[App] AndDiscovered - Android exploration tracking tool modeled after EDDiscovery

[Matt L. Icious]

Ok, I gave 2.8 a shot.

* After the update, the app crashed on start - every time. Uninstall & Reinstall fixed that. Since I have had the same behaviour with other apps, I assume that is either my device or the result of my previous attempts to make things work. No worries here.
* The connection to EDProxy still drops, but that seems to be related to the device's sleep mode. However, the connection gets reestablished quick (<5s) and the app synchronizes again. Much better!
* Did a ~10 jump route with the app as companion, entering the distances on the go. There were no more restarts required. Much better, the distance list fills much quicker and everything feels more responsive. Like this, using the app doesn't feel like a chore.

Conclusion: 2.8 is a significant improvement over 2.7
I'll test it some more in my further travels.

Thanks a lot.

 

[dognosh]

Spot on. Even being an IT tech years back there's plenty I don't get. I got here from your sticky and was intrigued by an android app....then realised I'd need to figure out edproxy and maybe eddiscover too and....that's a lot of reading for the limited game time I have available.
Your summary just reinspired me to take a look

Thanks, unfortunately the OP has not been updated, which is where most go to the 1st time

 

[Gen.Fussypants]

Ok, I gave 2.8 a shot.

* After the update, the app crashed on start - every time. Uninstall & Reinstall fixed that. Since I have had the same behaviour with other apps, I assume that is either my device or the result of my previous attempts to make things work. No worries here.
* The connection to EDProxy still drops, but that seems to be related to the device's sleep mode. However, the connection gets reestablished quick (<5s) and the app synchronizes again. Much better!
* Did a ~10 jump route with the app as companion, entering the distances on the go. There were no more restarts required. Much better, the distance list fills much quicker and everything feels more responsive. Like this, using the app doesn't feel like a chore.

Conclusion: 2.8 is a significant improvement over 2.7
I'll test it some more in my further travels.

Thanks a lot.

This is excellent news!

The connection to Edproxy will absolutely drop if the Android device goes into sleep mode (i.e. the screen goes black). You can actually watch how often Android turns on WiFi while in sleep mode as the service will reconnect to Edproxy each time, and then get torn back down. You can disable this behavior if you want. There are Android Apps that will force the device to stay "awake" as long as you want, or if you plug in a charger. You can also enable developer mode and turn the switch on that disables sleep when the charger is attached. I will investigate this as an option within AndDiscovered.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

Thanks, unfortunately the OP has not been updated, which is where most go to the 1st time

Sorry for the delay, however I want to make sure I have all the correct information. In needs to be correct for Mac, PC 32-bit and 64-bit, and Steam vs. non-Steam. I also think that if I have to go into this level of instructions then Edproxy is failing in some way. So I am looking at Edproxy to try and do more automatic discovery of all these locations.

 

[Iron Orchid]

2.8 seems a lot quicker than the previous versions.
A couple of requests:
1. Can we have a time of arrival and the date on each entry - it you have a few thousand its hard to find stuff?
2. Can we choose the systems for the trilateration - the default ones don't seem to clever as they appear to be all in the same direction.

I'll keep playing with it and make suggestions.

(no chance of making a windows 10 app from this is there - my win 10 tablet is much a better beast than my Android tablet?)

IO

 

[Gen.Fussypants]

1. Can we have a time of arrival and the date on each entry - it you have a few thousand its hard to find stuff?

I can look at a option to turn information on the system list on/off. It gets really cluttered quickly though. This is why I went with headers for date of entry. It might be better to be able to specify what you in the list rather than the hardcoded I have now. It will not come in the 3.0 release, but I can look at doing it in the next couple of releases following.

2. Can we choose the systems for the trilateration - the default ones don't seem to clever as they appear to be all in the same direction.

Right now it picks systems in a 180 degree arc in front of you along the same axis you are traveling. It allows the other two axis to float. You end up getting one of two things with this a) great diversity as there are not enough systems to choose from, or b) no diversity because there are a number of systems to choose from all in the same place.

For 3.0 I am redoing this. Yes, I am adding the ability to add your own systems. However, I am also changing the algorithm to run through EDSM to find systems that are not colinear or coplanar. This should give you the fewest number of systems required to find a position.

Gen. Fussypants

 

[Gen.Fussypants]

(no chance of making a windows 10 app from this is there - my win 10 tablet is much a better beast than my Android tablet?)

IO

I forgot to reply to this part. Sadly no Windows tablets in the future for me. This project was well outside my normal zone of expertise, and thus far has taken me forever to do the smallest things. 3.0 alone should not be taking me as long as it is, but given my already limited time it just keeps stretching on, and on, and on. I am close now though.

 

[Gen.Fussypants]

Thanks, unfortunately the OP has not been updated, which is where most go to the 1st time

I have updated the OP with some installation instruction. Feedback is always welcome.

 

[Iron Orchid]

Just a quick question:-

Does EdProxy only (other than the picture thing) send the netlog data to AndDiscovery and AndDiscovery does the data communication with EDSM? Or does AndDiscovery need EdProxy to be running all the time?

Seems to work very well since the new update. Distances have been transmitted to EDSM and back to EDdiscovery on sync.

I'm still using both as I find AndDiscovery better for entering data during play (for all except Trilateration)

 

[Gen.Fussypants]

Just a quick question:-

Does EdProxy only (other than the picture thing) send the netlog data to AndDiscovery and AndDiscovery does the data communication with EDSM? Or does AndDiscovery need EdProxy to be running all the time?

Seems to work very well since the new update. Distances have been transmitted to EDSM and back to EDdiscovery on sync.

I'm still using both as I find AndDiscovery better for entering data during play (for all except Trilateration)

Edproxy can send distances directly to EDSM. You need to setup your API and CMDR name in Edproxy->Settings. However, AndDiscovered does not yet pull CMDR systems from EDSM. Thus AndDiscovered still requires Edproxy to be running at all times. This was one of the features I also cut out of 3.0 due to time. It is already taking me so long just to get 3.0 where I want it I need to draw a line somewhere. I will incorporate this feature though!

Just as a note 3.0 will require Edproxy for other features however. So you may still want to leave it running.

 

[Bam]

I have just found your app via a post you made on reddit, much awesomeness!
EdProxy is also a nifty idea which I can see there being many many uses in the long term.

I have managed to import all my jumps so far on the Distant Worlds Trip, (including to returns to the bubble to pick up new SRV's).

I cant seem to figure out how to get the images to work, I have edproxy renaming and converting them to png, which is working, they just dont appear on my phone.

OK deactivated idiot mode and turned on images
Got it installed on the kids tablet now, much better with a bigger screen.

 

[Gen.Fussypants]

I have just found your app via a post you made on reddit, much awesomeness!
EdProxy is also a nifty idea which I can see there being many many uses in the long term.

I have managed to import all my jumps so far on the Distant Worlds Trip, (including to returns to the bubble to pick up new SRV's).

I cant seem to figure out how to get the images to work, I have edproxy renaming and converting them to png, which is working, they just dont appear on my phone.

From within AndDiscovered->Settings there will be an option to turn on images. I originally chose its default value as 'off' because it was going to actually store the data locally. However, I ended up just pulling the images via a web server running within Edproxy. So make sure the option is 'on'.

 

[Bam]

Sorry for all the questions...
Does it pull the full size image file to the the phone/tablet, or does edproxy resize things?

 

[Gen.Fussypants]

Sorry for all the questions...
Does it pull the full size image file to the the phone/tablet, or does edproxy resize things?

Edproxy does not resize. It will convert from BMP to PNG, but it will not resize. Thus AndDiscovered does pull the full image over. Currently I do not have "pan/tilt/zoom" on the images, but I want to enable that. Also, the image is a cached image. Thus it is not permanently on your phone/tablet.

Keep bringing the questions! It helps me know which areas I need to focus on for usability and documentation.

 

[Tucker Dale]

Hello,

I'm using a VPN connection to play Elite, since my ISP is using a crippled combination of IPv4 and IPv6 (Unity Media, Germany), which is not working with Elite. I am able to log date on EDSM via the Edproxy tool, but I can't get the AnDiscovery App to connect with Edproxy. Is this possible with an active VPN connection, or can't I use the App that way?

 

[Gen.Fussypants]

Hello,

I'm using a VPN connection to play Elite, since my ISP is using a crippled combination of IPv4 and IPv6 (Unity Media, Germany), which is not working with Elite. I am able to log date on EDSM via the Edproxy tool, but I can't get the AnDiscovery App to connect with Edproxy. Is this possible with an active VPN connection, or can't I use the App that way?

Your PC should still have a local IP address, however it may not be responding to Multicast due to the VPN. If you are running Windows open a command prompt "Run->cmd". Type "ipconfig". This should show you the IP address of each interface. One of them will be your local IP network address. If you are running a Mac then open a shell and type "ifconfig".

If you do still have a local IP address then go into AndDiscovered->Settings. Open the "Network" section. Turn off "Discovery" and manually input your IP address.

If you still cannot connect to Edproxy then it may be that Edproxy has "bound" to the wrong interface. This would be important information as I specifically did NOT bind to an interface. I left it open to any. Try the above and let me know how it goes. This could help others as well.

 

[Tucker Dale]

Your PC should still have a local IP address, however it may not be responding to Multicast due to the VPN. If you are running Windows open a command prompt "Run->cmd". Type "ipconfig". This should show you the IP address of each interface. One of them will be your local IP network address. If you are running a Mac then open a shell and type "ifconfig".

If you do still have a local IP address then go into AndDiscovered->Settings. Open the "Network" section. Turn off "Discovery" and manually input your IP address.

If you still cannot connect to Edproxy then it may be that Edproxy has "bound" to the wrong interface. This would be important information as I specifically did NOT bind to an interface. I left it open to any. Try the above and let me know how it goes. This could help others as well.

Thanks so much! I entered the local IPv4 address and it works!

 

[Bam]

I have this installed on my phone and the kids tablets, it seems that the EDSM distances are only being sent to my phone, every distance on the tablet is zero, and none of my trilaterated systems (manual ones not ones calculated by the app) are showing up.
Is this something to do with having two clients connected to the proxy? Does the server say 'I have sent this data, don't send it again?' or something like that. Sorry not very technical when it comes to the dark arts of programming

I will test later with just the tablet connected and let you know if anything different happens.Its receiving all the system jumps but no data from EDSM by the looks of it.

Update:
Well all my systems apart from the last 10 jumps on the tablet now appear to have EDSM data, the phone has all the data. This updated happened while only the tablet was connected to the proxy.

 

[Gen.Fussypants]

I have this installed on my phone and the kids tablets, it seems that the EDSM distances are only being sent to my phone, every distance on the tablet is zero, and none of my trilaterated systems (manual ones not ones calculated by the app) are showing up.
Is this something to do with having two clients connected to the proxy? Does the server say 'I have sent this data, don't send it again?' or something like that. Sorry not very technical when it comes to the dark arts of programming

I will test later with just the tablet connected and let you know if anything different happens.Its receiving all the system jumps but no data from EDSM by the looks of it.

Edproxy should send out to any connected "listener". Thus two devices should show new systems as they are entered. The core idea behind Edproxy is to serve the net log to as many different applications at the same time as possible. If there is a failing in this then it hits at the core of the application. I will be running some scenarios to triple check tonight.

Each device interacts with EDSM separately. Thus if you trilaterate a system, or enter a new distance, on your phone it may not show up on your tablet for up to 15 minutes. That being said if it is in EDSM then both devices should be showing the same information. It troubles me that you are seeing this in the Android devices. I have both a phone and two tablets I have been messing with. I tested with both the phone and tablet connected at the same time and didn't see anything major. I will run through some tests tonight to see if I broke something.

As much information as possible would be highly appreciated. Device types, how you use them (one at a time or simultaneously), etc. Screen shot would be awesome if you can. You can send anything to fussyware@gmail.com, or PM through here.

 

[Bam]

I'll sum up what I have been doing.
I record all distances and do the trilateration with EDiscovery and use that to submit data to EDSM.
Last night I had the phone (Sony Experia Z1), and Tablet (Tesco Hudl) both connected to edproxy. The gui shows both devices connected and both apps have the green light.
(I am not expecting the distances to show up until at least 15-30 minutes after submitting them to ESDM.)
Both apps have exactly the same flight log and distances apart from the last 10 entries on the tablet, which are still blank.

I am going to fly tonight and just use the tablet to enter distances, maybe do the odd trilateration thru EDDiscovery.

Great work on your programs btw. Loving anddiscovered....


How often does the server get info from EDSM

 

[Gen.Fussypants]

I'll sum up what I have been doing.
I record all distances and do the trilateration with EDiscovery and use that to submit data to EDSM.
Last night I had the phone (Sony Experia Z1), and Tablet (Tesco Hudl) both connected to edproxy. The gui shows both devices connected and both apps have the green light.
(I am not expecting the distances to show up until at least 15-30 minutes after submitting them to ESDM.)
Both apps have exactly the same flight log and distances apart from the last 10 entries on the tablet, which are still blank.

I am going to fly tonight and just use the tablet to enter distances, maybe do the odd trilateration thru EDDiscovery.

Great work on your programs btw. Loving anddiscovered....


How often does the server get info from EDSM

I cannot thank you enough for do this testing. It is impossible for me to catch all these different issues. I can only test what I know, and might dream up.

I pull information from EDSM on application startup and every 15 minutes there after.

Tonight I will wipe the database on my phone and tablet. I will then connect as if for the first time and see what I get. If Edproxy is failing at sending data to multiple clients then the very basis of the application is a failure. If there is an issue there I will find it and fix as soon as possible.