Version 3 (modified by AlexT, 8 years ago) (diff)

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Rebranding the Dolphin Mobile App - (Basic Version)

These instructions will walk you through the basics of rebranding your Android mobile app. There are additional tips at the bottom of this tutorial that can help assist you quicker.

Getting the Android SDK package:

  1. Go to https://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html and download the SDK bundle for Windows.
  • Note: You may be required to sign into your Google account
  1. Once downloaded in your desired location, extract the zip file contents.

Getting the Android Mobile App Source Code:

  1. Sign in to your BoonEx account and navigate to the 'Licenses' page.
  2. Locate your Mobile License and click the 'unregistered' link
  3. Click the 'Download Android App source code' link and save it to your desired location.

  1. Once downloaded, extract the contents of the zip file.

Let begin the rebranding process.

  1. Go to the folder where you extracted the contents for the Android SDK package.
  2. Double click the SDK Manager
  3. You will need to install at least 1 Android operation system in order to continue. In this tutorial, I am chose version 4.0 (not all devices have the latest).
  4. Once you have finished choosing your version, click the Install (#) Packages button. Accept the license and click the Install button.
  5. Once you receive the 'Done Loading Packages' at the bottom left of the SDK Manager, simply close this application as it is no longer needed at this time.

Launching Eclipse:

  1. From within the same folder as the SDK Manager, open the eclipse folder and then double click the eclipse.exe file to launch the program.
  2. Click the File > Import from the menu
  3. On the Import screen, choose the Android folder > Existing Android Code into Workspace and click Next.
  4. Click the Browse button and navigate to the directory where you unzipped the Android Mobile App source code.
  5. Once in that directory click OK. Make sure that all 3 projects are selected and click Finish.
  6. Now you will want to add a Virtual Device for your application to run on. To do that, click the Window > Android Virtual Device Manager.
  1. From this screen choose New and provide the following information:
  • Device Name: Choose your preferred name
  • Device - I would recommend the Nexus S option
  • Target = Android 4.0
  • Memory = Change to 512
  • Once you have that information set, click OK
  1. Set the application to use your new virtual device. You can do this by clicking Run > Run Configurations
  2. Click the Target tab and put a checkmark in the Device Name you just created, click Apply, then click Close
  1. Since it take a while for the emulator to load, go ahead and launch it by clicking Run button or from the main menu choose Run > Run
  1. Once the emulator has loaded, follow the steps to get the Android applications. You will see the 'Dolphin' app already installed. Click the application to launch, add your site (if you receive an error you may need to remove or add the www in your domain name), enter your login credentials and login!

You can browse the app if you have never seen/used it before to get yourself familiar with it. Once you are done, click the 'Back' arrow on the emulator menu until you exit the application. (Keep this emulator running)

Editing the code for your own application name and website:

  1. In eclipse, expand the Main folder by clicking the arrow to the left.
  2. Double click the AndroidManifest?.xml file to edit
  3. In the Package field (center window), remove com.boonex.oo and replace it with the app name you want in the following format: com.yourdoman.appname and then click save.
  4. A popup window will display telling you that the 'Package definition in the manifest has change. Do you want to update your launch configuration?'. Click Yes.
  5. You can close this file by clicking the X by the file name (center window). Note: You may see a red X appear next to the 'src' folder.
  6. To fix this, expand the 'src' folder. Right click on the com.boonex.oo file and choose Refactor > Rename
  7. Type in the new name you gave your app > put a checkmark in 'Rename subpackages' >then click OK.
  8. If you receive a screen that contains a list of compile errors, click continue to fix them. You will now see the red X has disappeared from the src folder. (do not worry about the ! sign)
  9. To see the changes you just made, click the run button.
  10. Tip: When making changes to your mobile app, you will want to periodically 'clean' your project by clicking Project > Clean
  11. Tip: After viewing your changes, always make sure that you back out of the application before running your app.

Images: The images for the Android app are located in the res > drawable, drawable-hdpi, drawable-ldpi, and drawable-xhpi. The easiest way to replace these images is to keep your own images named the same and properly sized for each folder.

Text (Strings): To change the 'text' or 'styles' used within the mobile app, you will want to open the res > values folder. To change the text, double click the strings.xml file. You can click the attributes in the center window to change the text 'value' to your desire. For example: title (String) = MyNewApp? Click each resource to change as needed.

Locking your app to your site ONLY: If you want to lock your app to your site (where nobody can 'add' another dolphin site), you will need to edit com/boonex/oo/Main.java file to specify URL to your site:

public static final String LOCK_TO_SITE=null; // specify site you want to lock to, for example: "mysite.com/dolphin"

Submitting your .apk to Google Play:

Once you have finalized your branding and tested successfully, you can now submit it to the Google Play market. Eclipse automatically builds your app as you develop. You can find your .apk file in the /bin directory (named Main.apk unless you decided to rename it.)

Here is the location that will start the submitting process: https://play.google.com/apps/publish/

 
Below is the legacy version of the Boonex site, maintained for Dolphin.Pro 7.x support.
The new Dolphin solution is powered by UNA Community Management System.
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