Android app "Fan of Sanderson"

[alainesp]

Hi All.

As almost all people here I am a big fan of Brandon books (read almost all) and I tried some time ago to join Tor "The Way of Kings" Reread. The interface for comments was a little awkward, and one need to spend some time to check and read comments, so I just leave. From this time I had the idea of an application (given that I am a programmer) to help the Sanderson Community to be more involved with all of his works. Last weeks I had some free time, so I just coded an Android app for this .

The app will be completely free: price of $0, no in-app ads and will be open-sourced. This ensures that if I don’t had time to maintain the app (I plan to be involved in the medium term, but there are always changes in life) other can continue with it. Also maybe other developers are fans too and will join me, speeding up the development. Normal folks can help too editing the book metadata:

 

https://github.com/alainesp/FanOfSanderson/blob/master/app/src/main/res/xml/books_data.xml

 

You can add new books, edit some details or simple change all data (including book covers) to reflect other country publishers (like UK for example).

The app currently is in a "release candidate" state: meaning is feature complete and ready to publish. Please give it a try.

App .apk file  : https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9tukRkBfLhSSW1ic3lMaXhGXzA/view?usp=sharing
SHA-256 of .apk: C958F2FEA3F60C83A41677E7390BB50D0973BBB954F6115CD3FB130FAEFB69C4
Beta App Screenshots: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9tukRkBfLhSa1pjUHdHc3BLZGM/view?usp=docslist_api
App code in Github: https://github.com/alainesp/FanOfSanderson.git
If there are some developer that want to help development, please contact me.

Requirements:
- Android OS 4.1 JELLY_BEAN or newer
- Internet permission: Only used when you tap "refresh" or is automatically refreshing; the app can be used completely offline once you download data.

What the app do:
- Highlight all changes in content (new blog post, events, tweets, comments or changes in project status). Unread/New content use bold font where content already read use normal fonts.
- Show the project status bars.
- Show all blog posts. Users can read them locally.
- Show all upcoming events. Users can read details of them. There are also options to add them to the Calendar or find the address location in Google Maps.
- Show all Brandon books with basic metadata of them and links to more information.
- Show Brandon biography.
- Show Brandon tweets.
- Show Tor Word of Radiance (WoR) Reread posts with the user comments.
- Zoom in and out the text to provide better reading experience.
- Smart features: zoom images when tapping, local navigation: when found a link which content is already downloaded by the app->open it, handle mentions in Tor WoR Reread comments: if you use @46 a link is provided to the comment you mention.


What the app will do:
- Tor WoR Reread: Ability to post comments.
- Goodread integration.
- 17th Shard integration.
- Others suggested by users...

Exciting features probably complex to implement:
- Interactive book maps (related to the worlds in Brandon works). I had always problem remembering where things happens, so I expect a map where you can search for locations, zoom it and see labels, useful. Something like you search Kaladin and the map show all positions where something important happen to Kaladin, including paths of his travels.
- Search of terms. Probably connect to Coppermind or Wikipedia to search for specific terms. For example search of "what are the ten radiant orders".
- Geofencing. This is simple to implement and very useful to users, but requires additional work by Brandon, some of his assistants or a server with a lot of user input. "Geofencing combines awareness of the user's current location with awareness of the user's proximity to locations that may be of interest." So the user receives an alert when he is near a bookstore Brandon visit earlier and signed some books, or near an address with an event Brandon will participate, or near a bookstore with an expensive Elantris Leather-bound edition. We can also show a map with this positions labeled accordingly.

I try to create a Google Play account and failed. I don't had more time for this at the moment, probably in some weeks. If someone can create a Google Play account for this app or want to publish this app in his account please email me.

Comments or suggestions about the app are welcome. Please check and comment on the copyright: to note is that the app currently is named "Fan of Sanderson" and the icon is a picture of Brandon.

Happy use of the app,
Alain Espinosa

Edited March 18, 2016 by alainesp

[Stormgate he/him]

I'm impressed you put all this together. An Apple user myself, is there any possibility of getting it onto the Apple store? From asking around, I know that Apple is a lot harder on new developers than Google, but I figured I might as well ask.

[alainesp]

The problem for an iOS version is that I need to buy new hardware (MAC+iPhone costing ~$2000). I develop for iOS briefly in 2010 so I also need to learn again Xcode and Swift. Maybe in the future if I work with iOS again and this app is popular enough

[Argent he/him]

Sharing the screenshots outside of an archive should make it easier for more people to check them out.

[KaIadin he/him]

Here they are but they are extremely small and poor quality and I don't know how to make them bigger.  

 

 

 

Edit: I tried the app and it is great for looking through Brandon's website, news and how his books are progressing. Great work Alainesp.

Edited January 22, 2016 by ClockWork PoleAxe

[Rockbud he/him]

Hi, fellow android dev here! Looks really good, I like the dashboard style main page!

I'd be up for helping a bit. I'm pretty busy but I might find some time to push some code as suggestions and review etc.

Throw me a link to your repo and I'll request access if its not public