0

until recently , for too large apps (50+ MB apps) you had to use your own server to host the large files and add your own logic on the app to download and handle the file from the server.

on March 5th 2012 , google published of a new way to host your large files (via the android market , which is now called "android play" ) , so apps can reach up to 4GB of size: http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2012/03/android-apps-break-50mb-barrier.html it has its limitations and rules , but it's free and i think everyone should consider using it.

my question is : is there any nice tutorial , including sample project , that i can do the minimal changes in order to make it work with my app ? maybe someone has already tested it and would be able to share a sample project?

i've tried to read what they wrote there , and it seems that for every thing i read , there is another link to read from , and in the end i didn't understand the full step-by-step process that i need to go over in order to create a working project.

android developer
  • 114,585
  • 152
  • 739
  • 1,270

2 Answers2

1

there's a nice sample project that comes with the library when you download it - saved me a lot of work.

user655489
  • 1,316
  • 3
  • 14
  • 21
  • the sample has tons of bugs , for example , not being able to run on v3.x of android . you need to fix a lot of them . hopefully , they will update their sample soon. – android developer Apr 11 '12 at 22:32
  • thx - I had played with it enough to get it to work on my phone, and entered at least one bug for it. I have not released the app yet, and your info is helpful – user655489 Apr 12 '12 at 01:25
  • try this similar post that i've written , which asks about problems of using this library : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9874536/android-so-many-problems-with-the-expansion-library if you come across some good findings and fixes , please write them there . – android developer Apr 12 '12 at 08:15
1

It's not exactly a tutorial, in that it doesn't give you line-by-line code to create a complete application, but the Developers Guide article on APK Expansion Files contains a quite detailed checklist of things to do.

Sparky
  • 8,437
  • 1
  • 29
  • 41
  • yes , i was hoping for a simpler thing to read . however , they have lately uploaded the sample project that made things easier . now you can read the code and understand (or try to understand) what is going on . for some reason , everything worked well there except for the CRC check . also , the sample says that it will start the movie , but i don't think it does anything related to movie playing even if i upload video files (or zipped video files). – android developer Mar 21 '12 at 17:15
  • the CRC check probably fails , because the downloaded file is really corrupt. is this a bug on the source code , the server , or what? i need to use this library but i keep getting bad files from it. it isn't the only bug - the downloader activity can have multiple instances , and the notification can sometimes stay even though everything has finished (even after clicking on it) . – android developer Mar 22 '12 at 17:08
  • ok , the file is corrupt so i've re-uploaded it and it's now ok . however , the sample code is very buggy and since it's very complex , it's hard to find bugs and fix them. hopefully , google will find them too and fix them. – android developer Mar 22 '12 at 20:34
  • You're talking to Google now, so thanks. I'll make sure the author of the sample knows about your comments. – Sparky Apr 27 '12 at 10:09
  • I'm part of Android Developer Relations. – Sparky Apr 28 '12 at 19:21
  • you are ? it's a great honor. note that i've created a post that has some of the issues i've come across on this matter: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9874536/android-so-many-problems-with-the-expansion-library . you can PM me if you need any further comments on the code. – android developer Apr 28 '12 at 21:13