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Developed a application of size 40MB. I need to test it for all screen support but the android emulator really a bad choice(I feel... ). It gives Insufficient memory error almost every time). How developer test their application?

One more Question I have designed app for four different layout(normal,small,large and xlarge). Will every device(In future) satisfy these layout params?

And i faced a real problem that i tested my app in Sony xperia minpro(Small screen 240*320 2.4inch) and in Samsung galaxy 5(smallscreen 240*320, 2.8inch) but the layout is overlapping in samsung device. This can be a serious problem , actually we cant check our app in every device.. that is impossible too.

TIA

vnshetty
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40MB is way too big for an Android application. Many users will have problems installing the app on their devices. You should consider moving some resources out of the application and downloading them either on demand or on first app run.

The list of layout types (normal, small, large, xlarge) is definitely not final, for there quite possibly will be even larger screens (xxlarge) or tiny ones (xsmall?).

Konstantin Burov
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  • Why not download those from somewhere? – Konstantin Burov Aug 23 '11 at 08:30
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    @vnshetty actually, you have no other choice except loading resources from external source. Otherwise your app won't install on majority of devices. For example, I have about 16MB free internal memory on my phone at the moment. It is not sufficient even to unpack your app. – Konstantin Burov Aug 23 '11 at 09:17
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Developed a application of size 40MB. I need to test it for all screen support but the android emulator really a bad choice(I feel... ). It gives Insufficient memory error almost every time). How developer test their application?

You can configure the emulator with any amount of memory you wish, including an emulated SD card so memory shouldn't be a problem. However, 40MB is quite big so you may be hitting the package size limit.

One more Question I have designed app for four different layout(normal,small,large and xlarge). Will every device(In future) satisfy these layout params?

You're asking us to predict the future - there's no way we can know what Google are planning if they haven't already announced it though I would suggest that there will never be a commitment to keep screen sizes or resolutions static - technology constantly evolves and specs that are OK for today, will not be OK for tomorrow.

RivieraKid
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  • How developer test their application?

You do not have so many choices: you have to use as many (and different) physical devices as you can, from different vendors and technical specifications (screen, etc), to try to detect as many specific bugs as possible.

This is difficult, as you are often limiten to a few physical devices.

To give you examples, I recently struggled with the Camera, for a bug happening with Motorola Defy only. I am currently struggling with the Camera, but only for Samsung Galaxy this time.

When you find a specific bug, try to fix it "the general way": instead of detecting the vendor/version of the device to write specific code for it, try to enhance your code in a way it will work for all tested phones. So far, I never had to write anything specific to a given device. The bugs I encountered were always tied to a permissivities or particular cases that could be handled by making the common code more complete or resiliant. Let's say by "making as less assumptions as possible" knowing that we tend to make assumptions without meaning it.

On top of testing on as many physical devices as possible, create emulators. You can parameter them to have different screen layouts, different embedded hardware, memory, etc. And on top of the default emulator that comes with the Android distribution, you also have emulators provided by the devices vendors and that reproduce the specificity of these devices. For example, Samsung released a Galaxy Tab emulator. Sony Ericsson released a EDK Cellphone emulator. You can get them thru the regular android distribution update workflow.

  • Will every device(In future) satisfy these layout params (normal,small,large and xlarge)?

Yes, as Android distributions are backward compatible. Any of these layout will still be supported in the future, but may become 'deprecated' (so not recommended, but still working), and new layout types will certainly be created.

Shlublu
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I have seen dictionaries weighing in at 40Mb, best practise is to download the database as a separate file. Some graphically intensive games approach that size. If you want to emulate many Android devices make sure your PC is up to snuff and you have the latest SDK.

John
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