s also a new Video:

If you haven’t done before you should also watch the first video of this app, where I demonstrated all the other features:

what’s new ?

Now you can easy select / unselect your favorites and there’s a toggle to switch the ListViews between all or only favorites.

Hint: Screenshots on BlackBerry 10 devices done by Heiko Behrens http://shapeitapp.com service - so you can click on the image and zoom in to see the details.

Easy toggle between all or only favorite sessions / workshops

Starting the app gives you the list with all Sessions or Workshops:

Your favorites are marked with a flag. The ActionBar allows easy switching to your favorites – one tap and the same list displays only your favorites:

the Action is a toggle – so with one tap you’re back to the list of all sessions.

Dynamic Session Overview with pinch&zoom

Besides the ListView there’s now also an overview of all sessions (workshops) of the selected day:

• Sessions ordered in columns per room
• Sessions ordered in rows by start time and duration
• Height of sessions depends on length of session in minutes
• Pinch & Zoom to make it easy to get an overview or to see the details
• Tap on a session marks this as selected and opens details view
• Peeking back shows you the selected session colored
• Landscape and Portrait is supported
• All work done dynamically for selected day
• Sessions filtered to get only the favorites
• Only rooms will be displayed where sessions will happen (or if favorited)
• Scheduled items (Break, Lunch, Party, …) with grey background to easy distinguish
• Keynotes always fill a complete row

Let’s take a look at some screenshots – here’s an overview page:

Tap on a session opens Session Details page. Peeking back shows the selected session:

Here you only have favorited two sessions in two rooms – the page is adjusted to display only 2 columns for the rooms:

Same overview exists for workshop sessions: you see that there are only 2 sessions a day in each room:

A common problem with such views to be displayed on a smartphone is the limited size. So I tried to find a way to handle this. Overview can be done in Landscape or Portrait – switch back and force as you like. And pinch & zoom allows to see the overview or the details.

Use this overview as an addition to the ListViews – esp while planning your personal conference schedule.

The overview in Landscape:

or zoom in:

Cascades: create complex UI dynamically – performs blazing fast

How’s this done ?

All is native Cascades – no HTML-Web. All UI Elements are created dynamically while the Page is opened. If you take a look at the details of sessions, rooms, Keynotes, schedule items, timeline, room headers and footers … you can imagine what must be done to create the overview page for a complete day.

As I started developing this overview I wasn’t sure if it will work from a users POV or from performance. I’m really fascinated how fast these UI controls are created – there’s no visible delay, so I removed the Progress Animation I had already prepared.

And be aware – all is bound to an underlying data model. I managed to have data structures in JSON performing very well and easy to develop against with Cascades / Qt.

If you have a BlackBerry 10 Z10 (Touch) or Q10 (Keyboard) or DevAlpha – download the app and try it out. It’s FREE.

If you like it – please write a review at BlackBerry World – if you have requests or other feedback use the built-in feedback action from Application menu.

Some more updates will follow. stay tuned ….

… and see you at EclipseCon Europe or an Eclipse Democamp.

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(c) 2013 Creative Commons License 3.0 (BY-NC-SA) by ekkescorner

Conference2Go EclipseCon APP at BlackBerry World

Now at BlackBerry World

good news for my eclipse fellows attending EclipseCon 2013 in Boston: the conference app now is available at BlackBerry World

If you have sideloaded the developer preview to test – please delete this app at first from your BlackBerry 10 device: long-press on the icon, tap on the trash and delete the app. Then open BlackBerry World APP on your device and search for EclipseCon and download. It’s FREE.

Conference2Go at BlackBerry World to download for FREE

Updated Version: Favorites and more

From first developer preview I wrote about here there was some more work on the app. First steps to manage your own schedule – your Favorite Sessions and Workshops done.

Session Details

There’s a new Action on the bottom bar, if the session / workshop you have selected is not marked as your favorite: set favorite. I also have restructured the ActionBar: only the most important Actions like “Where’s the room” and “Favorite” are at the bottom ActionBar – other Actions available through Overflow Menu:

If you mark the Session as Favorite, a flag appears on the Session Details and the Favorites Action changed to “remove favorite“:

Session flagged as Favorite

If you open the Session Details (or Workshop Details or Speaker details) the selected row from the list remains the selection-color. If peeking back you now know exactly what was selected:

Peek back to the list

If going back to the list, all favorite sessions are also marked as Favorite (flagged):

Favorite – Selections are stored localy inside your app’s sandbox.

stay tunded

stay tunded…. more updates will follow next weeks / months to get a perfect app for EclipseCon Europe.

I’m just working on a toggle to see all Sessions vs Favorite Sessions with one tap from ActionBar at the lists. also for next conference planned: Login, Vote, Sessions sorted by Tracks (Category) and overview pages for a day or a room and more….

So if you plan to attend one of the next EclipseCon conferences: download this app and send me Feedback (Action from Application menu) about your requests if you miss a function.

If you like the app: Please write a review at BlackBerry World: Action available from Home Screen of the APP and invite your BBM contacts to downlaod the app – Action also available from Home Screen.

Have fun at EclipseCon Boston – enjoy the last conference day and see you at EclipseCon Europe

see you at the next EclipseCon Europe and have fun in Boston !

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(c) 2013 Creative Commons License 3.0 (BY-NC-SA) by ekkescorner

EclipseCon and BlackBerry 10

best greetings to all my friends at this years EclipseCon in Boston

I’m attending Eclipse conferences since more then 10 years, but this year I couldn’t make it to go. as you probably know I spent much private time last months and now have to do some work for customers.

Since some years I’m developing conference apps for EclipseCon, MTC, JAX,… with BlackBerry OS 7 – now the story goes on:

I developed the first of my Conference2Go applications running on the brandnew BlackBerry 10 OS for EclipseCon Boston and just-in-time I could beam it to Mike Milinkovich’s new Z10

Hopefully the app will be available soon in BlackBerry World to download. In the meantime – if you’re with your new BlackBerry 10 device in Boston – you can sideload the signed application from here: http://ge.tt/67ODX9c/v/0?c Then it’s an easy work: install Plugin for PlayBook in your Chrome Browser, enable your BB10 device for Development Mode (Settings -> Security -> Development) and connect via USB or Wifi, enter the IP into the Chrome-PlayBook Plugin and install the downloaded BAR.

edited: the app now is available at BlackBerry World for download: search for ‘EclipseCon’

If you’re still waiting for your Z10 or not sure to switch to BlackBerry 10: take a look at the App – I made a Video and some Screenshots to give you a taste how my conference app is working on BlackBerry 10. Thanks to Heiko Behrens I could place my Screenshots on Device – Images so you can better imagine. BTW: to make the Video I also used a developer tool made by Heiko: the Camholder.

Here’s the Conference2Go app running on the Z10 (or Limited Edition or DevAlpha):

(thanks to Heiko Behrens Shapeitapp you can zoom into the images to see all the details in high quality)

Home Screen Conference2Go EclipseCon

Sessionlist segmented by conference days (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday) – there’s an extra list for the Workshopday (Monday). Entries sorted and grouped by Time so you can easy find what’s provided at a given time.

Tapping on a Session in the List gives you the details: title, category, type, scheduled time, room and the session abstract. All inside a ScrollView and at the bottom is the list of the presenters of this session.

From the Session – details – presenter – list you can tap on a speaker to get the speaker – details.

From the ActionBar at the bottom of session details you can tweet about the session (see above) or write some notes (text, audio, video) about the session into your Remember notebook. Remember notebooks can be Evernote – notebooks, so the content is synchronized with Evernote on your desktop. I was looking for this since a long time, because handwritten notes from sessions aren’t easy to manage and I like it only to use my smartphone. So I wrote the gluecode – thanks to Cascades Invocation Framework this was an easy job.

Here’s the Speakers list – tapping on a Speaker you get the details and you also can compose a tweet to the speaker using integration of Twitter through Cascades Invocation Framework.

I added some info about the room plans of the venue. Tap on an image and the image is opened with BlackBerry 10 ImageViewer so you can pinch-and-zoom easy. The ImageViewer is integrated into the app – so the user doesn’t know that he/she is in reality using another app to do this.

From Home Screen Overflow Menu you can reach more Actions. BBM is integrated to invite others to BBM or invite others to download this app. BlackBerry world is integrated: with one tap you’re directly at the app’s site in BlackBerry World where you can leave a review, which should always be easy done for users. Foursquare is integrated to CheckIn at EclipseCon Venue in Boston with one click or you can look around for the hotels nearby. Also another Twitter integration to get the search page from native Twitter app for EclipseCon’s hashtag #eclipsecon.

BBM: invite others to this app

Foursquare integrated: easy one- touch – CheckIn to EclipseCon

Twitter Search integrated #eclipsecon

If minimized the app uses a special Application Cover.

From the Application Menu (Swipe down from top) you can get some help and watch a video about the app. This integrates the MediaPlayer into the app. There’s also a WebView to show you my About – Website. And there’s a Feedback action from where you can easy write a Message (email) with your requests, comments or problems.

As a member of …

… I always want to write high-quality applications to provide the BlackBerry 10 FLOW to you. If you have complaints, requests or comments helping me to make my apps even better: use the feedback action from Application Menu.

If you would like to develop high quality Cascades Apps for BlackBerry 10: you can attend one of my workshops

Besides the BlackBerry 10 touch devices there will also be devices with a physical keyboard like the Q10. Where the touch devices have a 720×1280 HD size, the Q10 has a 1:1 720×720 screen. You have to carefully design your apps to make them run on both. Here are some screenshots from Q10 so you get a feeling how different this is:

…and here’s the app in action:

http://vimeo.com/62696017

see you at the next EclipseCon Europe and have fun in Boston !

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(c) 2013 Creative Commons License 3.0 (BY-NC-SA) by ekkescorner