Rónán Mistéil's blog

EPicnic – Android App

I’ve put together an app for the Electric Picnic using the very simple to use Android App Inventor. The app inventor is only in its infancy but from playing around with it, it has a lot of potential for people to get to grips with the basics of programming and put simple apps together in a matter of minutes.

So far I’ve spent not just minutes, but a few hours on making the app, but a lot of that time has been learning the functionality of the app inventor, as well as its limitations.

And so, to the app itself…

It’s main reason for existence is to provide me with a portable pocket timetable of acts for this weekend’s Electric Picnic, and if anyone else finds it useful, then all the better.

As of right now, 11am Wednesday, the times are due to be announced, so the current version of the app has but a list of acts on each day. I’ll update it this evening however with a breakdown by stage on each day to make it easier than navigating huge lists (and of course I’ll include the announced times).

I’ve also copied code from one of the sample apps in AppInventor, Android, Where’s My Car. This will (once I get it working right) allow you to save the location of your tent by GPS, and theoretically navigate back to it when you’re lost/drunk/blind.

Lastly, I’m putting in links to the Site Maps (these have to be links unfortunately as the app won’t allow embedded images to be zoomed). So far the Arena Map is available, but I’m going to convert the campsite and other maps to jpeg later and include them also.

So here’s the app: http://idirlion.org/ep/EPicnic.apk

And a barcode if you want to scan it directly from your phone.

Feedback appreciated.