Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

This has turned into one of the most frustrating things I have ever done. What could possibly be going wrong? I have tried using: different OTG adapters, different flash drives, reformatting flash drives, fresh copies of the android app, remounting storage manually, resyncing flash drives w/ the desktop app, restarting my device, trying different file managers to see if I get the same root on all three (I didn't, ill try another one later) now I am out of ideas. The only thing I haven't tried is using a different tablet (with it's respective USB root location).

I am able to see the synced and integrated folders, so I know my tablet is making the connection. Is there any other way to find the root of the flash drive other than a file manager? I am getting two different root paths with three different managers.

I was making so much progress... any other ideas that you may have?

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

The fact that you're seeing two different roots is very concerning. That sounds like either a problem with the software your device runs on or the file explorers. This isn't a very standardized part of Android, so it's possible that the OEM software or file explorer software have bugs. There's not much I can do about that. I'd try each of the roots you've found and see if one works better than the others. The somewhat sketchy support for OTG in Android is one of the reasons we were considering switching to Bluetooth, but we're going to stick it out one more year and see if we can get it working very consistently. Sorry I can't be of more help!

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

The manufacture's file explorer is the only one that shows a different root. all the other ones show the same root, the confusing part to me is that the manufacture's file explorer root was the one that was working before I had these issues.

I am hoping that this is purely a tablet specific problem, and that everything continues to work on the tablets we plan to use at competitions. (I had it working on the competition tablets a week ago, and haven't touched since).

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Here are my current questions:

Any other ideas on why my flash drive isn't being recognized? is this more likely to be a tablet problem? in which case a different tablet may very well work?

How do I go about making a custom array similar to the ones used to list the types of drivetrains, or ranking skills?

Thanks in advance.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

How difficult would it be to create a process where you select the location of the flash drive from within the app? My team will be using multiple different kinds of tablets at competition so it would be much easier if this was possible.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

I have been wondering the same thing. It would defiantly add to "usability" (is that a word? :D ) if you could navigate to a folder location, or at the very least type in the USB root location.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Preferably I would want to be able to navigate to the location of the flash drive visually to make it easier for the scouters to set up (similar to a file explorer set up). If you could post an update if you get that working that would be great.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

I have no satisfactory explanation for the behavior you're seeing. It sounds like something on the tablet side; all WildRank does is check if the indicated directory exists and then does some basic file operations on the folder, so it isn't something on our end. What brand/model of tablet do you have? I can see if I can find anything about it online.

As for making a custom scouting widget, that should be pretty trivial if you're willing to learn how to make custom views in Android. You can check out the existing ones for an idea of how to do that. All you have to do to get WildRank to save your data is to make your View class implement IJSONSerializable. Again, you can reference the existing views to see how that's done.

That should be relatively easy to do. I don't feel like implementing a graphical file browser from scratch, so if I can find a library for that, I'll look into adding it. That isn't our highest priority at this point; we've embarked on a full rewrite of the app so getting that functional is our top priority. Remember, the whole project is open source, so if you or someone on your software subteam knows anything about Android or Java, they're welcome to fork the project and work on that themselves!

If anyone has any interest in checking out our progress on the rewrite or even contributing to it, you can check out our repo here: https://github.com/nwalters512/wildrank-android-v2

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

[quote=nathanwalters;1434831]I have no satisfactory explanation for the behavior you're seeing. It sounds like something on the tablet side; all WildRank does is check if the indicated directory exists and then does some basic file operations on the folder, so it isn't something on our end. What brand/model of tablet do you have? I can see if I can find anything about it online. QUOTE]

I am glad to hear that is, as I guessed, most likely a tablet side issue.
The tablet I am using is an Asus MeMo pad 7, there is a little documentation out there, but whether or not Wildrank works on my tablet is not a concern. I will check when I have a chance to go to robotics on Thursday/Friday, but I am assuming that It will still work on the Dragon Touch 7" we are planning on using, (relatively cheep, but still a sound tablet for $50).

Just as a side note: I have managed to make custom views in android, I plan to root around the code a bit and just play with some things. If I do get it working I will see what I can do in the means of an Ethernet solution that I emailed you about earlier, If Wildrank is just looking for a file path a network location may very well work (provided correct setup of course.) At any rate I'll keep you updated, and if something detrimental happens with Wildrank when used with the dragon touches I'll try to get it sorted out and post back here if I need to.
Thanks again.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Sounds good! It looks like the tablet you're buying has support for USB OTG, so as long as there aren't any weird problems with file system paths, that should work very well for you. Good luck with getting everything working! It takes a bit of effort but it is well worth it once you put in the time.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Yeah, I got it working on the Dragon Touch 7" about a week ago, I just need to work on managing screen space, it is easy to overflow off of the screen if you're not careful. I will be sure to repost the source code as a zip file on dropbox or something when I get everything working. (Provided any license you have allows redistribution). Just so people don't have to work too hard making the custom UI's. Thanks for all of the help, I will let you know if any problems arise.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Our license definitely allows for redistribution. If you have any additions that you think would be beneficial to other teams, feel free to submit a pull request on github.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

I was able to get the android app working properly. I just did a couple of test pit scouts for teams as well as some match scouting. I synced it with the flash drive on the android side and am trying to get the desktop side working. What do you need to do in order to generate the pdf with data in it? The other issue I am having on my tablet is that I can got to match scouting but when I try to go to pit scouting in the app, it continues to show me the match scouting page. Do you have any idea why this would be happening?

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

I have had a similar problem, try force stopping the app and re launching it. Then select whatever page refuses to show up from the menu, it should work.
I don't know why it does this but force stoping and restarting works for me consistently.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Before you invest in a 'cheap' inexpensive tablet, check out the battery life. You probably need it to last at least 6 hours between charges. Many of the 'cheap' tablets lasted only 3 hours.

Some tablets/phones do not support USB file systems. For example, the Nexus line does not, due to a dumb decision made at Google. The manufacturer does not include the code needed. The 'Chinese' tablets generally support USB OTG.

Not sure if this is relevant, but there is a problem while reading Android files from a PC. If the USB connection is using MTP, you may not see newly created files or directories. Refreshing the Android MediaManager does not seem to help, restarting the Android always works. :mad: