How-To...
We’ve pulled together a whole load of hints, tips, articles, code samples and example apps to help demonstrate the unique development features and opportunities of developing for the Cisco Cius. Have a look! We'll be adding to these over the coming weeks and months.
Creating a Call using the Call Control APIs
Cisco Call Control APIs are a powerful tool that we give to the developers. Today we are going to be going over an example of some of these Call Control APIs in order to get you started. In this particular example, we are going to be showing you how to place a call using the Cisco Call Control APIs. There is a few basic steps you need to make this happen. The first is to retrieve an instance of the Cisco Telephony Manager.
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Intro to AppInventor on the Cius
In this blog post I will be discussing an alternate method to Cius development known as AppInventor. It is a program released by Google to create applications for Android devices. This is a visual programming language, meaning you use layout design and puzzle piece style blocks to create programs. You do not need to know a programming language to create applications using AppInventor. It is free to download and use, and utilizes in-browser development using Java 6.
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Downloading a File
Downloading a file is a seemingly mundane task that most people do everyday on their computers in some way or another. This process is a little bit more than clicking on a link, however, because in the background a stream has to be initialized, the image or file has to be transferred from the remote server to the client's computer, and then a file location has to be designated locally for the downloaded file to be stored in. This is the same process that must be taken for a file to be downloaded on a tablet or other mobile device as well, and below I will detail how to programmatically download a file by opening a URL stream and storing the file locally in your application's file directory.
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QuickContactBadge
In this blog post we will be discussing an Android view type called a QuickContactBadge. A QuickContactBadge is an Android widget that shows an image and, when clicked, provides the user with a collection of different ways to communicate with that contact based on what contact information you have available for that contact. For instance, if only a contact's phone number is listed, your only option that pops up may be to call that person. However, if you have that contact's phone number, email address, and IM handle, then options for interacting with that person on all those platforms will be listed.
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Programmatically Set Wifi Profile
One question that is asked of our team fairly often is if there's a way to programmatically set a wifi profile on the Cius. The quick answer to this question is "yes", and below I will explain how to create an Android wifi profile, called a "WifiConfiguration", and add it to the Cius' (or any Android device really) list of configured networks.
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Start an IM session with a specific user
We are regularly asked how to start an IM session with a specific user, it's actually very easy.
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Graphical Layout
In Eclipse while using the Android Development Toolkit, there is a Graphical Layout Editor. In this blog post, we are going to be taking a look at the recently added Cisco Cius Graphical Layout to the editor. This will allow you to preview what an application will look like without having to start an Emulator or have a Cius.
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WebEx APIs and Cius, Part 1
In this first post in a new series detailing the functionalities of WebEx and its API's in relation to the Cius, I will discuss the process of joining a WebEx meeting by meeting ID, either as the host or as a general attendee, on the Cius. For the sake of this post, I will be using the WebEx URL API. Although this same task can be accomplished using WebEx's XML API, I decided that it would be best to focus on one, "best case" way for accomplishing this task.
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XMPP and Presence
In this How-To, we will be looking at Cius compatibility with Webex and CUP (Cisco Unified Presence) using the open protocol XMPP. XMPP stands for Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol. It can be used to access contact lists, see presences, and to send and receive messages in Webex, CUP, and any other compatible XMPP service. In this particular post, we will detail how to use a 3rd-party XMPP library to create an Android application that shows the presence status of a person's contact list.
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Android Telephony
In this blog post, we are going to take a look at Android's Telephony. To start off basic, lets talk about creating a call. One way to start a call in Android using Android's Telephony is to basically send a message to the Phone Application telling it to call a number.
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A Look at 9-Patches
Here, we will be looking at an interesting method implemented by Android to aid in the construction of the User Interface. We will be talking about 9-Patch. A 9-Patch is basically a graphic that can be stretched while leaving the corners intact. This makes it very easy to construct round rectangles or other shapes that will grow with your content.
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Sample App Part 1
This post is the first in a multipart series that will walk you through our first application development experience with Android, beyond HelloWorld.
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Sample App Part 2
In this how-to post, we will be talking about two additional features that can be fundamental in programming with Android. These two features will be Services and Broadcast Receivers.
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Sample App Part 3
This blog post will be featuring ways to interact with the user via the User Interface. The ways that we will be discussing today are Notifications from the Notification Bar, Toast messages, and the View Animator. All of these different components will be combined to give the User a unique experience.
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