Wish Installation on several devices

[Informatix]

When I want to test my code on different devices (a thing that I do many times a day) I have to compile and select the destination device repeatedly. Even on a very fast PC, that's a bit boring, especially with 4 devices. That should be fine if I could install the compiled APK on several devices in one operation (e.g. by selecting more than one device in the dialog). Or, at least, it would be great if I could just have to send the APK to a new device without recompiling.

 

[HotShoe]

If you use genymotion to test in you can drag and drop the apk into each one.

--- Jem

 

[Informatix]

If you use genymotion to test in you can drag and drop the apk into each one.

--- Jem

Genymotion is very usable since the version 2.1 but still unstable after repeated installations of my current project, so I prefer to use my real devices. And Genymotion does not work at all on my PC at work (an incompatibility with my graphic card, it seems).

 

[Gabino A. de la Gala]

Dropbox? I have a common shared folder in all muy devices with de apk's

 

[eps]

Just out of interest, does your testing provide a lot of feedback? I'm just wondering if you need to tone it down a little..

I also put my Apps on Dropbox, but then get associates to test them. I've got 3 devices, but only really test on 1 main one, before then testing on the other 2 prior to a big release.

 

[Informatix]

Dropbox? I have a common shared folder in all muy devices with de apk's

You should read the first post. It's about testing on several devices after each compilation. Dropbox cannot help.

 

[Informatix]

Just out of interest, does your testing provide a lot of feedback? I'm just wondering if you need to tone it down a little..

What do you mean?

 

[eps]

What do you mean?

I've added to my post above, but in answer to that part.

You say that you test on 4x devices a lot, throughout the day. Do the tests provide you with feedback about that App that you then act on? It sounds like your testing schedule is too tight. Do you really need to test on 4 devices in one day? I don't think I'd see the benefit, but then again I think your Apps are in a different category to mine.

ETA : Of course I'm sure we're all aware that the purpose of testing is to prove that something works or to uncover an issue.

 

[Gabino A. de la Gala]

Perhaps I didn't understand you...

I compile one time and I can install the same apk in all devices.

 

[Informatix]

I've added to my post above, but in answer to that part.

You say that you test on 4x devices a lot, throughout the day. Do the tests provide you with feedback about that App that you then act on? It sounds like your testing schedule is too tight. Do you really need to test on 4 devices in one day? I don't think I'd see the benefit, but then again I think your Apps are in a different category to mine.

When you create a game, where most things are visual, I think that's important to test on different devices frequently (not every time of course, but once my devices are connected, they stay connected). Two recent examples (in both examples, the issue only occurred on a single device):
- my 10" tablet introduced a noticeable latency before displaying each menu because of the time needed to load some resources from the assets folder (as the changes to fix this issue were important, I'm glad that I noticed it at an early stage of the app);
- on a 4" phone, the size that I chose for the font did not allow to read easily (depending on the case, changing a font size can have a big impact on your app as you have to resize many objects); another font was fine on 2 tablets, but on the third, it was a bit ugly because of the density of 160dpi.

If you have very similar devices, testing on all of them is useless most of the time, but on very different devices, you can see interesting things many times a day (for example, a Kindle device from Amazon runs under Fire OS, a heavily modified Android, so it has subtle differences that you have to take into account). Testing on different devices is usually useful to check your layouts and make sure that everything is displayed at the right place with the right size, with the expected rendering, and also to check performance (imagine that you build your app upon a library that runs fine on your main device but is terribly slow on another device; what do you do when all your code is based on this library?).

EDIT: I never said that I wanted to install the APK on all the connected devices after each compilation (50% of the time, I test only on one device). I want to do it easily every time I need to, and it's many times a day.

 

[Informatix]

Perhaps I didn't understand you...

I compile one time and I can install the same apk in all devices.

I compile many times a day. Sometimes, I do a test every 5 minutes until I'm satisfied by the result. And I don't want to install the APK on all devices that I own, only the devices that I connected to the PC. So I can't see what Dropbox can do for me.

 

[junglejet]

On my dev PC my B4A working folder is a Dropbox folder.
After every compilation Dropbox automatically updates all attached Android devices (and others) with the latest apk file in the bin folder. Takes a few seconds.
On those devices which are not connected by the bridge, I have a favorite defined in the Dropbox app that points to the apk file. When I want, as you, to do a quick check on others than the main device, I just tap the favorite and it installs the latest apk.
Certainly this can be made a few seconds faster, if the bridge could be extended to multiple devices... but for me the Dropbox approach is ok.
I use the same approach to test on Blackberry OS10. No problem.
Hope this helps how Dropbox can help.

 

[Gabino A. de la Gala]

On my dev PC my B4A working folder is a Dropbox folder.
After every compilation Dropbox automatically updates all attached Android devices (and others) with the latest apk file in the bin folder. Takes a few seconds.
On those devices which are not connected by the bridge, I have a favorite defined in the Dropbox app that points to the apk file. When I want, as you, to do a quick check on others than the main device, I just tap the favorite and it installs the latest apk.
Certainly this can be made a few seconds faster, if the bridge could be extended to multiple devices... but for me the Dropbox approach is ok.
I use the same approach to test on Blackberry OS10. No problem.
Hope this helps how Dropbox can help.

This is the same that I do. Only much more better explained.

I do the same with B4J projects.

 

[Informatix]

On my dev PC my B4A working folder is a Dropbox folder.
After every compilation Dropbox automatically updates all attached Android devices (and others) with the latest apk file in the bin folder. Takes a few seconds.

It's how I figured out the use of Dropbox. But I probably missed a feature in this app. Can it deploy app on several devices connected via USB? With "deploy", I mean "install silently and run the app". I'm pretty sure that it needs a network (wifi or 3G/4G); unfortunately I have no wifi at work and none tablet has 3G/4G. Moreover how can I select the destination devices among all the connected devices?
Anyway, I don't want to install Dropbox (too much permissions, and I wonder what use can be done with some of them not related to the main goal of this app, and I already have Folder Sync which is closer to my needs). But I appreciate your help and your advices. That may be helpful for others.

 

[thedesolatesoul]

Not related to this thread, but at the moment, PushBullet is a better solution to push an apk to one or multilpe devices (Windows beta version on their blog). It needs internet connection, and can not silently install.
Only USB connection can do the silent/fast install.
Workaround with a custom build action: adb devices -> list all devices, adb install -> install to any device.
However, this is a good wish for IDE.

 

[Informatix]

I tested my app on eight devices this night (4 real, 4 virtual) ! And found a bug on one of them (the rounding of a value returned 0, which was not a valid value). @eps: as you can see, even 8 is not too much.