A Real Story Of An Android App Developer

The app development blogs flooded on the internet are full of different set of information which suggest something new in the app technology, technology issues, myths related to app technology, what clients need to consider and what Movieranker developers need to consider…ufff the list is all long and is never ending too, but is something very typical…isn’t it?

Yes…undeniably yes, because this is what we get to read and most of the times it is like ewwwww…am done sort of….quite relatable hmm….

Thus what is the solution?

Should we keep reading the same boring content or is there something to break the ice?
Well, Techugo has given a thought to this and have decided to give a U-turn to the blog creation by sharing the challenges, success, barriers, and pain by an App Developer, while developing a mobile app.
Every app has its own demands, challenges and success parameters, so with this blog, you would be hearing the real and true episode of one app, shared by an app developer.
And remember there is NO fabrication involved in this blog…let’s start the story…

Our female protagonist is Gunjan Manral, who developed Movie Ranker for its Android version with other eminent team members from Techugo family….let’s begin…

ONCE UPON A TIME, THERE WAS A…CUT, CUT AND CUTTT

Back to reality….remember NO fabrication involved.…oops sorry

Let’s start all over again in Gunjan’s words only….

It was almost end of summer 2017 when I was assigned a new project for Android development, named MovieRanker. The app name something suggested me, was of movies and its ranking, but eventually, app was supposed to do much more..

For instance:

• The app was supposed to be a platform wherein users can discover new movies in many languages.
• The user can recommend or can get movie recommendations for the movies.
• The user could join or start forums for movies or actors.
• Share views, recommendations and forums on Facebook for non-app users to see.
• Watch latest news, trailers and many other things pertaining to movies and talents associated with movies.
• For every comment, forum, reviews, ratings and recommendations awarding points.

In total, MovieRanker was intended to create a community of shared interest that allows for connectivity and curated content.

Considering these many features and functionalities it was more than obvious to explore the new set of challenges, but as I am fondly called DARING & BOLD by my teammates, I was somehow ready for the unseen.
And then the unseen happened in a series of sequence ( a serious pun intended )

Challenges of my story…

As an app developer, facing challenges while app development is nothing new for any of us, although sometimes the challenges are quite fun to face and at times quite horrendous to reduce us to tears, but in either case, the learning quotient is always high and indeed an adventure.
Thus, I faced the challenges in MovieRanker too, which are mentioned herewith….

• MovieRanker was already working in the web when I started developing it for Android app.
• For API’s to integrate into the app, I got API’s from the MovieRanker website itself. Thus for every API, we had to inspect element the website had, which created the problem.
• Since API’s were already working for the web, even if we had any problem regarding response we were unable to change the response. It created a lot of problem on a particular screen, where the keys can be added and deleted and we wouldn’t know what keys were we getting.
• Another problem I faced was when we had to send data from Fragment to its Activity. Mostly every detailed activity has four fragments, so we had to send data from fragment to its activity and it created a major problem when all the fragments had to call the same API and we wouldn’t figure out which fragment data it was.
• The next problem we faced was when we had to develop a fragment for which we got the response from which we had to parse for 10-13 cases and each case was supposed to have different actions to be shown regarding movies. The screen had all the activities performed by the user from rating, reviews to commenting on a forum. But the challenging part was that we had to show some part of the sentence in the different color and make it clickable.

OOUCHHHH…tooo muchhhh………. 

Truly it was a journey full of excitement and constant adventure trips, and I overcome all the challenges with flying colors and what I explored is tremendously HUGGGGGEEEEEEE

Do you wonder what I explored?
Keep reading then….

As an Android Developer, the problems I faced while developing the app were new to me which encouraged me to resolve them which helped me in increasing my knowledge bank, so YAY! for me. Now here I am going to share that knowledge with you.

• The best thing I explored was Listeners.
  No not the listeners as in humans, but for sharing data between fragments, fragment, and activity, between dialogs, from dialog to fragment, the solution is Listeners.

I used the listeners throughout the app and Listeners became the blessing for me while developing this app for sharing data between activities, fragments, and dialogs.

• The next feature which I thoroughly explored was Clickable Span.
  Clickable Span and Spannable String gives you the power to make parts of sentence clickable and you can      perform different actions on those clickable.

You can change the color of parts of the sentence also, HOW COOL IS THAT. You can easily see in the app   where  Clickable Span and Spannable String is used.

• The last thing I came across was manual work and trust me there is no work around it. You have to parse all the keys of response in some cases and models cannot always help you, thus you must manually inspect element of the website for API’s.

How is MovieRanker something special to me?

MovieRanker is so different from all the apps that I have developed so far.
No don’t take me wrong, other apps are also very close to my heart, but with MovieRanker, it was not merely the development but a complete cycle of learning and exploring new technology phases.

Actually, this app has so much to offer, which means every screen has distinct feature and technology behind it.
The demand of the app features helped me enhance my technical skills and grow as a developer.

I learned that Listeners can solve many problems when sharing data. Also, the Clickable span which was new for me.
Worth to mention, MovieRanker has the socket, which is something generally used by apps including chats.
In MovieRanker every Screen has 4 to 5 fragments, which have so many API’s that lead to battery drainage, and it was supposed to be managed and we NAILED it.

Indeed development consumes time and effort and this app used both to its limit, but happily, the efforts and the passion showed by the entire team paid off.

Working on this app helped me increase my logical knowledge and speed, I think not just me, but the every single team member associated with MovieRanker had explored a new learning phase with MovieRanker.

My Concluding Mantra

From every app, a developer learns something new which helps them increase their knowledge but some apps are more challenging than the other apps. MovieRanker was one of the challenging apps for me…. 

But nothing to worry

I learned how to come up with a solution, rather than sleeping on the problem (too much pun, seriously)
On the serious note, with MovieRanker I learned how to increase my performance as a developer for maximum result.

Andddddd….

My GYAN for the day says….

As a developer don’t feel dejected, defeated or irritated, when some technology starts to play the game with you, rather CALM down and keep patience and you would feel that you not just get the solution, but a technical upgrade for the lifelong…

Now, what’s NEXT???????

Well, the very next step is to pick your Smartphone (Android/ iPhone) and from the respective stores, download the app.

And experience the unique app concept being drawn on the app canvas by Techugo family…

If you liked my blog, and loveeeeddd reading it, then don’t fail to subscribe.

For placing any app development inquiry, you can also get in touch…..

sales@techugo.com
Skype: aks141
Skype: ankit.techugo