Perpetually and Continuously Under Construction

Since I submitted to ADC2 I haven't written much code for aList, but I've been using it almost daily.  And frankly, there are some things about it I don't like much.  So, I've undertaken a redesign of the interface. The features I like (the way the voice recognizer results are handled, the fact that list items can be archived and used again, the fonts and colors and text sizes) will all remain.  But, I'm going to change the main interface.  Instead of an expandable list, this main interface will be a simple list of list names.  Clicking will move to an expandable list with the categories as the groups and the items as the children.  The ability to "flatten" the list and display the entire list as simple items will remain as well, but you'll just get to it from the expandable list.  This will allow the options menus (or a button bar) to be much smaller and include some convenient commands.  This makes so much sense I can't believe I didn't do it this way from the beginning.  I'm sure it doesn't make sense to you since you've never used the app, but I'm sure you'll like the results better than the current way of doing things.

I've already made a few improvements to the text entry (which is the weakest point of every list app I've tried, aList being no exception).  With the new code you can bang out a bunch of list items and have them all appear in the same category with only one tap.

So, the bottom line is that I won't have in on the market for another little while.  Sorry to the two or three people that are eagerly waiting the release.  I'll get there.  Hopefully before Christmas.

The ADC 2 Competition

Here are the finalists in the productivity category for ADC 2.  The only one I judged was FlingTap Done.  I gave it pretty high marks actually.  I think it's a nicely done piece of software.  The one thing I think aList does much better is the use of the voice recognizer.  aList is the only list making app I know of that allows you to enter more than one list item per invocation of the voice recognizer.  It's a relatively heavy operation to fire up the voice recognizer and I think aList has a nice facility to organize the results that get returned into one or more items.


A few other apps that I thought might be competition ended up in other categories.  Mom's Shopping List was in the Lifestyle category for example.

Android Application	Category
Alex Digital Secretary	Productivity
AppManager (ADC2-edition)	Productivity
Apps Organizer Adc	Productivity
CubeWorks	Productivity
Drocap	Productivity
Eclosion	Productivity
Event Flow	Productivity
FlingTap Done	Productivity
Fusion WebServer - Phone2Web	Productivity
Handcent Messaging	Productivity
Handy Poll ADC	Productivity
Hoccer ADC2	Productivity
Mobisle Notes	Productivity
NewsRoom	Productivity
Screebl	Productivity
Tasker	Productivity
taskTopia	Productivity
Thinking-Space	Productivity
Tracklet	Productivity
WaveSecure	Productivity

It's an Honor Just to be Nominated

I don't really think that.  Especially since I wasn't nominated.  I just wrote the app and submitted it.  Of course, I wanted to move on to the next round where I might truly have said it was an honor to be nominated, but it didn't happen that way.

Below is the text of the official news about how aList fared in ADC2.  I've seen reports that some folks received emails saying they were in the top 25% of all applications, but not in the top 20 in their category so in addition to not moving on to the next round aList settled out somewhere between the 50% and 75% mark overall.

I kept a list (I told you I have a thing about lists) of all of the apps I judged (of which there were only 2 that would clearly belong in the productivity category).  That means there were at least 18 apps in that category that I've not seen that were judged better than mine.  I'm looking forward to checking them out in the next round of judging.

The good news for those of you interested in aList is that I will be publishing it to the Market soon.

Thank you for developing your Android application 'aList' and participating in ADC 2. Unfortunately, your application was not selected by Android users as one of the top 20 in its category.

According to the scores submitted by users, your application 'aList' ranked in the top 50% of all applications submitted.

We appreciate your taking the time to develop and enter your application. We strongly encourage you to continue working on it and submit it to the public Android Market, where it can be downloaded and enjoyed by Android users all over the world.

Thank you again for your participation in ADC 2.

Sincerely,
ADC 2 Support