Introducing Photographer’s Notes
I’m very happy to finally be able to show off something we’ve been working off and on for quite some time.
If you’re a photographer, the age old expression “the best camera is the one that you have with you” does not apply. You will want to use your DSLR or the latest mirrorless to get amazing shots you know you can make happen. However, you rarely carry this expensive bulky cameras equipment with you.
What if you encounter an amazing place that you know would be perfect as a background for your next animal photography project or you see a great angle for a sunset between buildings when you do not have the right equipment with you or the conditions are not perfect? You take a note.
Of course, a generic note taking tool could do the job but we believe we can do better.
The Photographer’s Notes app is highly focused and streamlined for Photographers. It allows you to define your camera gear, types of photography you are interested in and therefore helps you to take notes much faster and much more accurately.
The Tech
We used a lot of the latest and greatest in the Android developer ecosystem to build this app.
Like I wrote some time ago, the Android ecosystem has matured. In this project we wanted to experience the latest tools to see how ready they are for our customer work and in general for projects with tighter deadlines than this one.
AndroidX
AndroidX is an evolution of the old, outgoing, Android Support Library. Google is changing everything from versioning to dependency management.
I started this project with the Support Library but wanted to migrate to AndroidX before launching to be able to experience the quality and pain points.
In short, AndroidX feels ready for production… if you can set it up. I ran into couple of issues with dependencies but these issues got solved fairly quickly. However, there still remains differences in APIs for X and Support. Sometimes it is difficult to know what APIs you can use and which not. But it’s all getting better.
Any new project, I’d now start with AndroidX but for existing projects I’d not rush into migrating just yet.
Arch Navigation
Android Architecture Components Navigation is a fantastic addition to the Android developer toolkit. While it is still in early states and some obvious features, like advanced transitions, are still missing it is clear that, when ready, this is the way to go in future. I see a lot of potential for solving some of the UX difficulties of Android navigation as well as technical improvements to many parts of the interaction between Fragments, like SafeArgs.
In the end we ended up building something that combines the new and the old. For example, in the new-note viewPager the fragments are all managed normally with the ViewPager Adapter.
Also, the login activity is completely disconnected from the Arch Navigation. It’s very simple to disconnect parts and keep the ones that work.
As Ian mentions in a recent tweet, using ChildFragmentManager is a perfectly valid approach to ViewPagers, DialogFragments, and BottomSheets.
Material Components
With this app we wanted to stay as close as possible to the Android Material design and see what the latest of the Material Components offer. We even tried to approach the design handoff using the Google’s Gallery but in the end went back to the trusted Zeplin as many of the badly needed features are still missing in Gallery. We’ll be keeping eyes open though.
MLKit
The Photographer’s Notes app utilises ML for tagging pictures to help users create notes faster and more automated way. In the first release we’re utilising the MLKit’s offline image tagging but plan to expand it to the more accurate, but paid, server-side solution. Stay tuned.
Image tagging is not the only place where ML can become invaluable. For now, the inference from tags to possible photography categories is done in a fairly simple and dump way but we’re planning to use more sophisticated, learning, process later on to make the note taking process completely seamless.
Download from Google Play for free
The app is available from Google Play as an open beta release. If you’re interested about the tech or, even better, if you’re a photographer in need of a great note-taking solution head to the Play and give it a go.
Just keep in mind that it is still in very early stage and we’re still actively working on the app. Errors and issues are to be expected in this early state.
Feedback is always very welcome! You can reach me about your thoughts or bug reports directly at juhani@snappmobile.io.
