Developing USSD apps: Airtel Mobile money USSD app

NB: You can now read this post at my new site

I have just thought of this app right now because my MTN phone is out of battery otherwise we would have used the MTN mobile money app which is more popular in Uganda. Since I need to be navigating the menu as am developing the app, I will use my Airtel line.

If you are in Uganda, dial *185# on your Airtel line to follow along.

Developing USSD apps: ussdmenuserver-2.0.jar

NB: You can now read this post at my new site

Hey there, hope your Friday is good. Just as promised in the last post, today we shall navigate a very useful library for you who desires to build meaningful USSD apps.

ussdmenuserver.jar

After developing about 2 non-trivial USSD apps, I got a bit overwhelmed by the sheer amount of repetitive code I needed to write.

Repetitive code should be abstracted, and that's how I came up with ussdmenuserver.jar, yeah i built it, now go buy me a beer (it's Friday remember!!!)

Developing USSD apps: Test App

Developing ussd apps: test app

In this tutorial, we shall develop a basic USSD test app and dial it from mchoice-simulator.

My assumptions

• you have read the last 2 posts and have a firm background about how USSD apps work.

• you have downloaded mchoice-simulator,  run it and been able to access it's web GUI from the browser.
• you are using java programming language.  

Developing USSD apps: simulation

Developing ussd apps: simulation

What does it take to develop a USSD app???

• Are you already a developer??? 

• Do you have experience in developing and deploying web services to any web or application server
• Are you comfortable with string manipulation and programmatically dealing with URLs???

Introduction to USSD

What is USSD?

USSD in full is Unstructured Supplementary Services Data.

USSD survey- an example of a USSD app UI

Level List

Definition

A resource that manages a number of alternate Drawables.

It’s inflated into the LevelListDrawable java object.

Each drawable is assigned a maximum numerical level.

You can set the level value of the object with setLevel(int) or an equivalent method.

This will load the image/drawable whose maximum level attribute you have passed in the parameter.

Layer Lists

Definition

A layer list is a drawable used to manage other drawables.

Its inflated into a LayerDrawable object in java.

Each drawable in the list is drawn in the order of the list, just like a stack of plates at the dinner table, the last drawable in the list is drawn on top.

Android drawables

ANDROID DRAWABLES

1.      What is an android drawable?

2.      What are the types of drawables?

3.      How to access drawables via xml and code

4.      3 ways to instantiate drawables

5.      Android system variables(public and private)

6.      User created xml variables

7.      Drawables vs images

Introduction to android themes and styles part III

Switching themes programmatically

This post is a continuation of android themes and styles part I and II.

In this section we are going to learn to:

1.      Dynamically set the theme of an application from existing themes whether system or custom

2.      Reference a theme from code, I assure you, I also thought it’s so obvious.

3.      Colors

Introduction to android styles and themes part II

INTRODUCTION TO ANDROID STYLES AND THEMES PART II

In the first part of this series, we covered:

1.      What are styles and themes and their difference

2.      How a programmer can create a style

3.      Inheritance

In this post we shall cover:

1.      Inheritance of system styles

2.      Themes

Introduction to android themes and styles part I

This is my first technical blog post and somebody may wonder why I have chosen such an advanced topic… well I like to write about things as I encounter them, and what I am working on currently is themes and styles. I will be slotting in posts to cover the basics as time allows.

Please note that in this post I use eclipse indigo 3.7 for J2EE, if your environment for android development is not yet set in anyway, you may want to deal with that first and then return.

SimpleJavan overview

This is a blog administrated by Bengi Egima. The  aim of the blog is to be an ever available content guide for any one learner and a quick reference source  for the busy developer. 

For the record, we all love to code but truth be told, code is not the solution but  rather a means to implement the solution.