Develop Bugs

A 'can the Desire/Android do this?' question from newbie

I just got a Desire last week having had a N900 for the last six months and I'm loving both the device and the OS. The speed, the screen, the sense UI, it's all mobile goodness.
But I do want to ask if it is possible to screencast my Desire's screen while providing a voice commentary. I work as a teacher and I wanted to be able to provide video how-to guides of certain educational apps for my students. My first thought was to physically video my phone's screen using another camera, but I discovered that my hardware isn't really up to the task.
So I thought I might be easier to somehow connect my phone to the computer via USB, display the phone screen on my computer and then use software like Camtasia to do the screen capturing.
I've searched on the net to find out if this is possible but struggled to find an answer. There was a lot of stuff about SDKs and rooting and command lines and while I have some tech knowledge, a lot of it was way over my head.
If anyone can tell me if this is possible and how I'd go about doing it in fairly simple terms I'd be grateful. I am willing to chance my arm with the strange world of rooting if I have to, though I am afraid of messing up my lovely new device. All advice and help gratefully received..

dreadnought001 said:
I just got a Desire last week having had a N900 for the last six months and I'm loving both the device and the OS. The speed, the screen, the sense UI, it's all mobile goodness.
But I do want to ask if it is possible to screencast my Desire's screen while providing a voice commentary. I work as a teacher and I wanted to be able to provide video how-to guides of certain educational apps for my students. My first thought was to physically video my phone's screen using another camera, but I discovered that my hardware isn't really up to the task.
So I thought I might be easier to somehow connect my phone to the computer via USB, display the phone screen on my computer and then use software like Camtasia to do the screen capturing.
I've searched on the net to find out if this is possible but struggled to find an answer. There was a lot of stuff about SDKs and rooting and command lines and while I have some tech knowledge, a lot of it was way over my head.
If anyone can tell me if this is possible and how I'd go about doing it in fairly simple terms I'd be grateful. I am willing to chance my arm with the strange world of rooting if I have to, though I am afraid of messing up my lovely new device. All advice and help gratefully received..
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You're definitley going to need to root your phone but even at that no app like that exists for Android (Yet). It's fairly doable but you would need to get the help of a developer.

There's an app called AndroidScreenCast, search for it in the G1 forums. This will show your screen on the PC and then use a desktop recording tool to record it (I think it may actually have an inbuilt record video function though).

brummiesteven said:
There's an app called AndroidScreenCast, search for it in the G1 forums. This will show your screen on the PC and then use a desktop recording tool to record it (I think it may actually have an inbuilt record video function though).
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Thanks for that, sounds awesome and could be exactly what I need. Don't have pc access at the moment but will try it out as soon as I get home. Much appreciated!

Just tried it. Has a really slow refresh rate but works fine for basic functions i suppose!

WP7 expectations before adoption

The following are the features NEEDED before I adopt WP7 as my new smartphone OS.
1. Rooted device.
2. Rooted windows share Local network access.
3. File explored => than iFile
3. Phone theme app similar to winterboard for iPhone.
4. DLNA in all forms.
5. True windows live Mesh.
6. Zune updated via explorer, no tethered or untethered syncing needed.
7. Push everything.
8. App pirating scene => apptrackr.org for iPhone.
9. Video game console emulation from all the greats.
10. IE download manager.
11. Video chat.
These needs are almost already met with my iPhone. Being a avid windows 7 and windows media center user I can see a huge advantage of adopting WP7. Devs, can u tell me how many features I can check off this list? I know some are possible with 6.x already. Feel free to add to this list for wanted features that are out of the norm.
Also I don't think I like the idea of ROM cooking. I might not understand it though, since ROM means read only memory does it mean that u have to modify your devices os before you install it in your phone? I don't like that at all. I want to be able to modify my os at anytime in explorer like u can with windows 7.

App pirating...oh yeah that's a feature that will be good for the development of the platform. Seesh, people work hard on stuff and generally charge reasonable prices to keep themselves afloat and you demand app pirating!? Dear Microsoft please allow rpoot access to the device so people can find work arounds and steal your client's good work. That's exactly the attitude which stops Microsoft from allowing root access, because its waaaaay to easy to pirate then.
What we really need is a good ad revenue generator (ie Google ads, iAds) so that innovation can be driven by the financial incentive and these guys who dev can get some well earned cash.
Anyways, whats your job? Would you like it if I asked for yur services and then you didn't get paid?
Sorry grouchy this morning. #Rant

Yea. $400 for a phone is fine but then when asked to pay $3 for an app you'll use all the time it's just too much? :facepalm:

......why the hell does a mobile browser need a download manager?

Thats what the iPhone needs to be able to download mp3s or docs from safari. I just want the ability to download a mp3 from the net in the brower and have it show up in my zune media player. The iphone requires a few jailbroken apps to achieve this at the moment.

that's native in the zune music player already you know...
1. Rooted device.
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I thought rooting was only used for android. But as far as the unlocking thing, it is device dependent. Several developers are working on finding means to give developers more freedom as well as users with wp7. but it is a work in progress and takes time.
2. Rooted windows share Local network access.
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what
3. Phone theme app similar to winterboard for iPhone.
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Does this really have to be said? I mean are you looking for an application that will allow user customization of the start menu like winterboard? If so see post 1. to be frank the theming for wp7 so far is okay but nothing as open as windows mobile. But again we have no idea what the device can really do. It is based on what is found and the extent of what development will lead to.
But if you want winterboard...well get the phone that has it
4. DLNA in all forms.
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Again unsure if wp7 can do that. It may be able to but no idea. We don't know
5. True windows live Mesh.
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Isn't live mesh going to be gone soon?
6. Zune updated via explorer, no tethered or untethered syncing needed.
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I dunno if that's really necessary. There may be a program for it most likely. But I don't think its needed in first generation wp7 devices. Heck I much prefer to just drag and drop my files or sync with zune anyway...
7. Push everything.
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Not everything has to be push...I think that as far as notification goes push may be a hindrance. I do prefer the old system though
8. App pirating scene => apptrackr.org for iPhone.
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yeah this is a fail...
9. Video game console emulation from all the greats.
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That is developer dependent and its tough to say what the emulation scene will be like...
10. IE download manager.
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Why!? Seriously why!? sorry but that's retarded. I mean how much are you downloading on your phone right now to substantiate a feature like that. remember, wp is the de emphasis of the phone being a computer but performing some basic tasks like all smart phones can do in a different way.
11. Video chat.
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It could be a developer making something for that. No one knows
As for the things being met for your iphone, keep your iphone =) if you honestly are looking for information on a platform that isn't released, wait a year until wp7 has some options available...
and for the point of not liking rom cooking, do you even know the process? No you don't. May wanna read up on it...
...
IMHO, almost everything you listed I know personally I won't be using my phone for that. I don't mind media centric information but there is overload. For suiting my needs (clinical psychology) I may need to browse some psychology databases, a dedicated pdf reader, an ebook reader, the ability to record notes from class, patient intake, and so on. But again specifics differ according to user of the device.

Thanks for the info domineus, what I mean by "Rooted windows share Local network access." is the abiltiy for my phone's whole file system to show up when I click on the network in explorer on one of the PCs in my house. The iPhone does this with ubuntu when it is jailbroken right now. Also I want the abiltity to telnet/ssh into all my home network PCs to move files around and delete them or whatever. Basicly I want total control of my home network in the command line. This feature is lacking with my iPhone right now. I bet telneting is possible in windows mobile 6.x right now isn't it?
As far as the download manager thing goes. I don't know what u use your phone for but I am constantly getting new mp3s, pics, video, and docs offline everyday. The itunes library on the phone is encrypted right now so u can't just drop and drag in iFile to add to the itunes library. Also the default safari you can't save target as to get the file. I think you can with windows mobile 6.x though, I did it at work once. Half the time I'm not around a pc to sync anyways, I feel like tethered syncing is a chore. I am pretty sure you can't "save target as" in IE with the WP7 emulator.

Yeah Ive decided....you should get the iPhone...Im pretty happy to see how the community goes but for you to make demands a lot of which are stupid or overly tailored to your specific needs and hence serve no purpose on a public forum, well thats pretty darn silly.

gotta agree its a bit solipsistic
especially on a platform that is newly developed and IMHO we have no idea how its going to develop or the clientele requirements

Skatingn330 said:
[...]Also I want the abiltity to telnet/ssh into all my home network PCs to move files around and delete them or whatever. Basicly I want total control of my home network in the command line. This feature is lacking with my iPhone right now. I bet telneting is possible in windows mobile 6.x right now isn't it?[...]
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Uhm, telnet? Yes, through 3rdparty apps of course. Telnet is a very simple thing to use, but you still need somewhere to telnet TO and something responding on the other end (on your computer(s)). So, the "feature" you want is not something that is related to the device, but rather something you need to setup on your LAN. You would only need a telnetapp on your device
Though I must say... Unless I was in a DIRE need for exposing my WHOLE system for outside access I would NEVER even dream of using a telnetserver on ANY of my systems (except on my linuxbox, hehe). Its a disaster waiting to happen There are fare better choices to use than telnet.
Regarding the file-sharing (SMB) you spoke of. Even if we disregard the fact that SMB is not a very secure protocol, the main thing that speaks against that MS would incorporate such a feature is... since MS doesnt even provide filesystem-access ON the device, why should they do it through SMB? I am pretty sure you can forget that one, at least out-of-the-box, maybe if its unlocked and through some obscure 3rdpartyapp.
Just my two cents...

Moving to general.

Skatingn330 said:
The following are the features NEEDED before I adopt WP7 as my new smartphone OS.
1. Rooted device.
2. Rooted windows share Local network access.
3. File explored => than iFile
3. Phone theme app similar to winterboard for iPhone.
4. DLNA in all forms.
5. True windows live Mesh.
6. Zune updated via explorer, no tethered or untethered syncing needed.
7. Push everything.
8. App pirating scene => apptrackr.org for iPhone.
9. Video game console emulation from all the greats.
10. IE download manager.
11. Video chat.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. Might happen, but a strange requirement
2. Don't understand this one?
3. You're not getting this, the phone don't have a traditional filesystem.
3_. You're not getting this either.
4. Microsoft is a promoter of DLNA
5. It's being merged to SkyDrive, and is supported at launch
6. Won't be possible with the explorer, but it will with the Zune desktop client.
7. The notification-system is based on push.
8. Microsoft is a large company with a long history of anti-piracy. You'll might get in trouble here
9. Write some XNA wrapper for it then!
10. I'd suspect there will be a form of management of downloads and downloaded files.
11. None of the 1. generation phones have a camera on the front side, so you'll have to wait. But software-wise it's supported from day one.

smuppy said:
Though I must say... Unless I was in a DIRE need for exposing my WHOLE system for outside access I would NEVER even dream of using a telnetserver on ANY of my systems (except on my linuxbox, hehe). Its a disaster waiting to happen There are fare better choices to use than telnet.
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Im pretty new to networking but wouldnt using a VPN serve the purpose of what he is wanting? Im not familiar with telnet hardly at all (expect for watching star wars episode 4 that i stumbled across google, haha) but it sounds like a VPN would do what hes looking for. Which WM, the iphone (from what i understand anyways), and im hoping WP7 does. Plus its much MUCH more secure then telnet in even its most basic form of PPTP.

[Q] REAL hacking.

Hello there to all the souls of the xda forums.
im new to wp7. never used one before like 3 days ago. i like it, great device my surround is. but im not here to tell you about how good it is. we all know its good.
im here to ask if theres any real hacking going on with this thing yet. im looking for at least some kind of command line.
from there i could use tools such as aircrack, nmap, metasploit, SET, etc.
ive had an iphone for about 3 years, booting iOS and Android. i am used to hacking from that, but at the same time i know there a bigger user base for those devices, so theres more devs for it. i just wanted to know if anyone has already started on such a project before i dedicate alot of my time to developing this for you all.
BTW i am not interested in pirating apps, cracking apps

With enough effort, command-line interface *might* be possible - the OS technically supports such things - but the underlying core is Windows CE. Even less so than NT, CE really isn't meant for a CLI; apps are written with the intent of being run on a graphical interface. Also, having no POSIX compatibility and only partial Win32 compatibility, a lot of apps that you're used to from the desktop (or from POSIX-based phone OSs like iOS and Android) aren't going to be available.
That said, if you want to get started in the WP7 hacking space, there's certainly plenty to do. One project that I have on the back burner until I get some more urgent stuff out of the way is a SSH client. There are a number of things that are required here. First of all, we have homebrew Socket support, but the official SDK lacks it so you'd need to use a native Homebrew DLL. Second, there's no official command line interface, so you'd need to write one. The second point is all sorts of fun, since what you're really writing is a terminal emulator.
Other interesting projects include getting a unified cross-platform approach to writing to the filesystem, or even reading from all of it (instead of the relatively small portions currently accessible) or figuring out how to make third-party apps run in the background.

thanks man. I think I'll work on getting a full file browser for the phone. That should happen , i think, before anything else. As far as a terminal emu, it sounds like its going to be more of a chalange for me. Again, I'm used to more Linux and UNIX systems than I am windows. I had to reinstall windows 7 onto a partition just so I could sync the phone with the Zune software Microsoft insisted I use.
So is anyone currently working on the file browser? Has there been any progress with it? If so, who should I contact so I can help?

sea_bass said:
thanks man. I think I'll work on getting a full file browser for the phone. That should happen , i think, before anything else. As far as a terminal emu, it sounds like its going to be more of a chalange for me. Again, I'm used to more Linux and UNIX systems than I am windows. I had to reinstall windows 7 onto a partition just so I could sync the phone with the Zune software Microsoft insisted I use.
So is anyone currently working on the file browser? Has there been any progress with it? If so, who should I contact so I can help?
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TouchXplorer. Do a bit of searching. A lot of homebrew has already been in the works.

thesecondsfade said:
TouchXplorer. Do a bit of searching. A lot of homebrew has already been in the works.
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Thanks. Just found that page

[Q] ios app on nexus 7

So I swear I tried searching for this and looking through similar threads, but I've had no luck. I just bought a Nexus 7 tablet, and I use an android phone too. I greatly prefer android to ios, so I don't want to just get an ipad. But there is 1 app, only one, that I want that is only available on ios, so I'm stuck asking questions. I'm willing to root my device, or dual boot ios and android if I need to. I don't know if that's possible. Like I said, I tried searching for these answers first, but I'm not that experienced with mobile platforms so I wasn't able to figure it out. So basically, I just need to run a single ios app on android, or I need to find a way to boot ios on android, or I need to dual boot both OS on the tablet. And I don't know how to do any of those or if they are possible. The app I need is the Hero Lab Pathfinder Character Sheet app (the forums won't let new users post links).
If anyone can give any help, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

It's not really possible. Since iOS is closed source, I don't think anyone has ever managed to dual boot it on an Android phone or run it in an Android device. Since iOS is a completely different OS platform, I don't think anyone has ever managed to get iOS apps running on an Android device. Your best bet is probably to try to convince the developer of your app to make one for Android.

Thanks. I feared that was the case. But it's good to get a straight answer. And yeah, I've contacted the developer already. They said they are working on it, but it's a low priority project and it could be up to a year before we hear about it.

Okay, new question then. What about emulating a Windows OS? Something small like WXP?

I think you could RDP or VNC into a Windows box or emulate a Linux box (or Splashtop or Teamviewer or whatever). I don't know of a way to emulate a Windows box.

[Q] creating zooper widgets on desktop?

i have been using zooper widget pro for a while now and i've been wondering if it's possible to create these widgets on a desktop for ease of configurations and so on? i searched for a thread on this but came up with people referring to the phone desktop not a desktop PC/mac/nix machine. possibly using android studio? i know that android studio is used to package your sets/widgets into apk format but it would help some of us who wish to develop more widgets for zooper if we could use the desktop for speed purposes.
any suggestions would be appreciated.

droidhackzor said:
i have been using zooper widget pro for a while now and i've been wondering if it's possible to create these widgets on a desktop for ease of configurations and so on? i searched for a thread on this but came up with people referring to the phone desktop not a desktop PC/mac/nix machine. possibly using android studio? i know that android studio is used to package your sets/widgets into apk format but it would help some of us who wish to develop more widgets for zooper if we could use the desktop for speed purposes.
any suggestions would be appreciated.
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I searched for the very same thing. I don't think you can because in virtual environment you don't have access to the sensors of a device. I could be entirely wrong! But I've tried creating a virtualBox android and the app will not install on it.
But .. I'm assuming that you're wishing to do this because it gets cumbersome to just sit on the phone and do it. Correct? If this is the cause there are three options for you. One is paid the other two are free. The paid one is VMLite VNC Server and you run that on your phone and connect to your phone using any VNC client. The first free one is Mobizen for the phone part and the PC part you have to get the Mobizen beta PC client. And the second free option is WiFi Keyboard + Screen Capture, just read the description in the Play Store. The second is a bit tricky to set up. I had to play around with it for 20 or so minutes and have had the best luck being on USB with it although it will work WiFi.
I hope this gets you further to where you want to be!

Having saw this post and tried both methods I couldn't deal with the lag so I used another method. I made a tutorial about it here if either if you are still interested.
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