Designing For Android | Hacker News Reader

Designing For Android

coding.smashingmagazine.com

101 pointsjoshuacc21 comments

> Your product manager has just asked for screenshots of the developer’s build. The developer is busy and can’t get them to you until tomorrow. What do you do?! As of this writing, Android has no built-in way to take screenshots

Of all the little things that hurt the Android Market, this lack of screenshot taking is probably one that Google engineers did not realize would be so big.

How do we expect bloggers and normal people to write about and share an app they like if they don't have an easy way to take screenshots like iOS' Power + Home?

I'm an iPhone user and have very little experience with Android, and I'm pretty surprised to find this out.

I was trying to help someone set up his email on an Android device yesterday and the setup guide I found featured clumsy photos of the phone and its various set up screens. I was wondering why someone would take that approach vs. grabbing screen shots. I guess that question is answered.

What model Android phone?

I'm curious because I remember going into the tmobile store in the mall and purchasing the G1 back in 2008. I had the phone and email setup before getting back to my car.

I think it depends on the phone but I'm pretty sure most Android devices can do that by now. Mine can take screenshots by pressing the Home+Power buttons.

really? what phone are you on?

Galaxy S2, I know it worked on the original Galaxy S aswell. And I think I've seen it working on the Nexus S.

It could be that Samsung added it to their phones and that it's not a Android feature itself.

it is a samsung-specific feature. it is not present in AOSP or most other manufacturer builds of android.

This is actually a intentional move by the android team. It is a security issue to implement screen shots because any android app or service could immitate user actions and save the image. Imagine malware that took screenshots every time you logged onto your bank account.

That doesn't even make sense. iOS has a hardware method for taking screen shots. You physically press the power and home buttons and a screenshot is taken and sent to your Photo album.

I would assume that the screenshot functionality would be implemented as an OS-level, highly protected service (one that <uses-permission> in the manifest would not be able to grant an app access to).

Of course, if the phone is rooted, it's the Wild West and any app can potentially run the screenshot service.

Unless you root your device, which can invalidate your warranty with most manufacturers and service providers (at least here in UK - hence why many people don't want to do it), and use a app like ShootMe (which I found to be good and also one of the least intrusive in terms of required permissions), taking screenshots on most Android handsets is a pain.

You can install the Android SDK (and required dependencies) which includes tools you can use to grab screens, but I found it easier for most people to install a tool like MyPhoneExplorer (which is free, includes ADB, and is very easy for non-technical people to install) and the driver for their phone (usually on the handset itself for many devices e.g. HTC phones) instead. The big benefit is not only does it have a built-in and easy way to take screenshots, but also can be used to backup/restore your phone including all contacts/mms/sms/apps/settings/etc, and can be used for multiple handsets (or you can make different profiles for same handset as a crude version control), different phones e.g. Samsung/HTC/Nokia, and different OS e.g. as used on Nokia/SonyEricson/BB/etc, so makes transfer or CRUD of contacts/mms/sms/etc between devices easy and saves on hassles of having different software suites for different phones.

The only solution I have found to take screenshots directly on a mobile without full (permanently) rooting it is to soft root it using the RATC (RageAgainstTheCage) exploit either directly with ADB or far more easily using a tool like UnRevoked. This roots the phone until it is turned off, where upon a restart the phone is once more unrooted.

Lastly, if you just want to take screen shots of your website or web-app, you can do it without any rooting by installing the excellent DolphinHD browser and Screen-Cut plugin. This also has added advantage of being able to take full length shots of your page as one screenshot.

Note: AFAIK this applies to almost all devices I've seen up to Android Froyo (2.2) and most Gingerbread (2.3) and tablets. Some manufacturers may have implemented their own screenshot system.

Its nice to see some good design advice for android getting out there. The reputation for poor usability on the platform is I think driven more by designers treating it as a secondary platform than it is android being difficult to create good ui with. So many apps on the market feel like poorly thought through iPhone ports with explicit exit functionality, loss of state on exit/resume , soft buttons for things like search and back that exist as hard buttons, and glossy iPhone like interface that feels out of place.

The best bit of advice I thought was to actually get a device and spend time using it day to day before designing for it. If you're going to design effectively you have to get into the users shoes a bit and understand their expectations.

You can get screenshots from Android but it requires the SDK and USB drivers which is probably a PITA for a designer.

Or a Samsung handset, which allows you to take screenshots using menu and home.

Which Samsung handsets? This doesn't work on my Captivate.

At least the international Galaxy S.

Agreed. This is a major PITA for basically all non developers in your company.

Android 3.1 does have built-in screenshot functionality in the UI.

Why not just use the Android emulator to take a screenshot?

I think this tutorial was meant for designers rather than developers who would be familiar with the emulator. You'll note that they went through the steps of informing the reader to actually install the sdk? This way might have a few advantages I think. What if you wanted to get a screenshot of how your app looked on a particular device with a different dpi or aspect ratio than the emulator?

But if you've installed the SDK, you now have the emulator. You can also set the DPI/aspect ratio for the emulator to several common settings.

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