Capture and report android app crashs using Sherlock

Its always a challenge for an app tester to report crashes to the developers. Because most of the time they don’t have enough information about the crash which can enable developers to start fixing the crash right away.

Keeping this problem in mind, I created this android library named Sherlock. Yes its your apps private detective which can tell exactly where the crash occurred along with Device and Application information. It also enables you to share the crash details using any sharing app available on your device e.g mail, whatsapp, messenger etc.

How to integrate Sherlock with your app?

ntegrating Sherlock with your android application is very easy. You just need to add Sherlock as a dependency in your build.gradle file. And then initialize Sherlock in the Application class of your app.

dependencies {
 compile(‘com.github.ajitsing:sherlock:1.0.1@aar’) {
 transitive = true
 }
}

After adding the Sherlock to the build.gradle file sync your android studio project and then initialize Sherlock in your application class.

package com.singhajit.login;
import android.app.Application;
import com.singhajit.sherlock.core.Sherlock;
public class SampleApp extends Application {
  @Override
  public void onCreate() {
    super.onCreate();
    Sherlock.init(this);
  }
}

Thats all you need to do to integrate Sherlock in your application. Now whenever your app will crash, Sherlock will give a notification. When you tap on that notification, it will open an activity with all the crash details.

Demo

Sherlock provides much more than just a crash notification

Using sherlock you can get list of all crashes that has occurred since you installed the application on your device. To see all the crashes, create a menu item or wherever you want to trigger that view from and start the CrashListActivity.

import com.singhajit.sherlock.crashes.activity.CrashListActivity;
public class LoginActivity extends AppCompatActivity {
  private void showAllCrashes() {
    startActivity(new Intent(this, CrashListActivity.class));
  }
}

Apart from showing all the crashes, Sherlock can also give you all the crash objects it has persisted. You can utilize these crash objects for anything. One possible use case is to generate a custom crash report.

Sherlock.getInstance().getAllCrashes();

App Information Provider

By default Sherlock only provides app version in the crash reports. If you want to add extra information, you need to provide your own AppInfoProvider to Sherlock.

Sherlock.setAppInfoProvider(new AppInfoProvider() {
  @Override
  public AppInfo getAppInfo() {
    return new AppInfo.Builder()
               .with("Version", "2.21")
               .with("BuildNumber", "221B")
               .build();
  }
});

Before doing this make sure that you have initialized Sherlock otherwise it will throw SherlockNotInitializedException.

Original Post: http://www.singhajit.com/integrating-sherlock-with-android-apps-to-get-crash-reports/

Github: https://github.com/ajitsing/Sherlock

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEQBJkTeRUQ

Thats all folks! Thanks.