Month Calendar Widget surpassed 1 million downloads

Great news!

Yesterday Month Calendar Widget surpassed the 1 million download mark!

Thanks to all who downloaded it and gave feedback. Specially to those who sent emails and waited a lot for a response (that times are gone, recently I took the good habit of answering pretty soon).

What's next? Right now I'm finishing details of version 1.4.0 which will bring more adaptability to the myriad of different screen resolutions and sizes in the Android world, while paving the way to future enhancements that will take advantage of new Android features and also will allow more widget customization.

Thanks again!

I can reply reviews in Google Play

Hi Month Calendar Widget users, great news.

Since today I'm allowed to reply your reviews in Google Play. I cannot promise to answer every review, but I always read all of them and will continue to do so in order to improve the app.

Please make sure you read carefully the app's description before posting your review, and also when possible use kind words ;). By the way: Spanish is my mother language, and I know English and Portuguese. I will answer in English when receiving comments in other languages.

Thank you all.

Month Calendar Widget Version 1.3.1 is out

Version 1.3.1 is now on Google Play. The widget looks good now for Android 4.x users that saw a clipped widget on version 1.3.0. Also Android reports the correct sizes, 3x2 and 4x3.

Many thanks to N.Ch., d_k and Keving Hastings, the users that helped to diagnose the problem.

Sorry for the inconvenience introduced in the previous version. Stay tuned for more upgrades in the future.

Answering some comments about Month Calendar Widget 1.3.0

Some users have found issues with the recently launched version 1.3.0. Since I have no way to answer Google Play's comments (only selected publishers can) I'm replying in this post.

The problems reported up to now are:

1. Widget does not display correctly on some ICS/Jelly Bean devices
Some Android 4.x devices inform incorrect sizes for the 3x2 widget, and in some cases for both 3x2 and 4x3. For example, some users are seeing a 3x3 label for the 3x2 widget in the list of available widgets.
The fact that the operating system "sees" the widget as n x n size implies it will reserve space for n x n cells in the Home screen, period. Both widget sizes are defined explicitely in the application code as they were on version 1.2.0, but Android 4.x seems to differ and the result is a clipped widget, normally losing some or all of the last row of dates

2. Icon on applications drawer
A bunch of users are complaining about the presence of the app icon in the drawer. This is intended. As I say implicitly here, the feature was introduced with two purposes:

• to give a helping hand to users that get lost after dowloading it
• to solve an annoyance have a workaround for a feature introduced in Android 3.0 that causes Home screen widgets to not appear among others after installation. The instructions screen shown after downloading the app contributes to solve the issue, making the widget immediately available for Android 3.x/4.x Android users

There is a way to get rid of the icon in applications drawer, but I found that doing so brings problems when trying to reinstall the application. So I decided to keep it there.

I'm doing an extensive research right now to solve the first issue. I'll report back here when I fid a solution.

EDIT March 6th: Version 1.3.1 is now on Google Play. Size issues fixed for Android 4.x users.

Month Calendar Widget version 1.3.0 is out

A new version of Month Calendar Widget, 1.3.0, is on Google Play now. It includes these new features and bug fixes:

• Saturday as first day of week: For people living in islamic countries where weeks start on Saturday
• Autoadjust column width option: The widget shows misaligned columns in some configurations. This new option assures columns always align properly
• Layout adjustment for some tablet models: A minor layout glitch that required navigating through months to be solved (reported for some tablets), is now fixed
• Names of months in Slavic languages: Languages such as Polish and Russian showed incorrect month names. It's fixed now for Android versions 2.3.x and greater
• Instructions screen after downloading the app: For those users that need a little help to begin using the widget
• App not present in list of installed widgets on Honeycomb/ICS/Jelly Bean: Since Android 3.x Home screen widgets don't appear immediately in the list of installed widgets after being downloaded, in most cases a device reboot was needed to get them listed. In this version the widget appears at once.

If you have installed version 1.2.0 or earlier and want to take advantage of some of the new features/fixes, it's not necessary to uninstall the application. Just update it from Google Play and afterwards delete any widget instances present on the Home screen and add them again. The new options will appear in the Settings screen.

Please note that the new Instructions screen appearing after downloading the app has some implications:

• The screen shows the steps needed to put the widget on the Home screen. In no way the app gets installed automatically (Android doesn't provide any mean to do this). You must follow the steps explained there in order to get the widget in place
• You will find the Month Calendar Widget icon among the apps installed on your device. If you run the app tapping on it, you will see the Instructions screen again, and nothing more
• On Android 4.x, the app icon in the Apps tab in is not the same as those in the Widgets tab. The former shows the Instructions, the latter are there to be dragged on the Home screen

For those who waited months for an update and/or still are waiting for an e-mail answer, thanks for your patience. I worked hard to make a better app, now I'll do my best to catch up with support mails.

How to put Month Calendar Widget on your Home screen

Many Month Calendar Widget users download the app from Google Play and once it gets installed they get lost, because the app doesn't run immediately as a normal Android app does. Month Calendar Widget is a Home screen widget and doesn't run as normal Android apps do¹. You have to put it on your Home screen to make it work.

Here are instructions to put the widget to use (you must know your device's Android version because there are some differences in the steps depending on it):

Versions up to Gingerbread (2.3.x)
1. Open the Home screen where you want to place the widget
2. Press Menu and touch Add, or just touch and hold and empty location on the Home screen
3. Choose Widgets in the menu
4. Find one of the two available sizes (3x2 or 4x3) in the widgets list
5. Adjust settings if you wish (press Back to exit)

Honeycomb versions (3.x)
1. Open the Home screen where you want to place the widget
2. Touch the + button at the top-right of the screen, or just touch and hold and empty location on the Home screen
3. Choose the Widgets tab
4. Find one of the two available sizes (3x2 or 4x3) in the widgets category
5. Drag the widget onto the Home screen where you want to add it
6. Adjust settings if you wish (press Back to exit)

Ice Cream Sandwich and later versions (4.x)
1. Open the Home screen where you want to place the widget
2. Touch the All apps icon
3. Choose the Widgets tab and swipe to the right to find one of the two available sizes (3x2 or 4x3)
4. Touch and hold the widget until the Home screen appears, slide it into place and lift your finger
5. Adjust settings if you wish (press Back to exit)

NOTE: If you use a Home screen replacement app such as Go Launcher or ADW Launcher, these steps may differ slightly.

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1 Since version 1.3.0 the app runs normally after installed, but only to show brief instructions to help users, and also to overcome a quirk with Home screen widgets introduced with Honeycomb - they don't appear immediately in the list of installed widgets ^↩

Presentación en las JUTI 2012

El jueves 23 de agosto fui invitado a contar mi experiencia en el mercado de aplicaciones Android en la 13º edición de las JUTI, las Jornadas Universitarias sobre Tecnología de la información. Estas jornadas vienen desarrollándose desde el año 2000 en la Facultad Regional Resistencia de la Universidad Tecnológica Nacional, que es mi "alma máter", el lugar donde me recibí de Ingeniero en Sistemas de Información hace ya unos cuantos años.

La presentación fue similar a la que di en el meetup del NEAValley en mayo pasado, pero esta vez disponía de más tiempo así que pude ahondar en más detalles sobre la experiencia vivida con Month Calendar Widget.

A los organizadores y a todos los que escucharon la presentación en el Aula Magna de la facultad, ¡muchas gracias!

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