Category Archives: Auto Respond

Android, Auto Respond

Auto Respond 1.2.8.1

Yesterday, I drove to Buffalo for work for the first time in many months. Much to my surprise, I docked my phone and Auto Respond did not automatically start.

I looked into this, and turns out… there were some bugs in my docking code. This has now been fixed, and the new version has been published. (It may be a couple hours before it’s live on Google’s servers though)

In order to make the docking options work again, you may need to go into the dock options screen and toggle all of your active options off then back on.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

As usual, if you find a bug like this PLEASE let me know. I take information like this well, and I WILL look into it if you report something like this. I’d rather have someone tell me that my app is not working properly rather than have an app on the market that isn’t working as advertised.
I am human. I occasionally make mistakes, and am willing to admit to my mistakes.

Android, Auto Respond, Tic-Tac-Toe

New apps!

I think both apps are ready!

Auto Respond:

The only thing I didn’t finish is adding the new settings to individual schedules. To tell the truth, I’ve just been too lazy to do it.

Change Log:

  • Fixed a bug with “Silence Ringer” option
  • Fixed a bug with “Desk Dock Response Message” in “Dock Settings” screen
  • Fixed a bug which caused the “OK” button on the main settings screen to disappear on orientation change
  • Made responding to text messages optional
  • Changed some more “Cancel” buttons to “OK”
  • Added Analytics to learn how users interact with the app
  • Added “Share App” option to menu
Tic Tac Toe:
It’s done! Roughly 36 hours after I started, I have a playable version of Tic Tac Toe with 3 difficulties:
  • Easy – chooses a random number, and if the spot is free, it moves there. If not, it chooses again until it finds an empty spot
  • Medium – If it can win, it wins. If it can block, it blocks. Otherwise, same random number scheme
  • Impossible – If you can win (not tie, actually win) I did something wrong.
I have a very simple icon for it, and some basic graphics… nothing too amazing it’s Tic Tac Toe!
I do still need to add some advertisements to it, just to attempt to bring in some small amounts of cash, but that’s quick and easy.
Neither of these have been released yet, but I will likely upload them late tonight or early tomorrow.

Android, Auto Respond

More Progress

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to program at all this weekend. I wasn’t feeling well, and had a lot to do on top of that. (The hockey game sucked, but my brother’s gf threw him a surprise 30th birthday and that was fun.)

I did however get to do some programming last night. I was able to build in the optional text response. The former “Phone Options” menu is now called “Main Options”, and has the added option of “Respond to Text Messages”. This new option defaults on, as that is the main function of the app for the majority of users.

As I stated earlier, one of the three options on that page MUST be enabled… the app won’t let you leave the screen without having one of them enabled:

  1. Respond to Text Messages
  2. Respond to Calls
  3. Silence Ringer
One of those MUST be active, otherwise the app is basically useless.

In other news, I’ve squashed a couple more bugs (that I didn’t know existed until last night when I was coding):

  • Fixed a bug with “Silence Ringer” option
  • Fixed a bug with “Desk Dock Response Message” in “Dock Settings” screen
  • Fixed a bug which caused the “OK” button on the main settings screen to disappear on orientation change
These are documented in the full changelog, which is linked in the Play Store listing.
I still have a few things to finish before I release a new version. Here’s what I would like to accomplish before releasing a new version:
  • Add some more settings to schedules
    • ringer settings (silent/vibrate/app default)
    • response settings (respond to text/call/both/neither/app default)
  • Add analytics to Pro version
These are relatively small changes and shouldn’t take long to complete. I should be able to finish them up tonight.
I realize these are both changes that only apply to the pro version, but I don’t want to release the update to the free version prior to release an updated pro version. Also (as I did yesterday) I sometimes find, and fix, bugs in code that I’m not necessarily actively working on. So if I find such a bug while working on code for the pro version, I can fix it in the free version before releasing it.
Bottom line: a new version should only be a couple days away! 🙂
Android, Auto Respond

App Idea

I was going to pitch a new app idea to you guys, but as I was writing I realized I could actually just build it into Auto Respond instead.

I said last post that this app would be useless if both “Respond to texts” and “Respond to calls” were disabled…. but that’s not entirely true. I also have an option to “Silence Ringer”. If both respond options are turned off, Auto Respond could act like a “Quiet Hours” app.

After realizing this, I have decided that I AM going to allow the user to turn off both response settings, but only if the silence option is active. Basically, at least one of the 3 of those options (respond to texts, respond to calls, or silence ringer) has to be enabled… and if none of them are, THEN the app would be useless.

I am also going to add some new things to schedules also… you will be able to set each individual schedule to use the default app ringer options (set in the app settings), make no changes to the ringer, or silence/vibrate the ringer. Also, for each schedule I am going to add the options for responding to texts/calls. These will likely have the same kind of choices… use the app default setting, enabled, or disabled.
For new and existing schedules, these will default to “Use app default”, since that’s what they are doing now.

This will make it so that you can actually create a schedule for quiet hours. Don’t want to be disturbed when you’re sleeping? Simple, set up a schedule for when you normally sleep and set it to  silence the ringer when it’s enabled. Don’t sleep at the same time every night/day? Set up a generic schedule with the “silence ringer” option enabled, keep the schedule disabled, and use the manual “start” and “stop” buttons when you go to sleep and wake up.

As a note – I have not written ANY of the code to actually do this yet… it’s just an idea right now. But it shouldn’t be difficult to implement. If it’s easy enough, I may actually have it included in my next update.

Android, Auto Respond

Request for Auto Respond

Someone today posted a review with a request that responding to text messages become optional, like responding to phone calls is. I have actually been thinking about doing this for quite some time, and will spend a bit of time making it a reality soon.

I plan on changing around the settings screens a bit, to make it so that the two options are actually on the same page. I want to do this so that you cannot disable BOTH options at the same time. The app is useless if both options are disabled.

If you aren’t following me on Twitter (I’ve actually posted more about it on FB than anything, but w/e) you might not know that I’ve been sick for a few days. I didn’t go to work today, and I actually slept almost all day. I’m feeling much better after a day off, (and MUCH sleep) and I’m hoping to be back to 100% soon. If I do get better I plan on doing some programming this weekend. Unfortunately, this is a busy weekend. I’m going to a hockey game tomorrow night and, because of the playoffs, football is on both Saturday and Sunday this weekend. So I may not spend as much time as a usual weekend session, but this option addition is a simple thing that I should be able to push out in no time. (Sorry, I enjoy my football.)

I still have some other things to finish, like adding analytics to the paid version, but when they are all completed I’ll release an update. Hopefully that update will come this weekend or early next week.

If you have requests, PLEASE let me know. I’d prefer it not be in a review, because I may not see those immediately (or ever, if a lot of people end up leaving reviews simultaneously.) You can leave requests here in my blog or contact me on Twitter, Google+, or by email. My Twitter, Google+ and Email address are all available in the app description on Google Play, and are also in the app under the “Credits” screen in the menu.

One last thing:
All of the reviews that I HAVE received, on both versions, have been 5 stars. THANK YOU for that! I am trying to keep everyone happy (including myself) and sometimes that’s not an easy thing to do. But you guys seem to appreciate the work that I’ve put into this app, and I’m thankful for that. Keep the reviews coming!! 🙂

As always, any requests or issues, please let me know and I will look into it!

Android, Auto Respond, Google Analytics

What I’ve been working on

As I’ve said before, I’m a casual programmer, and therefore take breaks occasionally. The past week or 2 have been one of those breaks.

Most of my time recently has been on getting my Nexus 10, replacing my N10, rooting my N10… I think you see the trend. (And the holidays just passed, so there was some extra time with family/friends in there too.)

I have done a SMALL amount of programming in that time… I played with Google Analytics a bit to see some of the things that can be done there. So far I have only built it into the free version, but will likely be copying that work into the paid version before I release the next update (and adding to it, since there are parts of the app that are not accessible in the free version.)

With analytics I am collecting the following:

  • Screen views
    • What screens the user views, how many times each screen is viewed, and how much time is spent on each screen
    • This includes basic screens as well as settings screens
  • Clicks
    • How many times each button is clicked
    • How many times list items are clicked
      • List items include your list of preset messages, do-no-respond list contacts, and in the paid versions, schedules.
      • This does not send any information about what information is IN the list item, just the fact that you clicked it, and what type of list item it was (a message, a schedule, etc.)
    • How many times list items are long-clicked
      • See above item
    • How many times list items are edited/deleted from the long-click menu
      • See above item
Things that have not been built in, but likely will be before I release an update:
  • Settings
    • What settings are being changed, and how the settings are being used
  • How often the response message is changed
    • Again, no information about what the message contains will be sent, only the fact that the message has been changed
Things that are NOT collected as part of this process:
  • Any kind of identifying information
    • Things like age, gender, name, account names, passwords, etc. will NOT be collected from analytics, or in any other manner, and never will be.
“Personal” information that IS collected:
  • Location
    • When I was doing my testing Google Analytics was able to tell me what town I was in, probably based on IP address.
    • This is NOT an exact location. I can NOT see that you are using my app in McDonald’s on Main Street in New Orleans (I don’t know if such a thing even exists, it was just a collection of random places) I can only see that the app is being used in New Orleans.
    • I most likely will not do anything with this information, aside from possibly seeing which countries use that app the most.
Just an FYI – this is information that probably 90% of apps out there are collecting, so I am not doing anything that other developers aren’t already doing. The only thing that I’m doing different is that I’m being 100% straight up about the information that I will be collecting. No fine print, it’s all right here in a public blog in an easy to read bullet list.
I have also found an easy way to exclude my own devices from this collection. I don’t care how I interact with the app…. I KNOW how I interact with the app… what I want to know is how my USERS interact with the app, and what features/settings they use the most.
I will use this information to improve the features that are used most often.

Also on the list of changes I have made:

  • changed some more “Cancel” buttons into “OK” buttons
    • I kept some as “Cancel” when it made sense
  • Added a “Share App” option to the menu
    • This will open a share dialog, where you can share a link to the app in the Play Store via any installed app that receives a share intent (Facebook, Twitter, Messaging, email, etc.)
I have not really been working on any new features, just small improvements. The next new feature that I will work on (when I decide to start working on new stuff again) is the ability to send personalized responses to specific individuals. I talked about this in one of my previous posts. It’s the ONLY feature request that I’ve received from users, and I’ve had multiple people ask for it.
Personally, I’d like to get a widget working first. But nobody seems too worried about that right now except me, so I’ll put that on the back burner. (Plus I’ve tried a couple times already, and been unsuccessful with it.)
As usual: Any requests, comments, concerns, etc…. you know where to find me. I’d especially like to get some feedback on what you think of the analytic information I’m going to collect. So if you have anything to say about it, feel free to leave a comment.
Android, Auto Respond

Auto Respond 1.2.7.1 – ICS crash fix

Sorry guys, there was a function that I thought was introduced in 4.0, and apparently it was introduced in 4.1…. long story short, if you’re running Android 4.0.x then Auto Respond 1.2.7 may crash on opening. (Android 2.x should be fine, 4.1.x and 4.2.x should also be fine)

1.2.7.1 fixes this, I accurately changed the cutoff for that function’s usage from 4.0 to 4.1.

1.2.7.1 was JUST published, so it may be a while before it is live. If you haven’t updated to 1.2.7 yet, you may want to wait until 1.2.7.1 is live on Google’s servers. Sorry for the mixup :-\

Android, Auto Respond

Auto Respond 1.2.7

Auto Respond 1.2.7 has been published, and should be available right now on the Play Store. The only difference is the tutorial.

Let me know what you think about the tutorial, and if there is anything that needs to be changed/fixed. (I saw a few small issues, but the things I noticed were small aesthetic issues, not performance issues)

Android, Auto Respond

Auto Respond Tutorial

The last couple days I have been working on a tutorial for Auto Respond. This tutorial will display the first time Auto Respond is opened, then will not show again. It is an overlay on top of the main screen.

There is also a new option in the settings menu to force the tutorial to show again. But even when that is turned on the tutorial will show once, then it will not show again unless you again enter the settings and turn on that option.

I have tested the tutorial on Android 4.2 and 2.3, and it seems to work well on both.  The only thing I have not done yet is built it into the free version, which includes ads. I may have to find a way to wait until after the tutorial ends to load the ads. This may be easy, I just haven’t tried yet.
Here is a screenshot of the first part of the tutorial:
As you can see here, the tutorial disables the entire interface, except the OK button at the bottom, and highlights the specific piece that it is referring to. This shows the user EXACTLY how and where to interact with the app, and how the app works.
I hope to release this update later today. The sooner the better, because it will help new users understand how to use the app.