New feature and update for Android apps
One of the requests I've been getting recently was for the ability to import and export the charts database. When I developed most of these apps Android did not support reading and writing to external memory. I did provide the ability to export the database. Now for devices with Android 2.2 (Froyo) or better I have included the ability to read and write to the the chart database on external memory (SD card, etc). This happens automatically for new users but if you are updating, have Android 2.2 or better and want to use this feature then select Export Charts to export your chart database to the JyotishTools folder on external memory and then uninstall/reinstall the app. A bit of a hassle I know but I found it would be trickier to do it any other way. Currently this is only for the version of Jyotish Tools on the Android Market.
JyotishTools AE (at Amazon.com) came with this feature to begin with and so far no one has reported any problems. I just released Jyotish Tools 1.2.8 on the Android market with this feature. The step by step details are also in the Help file. Tropical Skies will also be released shortly with this feature as well as Jyotish Tools Lite and the 10" Honeycomb version of Jyotish Tools.
To have the chart database on external memory solves several problems. One if you have to fully reset your device then you don't lose the chart database. Also it allows you do move your charts to a new device if you get one. I also spares internal memory. Some folks have accumulated quite large chart databases so this is important.
Another situation is that companies are now making 7" high resolution tablets with Android 3.2 or better. Unfortunately these devices are currently shut out of Jyotish Tools on the Android market. For one thing the layout for 10" tablets would be difficult to work with on a 7" tablet because the widgets would be too small. And there are 7" tablets with 1024x600 displays and 3.2 would crop part of the display using the 10" layout. For 7" tablets even with 1280x720 displays the older tabbed layout is best. The version of Jyotish Tools on Amazon.com will provide the tabbed display on 7" tablets with high resolution. Developers are hoping that the Android team can develop a solutions for these overlap situations which are currently difficult if not impossible to solve with the current Android Market setup.
One last thing is the prior update fixed an Android bug which reported false times on some dates in time zones like India and other Asian countries. This is dependent on the local time zone set on the device not the app. My tests showed that US, European and Japan time zones were unaffected. This was also fixed in Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). It was rare as it only occurred on older dates and most all dates from post WW II on were not affected. In some cases it appeared to try to be adjusting the time by DST but that is not the way that function is supposed to work and in some cases if it were to be adjusting for DST the correction would be wrong.
JyotishTools AE (at Amazon.com) came with this feature to begin with and so far no one has reported any problems. I just released Jyotish Tools 1.2.8 on the Android market with this feature. The step by step details are also in the Help file. Tropical Skies will also be released shortly with this feature as well as Jyotish Tools Lite and the 10" Honeycomb version of Jyotish Tools.
To have the chart database on external memory solves several problems. One if you have to fully reset your device then you don't lose the chart database. Also it allows you do move your charts to a new device if you get one. I also spares internal memory. Some folks have accumulated quite large chart databases so this is important.
Another situation is that companies are now making 7" high resolution tablets with Android 3.2 or better. Unfortunately these devices are currently shut out of Jyotish Tools on the Android market. For one thing the layout for 10" tablets would be difficult to work with on a 7" tablet because the widgets would be too small. And there are 7" tablets with 1024x600 displays and 3.2 would crop part of the display using the 10" layout. For 7" tablets even with 1280x720 displays the older tabbed layout is best. The version of Jyotish Tools on Amazon.com will provide the tabbed display on 7" tablets with high resolution. Developers are hoping that the Android team can develop a solutions for these overlap situations which are currently difficult if not impossible to solve with the current Android Market setup.
One last thing is the prior update fixed an Android bug which reported false times on some dates in time zones like India and other Asian countries. This is dependent on the local time zone set on the device not the app. My tests showed that US, European and Japan time zones were unaffected. This was also fixed in Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). It was rare as it only occurred on older dates and most all dates from post WW II on were not affected. In some cases it appeared to try to be adjusting the time by DST but that is not the way that function is supposed to work and in some cases if it were to be adjusting for DST the correction would be wrong.
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