Amazon Echo Material Design Stylish Theme

I bought an Amazon Echo last week. I was looking for a Bluetooth speaker and for $100 (for Prime Members), it is a decent Bluetooth speaker, plus it integrates with Prime music, and other Amazon services. It allows you to purchase items from Amazon directly from the Echo. It also has other features like TuneIn radio, iHeartRadio, a timer, an alarm (seems like it should support more than one timer and alarm, hopefully they will add this functionality in the future), todo list, and a shopping list.

The Echo has a companion app for iOS and Android devices, and it has a web app for your desktop. I was playing around with the CSS the other day while I was off work and decided to re-theme all (or most) of the desktop app using Stylish (Chrome|Firefox).

 

Download Amazon Echo Material Theme

 

 

 

 

Here are screenshots of just about every page within the Echo desktop app. Some are pretty boring, but they do show some of the elements that have been changed on the page.

 

Droid Explorer 0.9.0.0 Released

Today is Friday the 13th, but it doesn’t mark a day for superstition. Instead it marks the release of a long over due update to Droid Explorer. I have been working hard the past couple months getting this release ready. As I have mentioned in some previous posts, there are a lot of redesigned components, like the Shell Console, LogCat Console, the Device Selection dialog, and much more. Another key change is the handling of, non-issue, questions. Instead of being part of the discussion on CodePlex, there is now a tag on Android Enthusiasts. If using Android Enthusiasts, be sure to be detailed in what your issue is. I am not the only one that would be monitoring questions there. I wouldn’t want to see the questions closed because of lack of information.

 

On top of the changes that went in to Droid Explorer, I am also announcing the launch of http://de.bit13.com/, a new home for the Droid Explorer project. Besides being a place that contains screenshots and information on the releases, it acts as a central service for the device icons that are displayed when choosing the device to connect to and the icon that is shown in Explorer. As I get more information on devices, more icons will be added. Over time, other features will possible integrate more with the website.

 

 

 

Highlights of the Changelog for 0.9.0.0

• Added support for connecting to devices via TCP/IP New web service for getting device icons.
• Upgraded .NET Framework Requirement to 4.5.1
• Device lookup now uses 'detailed' call. Gets device name, model, and product name. see adb devices -l.
• Redesigned the GenericDeviceSelectionForm
• Updated the [default] image for devices
• Options Windows: added information to show the build tools version that is being used. [workitem:17313]
• Added ActiveMenu to add button to DWM.
• Moved DDMS launcher to be a plugin
• Moved Hierarchy Viewer to be a plugin
• Removed the "reboot" buttons, instead there is now a reboot plugin that supports all forms of reboot: normal, recovery, bootloader, download.
• Added a warning dialog when the app launches that will let the user know if droid explorer was unable to gain root access via adb root.
• Some refactoring to some plugins, like the shell, so it can be launched independently.
• Added links to ask questions on android enthusiasts.
• Removing some code that is unused.
• removed out of date plugins / tools.
• Some refactoring of the ConsoleControl. Moved to the Core.UI.
• Added reference to Camalot.Common.
• Updated LogCat to use ConsoleControl.
• Updated the Debug Console to use ConsoleControl.
• Updated ConsoleWriter to work with the ConsoleControl.
• Added OutputProcessors to handle different content for logging.
• Adb Root call is now called during initialization, after device selection.
• if adb root fails, a warning is displayed to the user. Future warnings can be ignored.
• A minor redesign to the splash screen.
• Plugins are now grouped in to separate toolbars.
• Added SDK Manager plugin
• Added AVD Manager plugin
• updated icons across the application.
• Plugins now grouped in the plugin menu.
• Fixed the cloud image path to support the new site.
• Fixed the file names when transfering to PC to remove invalid characters.
• Fixed the device monitor service.
• Added PluginSettings (not yet used really)
• Added icon handler interface
• Added picture extension handler using the icon handler interface

New functionality for Droid Explorer Extensions

Extensions in Droid Explorer can already handle specific file types. The shell console and sqlite explorer are good examples of that. When you right click on a file that is handled by an extension you will see it as an option.

Extensions can now implement DroidExplorer.Core.Plugins.IFileTypeIconHandler. This will allow an extension to define how the icons for the specified file are rendered. Here you will see the new PictureExtension. It shows a small thumbnail of the picture as the icon of the file.

These icons will be cached in the users Droid Explorer Data/Assets directory so they can be loaded from the cache to load faster.

Getting help when using Droid Explorer

A few days ago I showed some screenshots of some of the work that I have done in the next version of Droid Explorer. One of the things that I talked about was how I will monitor the DroidExplorer tag on Android Enthusiasts. Here is how that will also play a part in the next version of Droid Explorer.

Right from the UI, you will be able to quickly get to the Android Enthusiasts questions that are tagged with DroidExplorer. If those don’t help, you can ask your own question. Just make sure you use the correct tag and that your questions are detailed and specific. If they are bug reports, they will not be answered and they will probably be closed. Bug reports will still go on the Issue Tracker.

 

I have also implemented another way to keep up to date with new releases and new code commits. If you are a Pushbullet user, you can subscribe to the Droid Explorer Channels:

• Source Code Commits
• Releases

Features coming to Droid Explorer

I've been working on some updates to Droid Explorer (which will probably get a name change with the next release).
These updates include:

• Being able to connect to devices via TCP/IP.
• A new Shell Console (which is much needed as the old one is very buggy and only works on a few devices correctly, or at all) that has full color processing.
• A new layout for the Device Selection dialog. Less clutter, more information.
• An updated debug console
• An updated logcat console.

 

 

Effective immediately, I will be monitoring a tag [DroidExplorer] over on Android Enthusiasts Stack Exchange for non-bug related support. If it is an actual bug, it should be created as a bug, if you are just having an issue, or a question, then you can ask it over on Android Enthusiasts.

Finally, I am considering moving the source code to Github. If I do decide to move it, releases will probably still stay on CodePlex, at least for the time being. They have a good api that is already built in to my build scripts so I can easily publish new releases.

Some of the reasons I may be moving:

• It seems that Microsoft has abandoned CodePlex.
• The blog hasn't been updated in over a year.
• Performance of the site has decreased.
• Analytics have been having issues since October. And I have attempted to contact the CodePlex team, via Email and Twitter, without a response.

Until then, you can get the latest version from the Droid Explorer project page.