yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Android Apps and Games] NaabKing:
Take you'r time (= We can see the update will be good, so we'll be pacient :P
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
We fixed the last of our critical, known bugs for 1.0.3. So now we are waiting for the build to be published into the Google Play Store... so all of you can give it a whirl. Hopefully you'll find more stability, more features and a continued march toward more capabilities in this version.

We haven't had time to get the translation work into Recast just yet, but we are hoping to get started on that work shortly. I'll post back here once we have a new build (or two or three) with those changes included. I'll also let everyone know when we can actually see 1.0.3 in the Play Store, at least here in the USA.

Amazon customers are in for the now standard 7 to 10 day wait while Amazon approves the app again. We wish it took less time but there seems to be no way to speed this up. Hang in there.
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
The 1.0.3 free version is posted, and includes untested/non-optimized German and Italian translations. Take a look on the Recast beta download page. This build is different from the version going into the Play Store because of these inclusions, so there could be problems. If you find any issues, tell us about it!

We're still waiting for the Google Play Store version to roll out, but we will post back once it is available here.
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
And now the full version of 1.0.3 is posted to the Google Play Store. At least it seems to be here in the USA.

Hang on for future updates, Amazon customers. It will probably be a week or so. For everyone else, grab the latest version and let us know how you like it.
[Android Apps and Games] battletank:
Thank you - the new functionality is great. It's working beautifully on my Nexus 7 / Nova Prime combination. On my Galaxy S3 / Nova combo, I'm repeatedly plagued by "Loading Widget" appearing instead of the widget when using more than one Recast widget, resolved only by restarting the launcher. I've rolled back to 1.02 for now, which works without issue.

Thanks though, it's a great app!

Ben
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
battletank, we haven't changed very much around the widget provider area of Recast, and that is what tells your Android device what to draw onto your launcher screen. This means that the same issue should also be happening in 1.0.2, so going backward a version shouldn't be any different for you.

If you have any ability to provide us with logs while this is happening it would be greatly appreciated. We have our own Galaxy S3 here at the office, running the stock launcher, but currently we do not experience the issue you are referencing. Perhaps you have a different configuration device, other widgets, or some other settings that we do not have that is causing the problem. Any data you can share with us will help us find and solve the issue. Can you try running without Nova Launcher to see if maybe that has some part of the issue?

Thanks for the information!
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
Based on some feedback here and on the Google Play Store (where we really, REALLY wish people would not post bugs or feature requests in the comments!) we spent today reworking how widgets are drawn, scaled and stretched. We plan to do another quick release, 1.0.4, specifically to help address the issues that battletank mentioned.

It should be noted that the widget saying "loading..." or "unable to draw" issues are not happening on all or even most devices, so it is possible that many customers will never encounter it. However, since the Galaxy S3 is a new and popular device, it made sense for us to target it for a fix as soon as is practical. Keep your eyes peeled here for an update tomorrow on the quick-turn release.
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
We've just posted the beta/free version of Recast 1.0.4. The fixes are small for this version, mainly:

Fix for the possible out-of-memory error on Galaxy S3 devices

Fix for the background color picker on new widgets

Improved widget layouts on some devices

You can grab it from the Recast beta page now. Paid/full versions of Recast have been submitted to Google for the Play Store and should start appearing to folks within a couple of hours. We will post back here when we see it showing up in the USA.
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
Recast 1.0.4 has now arrived in the Google Play Store. Grab a copy from the Recast product page or check for updates in the Play Store app.
[Android Apps and Games] beerbaronstatic:
Hey, I just purchased Recast over the weekend and I'm enjoying it, but I was curious if there was a reason why Location Update Frequency and Weather Update Frequency are 2 different variables? I can't see why you'd arbitrarily want to do one but not the other at the same time. I saw someone else ask about this at one point as well but didn't see a response.

Thanks for the great app!
[Android Apps and Games] sdotmouse:
My guess - why update location every hour if you're not going anywhere? If you are travelling then you want it to update location regularly for the appropriate forecast.
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
beerbaronstatic, I don't recall seeing this "why separate time periods for weather and location" question before, but the quick answers are:

Because customers requested it

For practical reasons

To save battery life

As sdotmouse mentions, the real, practical usage of checking for weather and location are independent because people may not be moving often or are situated somewhere that checking constantly is of any benefit. On the engineering side, it is very expensive to poll for new weather every 5 to 15 minutes because it almost never changes in that time period AND our weather providers actively discourage grabbing weather so often. Finally, during early beta testing some customers found that battery life was negatively impacted by having the location check turned on with higher frequency.

So when you roll all of these things together, we found it was most practical to separate these checks out to run best for each request. Hopefully this makes sense to you.

Thanks for your question.
[Android Apps and Games] 21productionz:
The latest update messed up the 5x2 widget. It used to be bigger.

ParaNOTE Android
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
21productionz, we didn't see any screenshots so we're not sure what you are referring to. Once you post your pictures we will take a look at it.
[Android Apps and Games] 21productionz:
Screen shots are showing for me

ParaNOTE Android
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
Strange, they are blocked in one browser but not another.

Can you give us the details of your device, OS, resolution, launcher, Recast version, etc so we can investigate it? Some changes had to be made to make widgets work reliably on all devices. Maybe there is some combination of software, resolution and configuration you have that we didn't account for.
[Android Apps and Games] 21productionz:
, latest version of Recast in the play store I'm running cm9 official, Nova launcher, 5x5 grid, galaxy note, 320 dpi, latest version of Recast in the play store

ParaNOTE Android
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
Thanks. Can you tell us the configuration of Nova Launcher as well? How many columns, rows, what are the spacing/margin settings, etc.? Does 5x5 mean 5 columns, 5 rows?
[Android Apps and Games] 21productionz:
5x5 with 0 margins

ParaNOTE Android
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
Got it, thanks!
[Android Apps and Games] 21productionz:
I just reverted back to 1.02 and all is back to normal

ParaNOTE Android
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
Eeeek! You shouldn't go back to 1.0.2, there are a lot of critical fixes that went into 1.0.3 and 1.0.4 that make Recast much more usable and stable. We will work on a beta for you to try in the next 24 hours or so to see if we can pinpoint why only your device seems to be behaving differently. This is especially puzzling for us since we did test with the Galaxy Note specifically.
[Android Apps and Games] 21productionz:
1.04's 5x2 is showing big on your note?

ParaNOTE Android
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
Yes, 5x2 works fine for us here on the stock launcher, running Android 4.0.4. Here's what we see...
[Android Apps and Games] LTunez:
Glad to see that the latest update addressed the resizing issue in landscape mode, but the 5x2 and 5x1 widgets appear to be different widths on my Motorola Droid 4 (rooted stock, GoEx and 360 launchers, 5x5 grid) in both portrait and landscape mode.

I've also noticed there's a bit of lag/delay when switching from portrait to landscape (and vise versa) in the widget resizing, especially notable with the 5x2 weather/clock widget (probably around 1-2 second delay before it makes the proper resize)...the 5x1 utility widget doesn't lag much at all.

One other minor suggestion...I like the ability to adjust the transparency of the widget background, but it would be nice to be able to see the percentage as the adjustment is being made, as there's a bit of trial and error going on when trying to achieve an exact number.

Other than that, keep up the good work!
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
LTunez, the images you show there are exactly as we intended the 5x1 and 5x2 widgets to be: they are drawing correctly for both orientations. Each and every widget can have its own width and height by design, so what you see is pretty much what we built right into those layouts (give or take a little spacing for each unique device). Is there something specifically you are concerned about with the two widgets and their sizing?

The time difference between landscape and portrait redraws is sadly outside of our control. That timing is a factor of your device speed, the complexity and size of the widget, and the amount of time it takes for Recast to be told by the launcher that the orientation has changed. On our newer test devices (Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 7, Galaxy S3) these transitions happen very rapidly after orientation changes occur. Perhaps the Droid 4 or the launchers you are using aren't giving us the orientation change in a timely fashion? If it is purely a case of "the bigger the widget, the slower the redraw" that comes down to your device CPU speed. The only suggestion we have for you there is to use less complex or smaller widgets, as Recast must redraw the widgets from scratch each time the orientation is changed.

Finally, we have had internal discussions about showing the percentage transparency on the dialog when you set it. It wasn't something we could squeeze into that release, but I'll add it back into the features list for investigation to a future release.

Thanks for the feedback, we'll try to keep incorporating it where and when we can!
[Android Apps and Games] LTunez:
I guess my concern with the widgets having different widths is just that, they're different...my preference would be that widgets of the same width (5x2, 5x1) be symmetric, I guess. If that's how it's designed, then ok. :)

The only reason I brought up the resizing/redraw delay is that I have used quite a few other weather/clock widgets on my Droid 4 (1.2GHz dual core processor, 1GB of RAM), and none of them have ever presented any noticeable delay when changing orientations (and I've used many different launchers with those widgets as well). Maybe Recast is more resource intensive than the other widgets I have used in the past or presently...?

Just trying to provide some feedback and personal experience. Thanks for listening! :)
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
Recast may appear to look like other widget or weather apps, but we're here to tell you that we don't work anything like any other app when it comes to the way we draw and provide functions. :)

Recast does require more system resources at the moment a widget is drawn, but after that point in time we get out of the way and return as much memory, CPU and overall system control as we can to the device. This means that we are not sitting around in memory constantly drawing widgets, getting weather updates or using your battery life. The trade-off to this is that we must squeeze in all of our work at those moments in time when you really need Recast to help: when drawing or creating a widget.

As we keep improving the product, fixing issues and exposing new features we hope you will see why Recast works the way we've built it. We really spent a large amount of time thinking about how folks would use and customize the experience. Because of this we have created what we feel is a very flexible, very configurable and we think a very easy to use app. As always, we value your feedback and we will consider your comments when making future releases.

By the way, I posted a new version of the 5x2 widget that you asked about to the Catalog: Clock Weather Date Widget Wider. Try it out, I hope you'll see how the flexibility mentioned above works for Recast :)
[Android Apps and Games] LTunez:
Wow, thanks for the new (wider) widget! :) Matches the width of the utility widget now & oddly reduced the orientation delay considerably! Nice work!!
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
LTunez, no problem. I have no idea why this new widget layout would have any impact on drawing speed as it is, entirely, the same as the other widget was, just a bit larger and with the hi/low temps right justified. If it works better for you, that is great.
[Android Apps and Games] NaabKing:
It's the adblock on Chrome, but on Firefox it's fine (=
[Android Apps and Games] LifeInAnalog:
..I was wondering how long it would be till we made you scream.. oh, and is that a grey hair I see..?
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
Gray hairs are starting to come naturally now, so a little feedback from you guys is just a drop in the bucket for that issue.

:p
[Android Apps and Games] 21productionz:
Eh hem

ParaNOTE Android
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
PM sent.
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
Thanks to some feedback from 21productionz it seems like we can mark off "Galaxy Note layout issues" from our issues list. We'll incorporate these changes into our next release so that everyone with a Note can see them.
[Android Apps and Games] beerbaronstatic:
So, I noticed a small "Bug" at least on the 4x1 clock/date/weather widget that comes with recast by default. I have my weather/location sync both set to manual, so if I sync at night, the current conditions on the home and when i expand the weather info both show a moon, but if I don't sync and look at it the next day, it shows a sun on the home screen widget, but if i bring up the weather info screen it shows the moon. not sure if its really a bug or working as intended, not a huge deal either way, just figured I'd bring it up
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
beerbaronstatic, thanks for the info. To make sure you are getting the experience we expect from Recast, could you answer some questions for us to help us understand the situation?

When you manually refresh the weather at night, do you wait a minute or two in the morning when you view it again?

What are the time settings for checking weather conditions?

What are the time settings for checking for a new location?

If you rotate the screen, does the weather show what you expect?

Thanks!
[Android Apps and Games] beerbaronstatic:
My time settings for checking weather and location are both set to manual, it happens going night to day, and day to night, so I'll refresh it now and see how it behaves this evening, I'll try to get some screenshots as well
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
Thank you for the additional info. We discussed this issue with the developers this morning and we think we may know where the issue is. We'll add this to the bug list for the next version of Recast as soon as we can verify what you found on our devices.
[Android Apps and Games] beerbaronstatic:
Alright, here are the screenshots, I had last synced weather/location during the day, then looked at the widget last night. Rotating did change it as well
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
beerbaronstatic, thanks for those images. We're looking at this issue today and so far it looks like Recast is doing exactly what it is supposed to do, as we intended it to.

While we debate on how best to handle your request, perhaps you can share with us what you think Recast should be doing in this situation.

To us, it seems wasteful and very Android un-friendly to update views and forecasts in the background that people aren't viewing, so Recast leaves things as-they-are until you manually refresh them in the pure "manual/manual" weather/location mode. If Recast did update every view you didn't see, more memory would be used to draw things you might not ever see. Conversely, when you rotate the device, Recast has to create a new view, if it doesn't already have one, to draw into the new orientation. That means that it will use the "then current" data to draw the widget or view, updating it to whatever "now" should look like, day or night, depending on your sunrise and sunset times.

The reason why your widget example is drawing the moon and sun over time, even though you are in manual mode, is the included clock item. That clock requires the widget to update every minute, so it always uses the "then current" data to draw sun or moon, based on the sunrise or sunset times. This doesn't require any extra processing time or weather fetches, since you've already committed to a once-per-minute redraw of the widget by having the clock, so there is no harm in redrawing the weather icon, too.

Hopefully this explains a bit of why Recast works the way you see it and can help us determine with you what the expectation for this feature should be in future versions.
[Android Apps and Games] beerbaronstatic:
Like i said it makes sense,i just wanted to make sure it was working as you guys intended.thanks!
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
Thanks for your understanding. We may still come up with a way to make the full screen weather appear to be more consistent with the way widgets are being drawn. Once we get closer to the next release I'll have more to say on the topic.
[Android Apps and Games] 21productionz:
Any chance of you guys adding an all orange color for the 5x2 clock? This is what I'm going for.

ParaNOTE Android
[Android Apps and Games] 21productionz:
Also, can you adjust the vertical margins? It used to sit right at the top, now it's off.

ParaNOTE Android
[Android Apps and Games] emfcunha:
Can not download widgets on online catalog

Hi all

When I am going to create a widget, for example 1x4, then click on download more, and I get only the page 4x2 with some arrows, not wiget images, and can not view any more wigets tab.

I tried it on my Sony LWW android 4.0 and on my tablet android 2.2, the same appens on both.

I use the paid version, updated on the google play.

Sorry I can not post images and links yet...
[Android Apps and Games] 21productionz:
Same for me..

Screen shot is me trying to download 5x2

CMX
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
21productionz, I can look at adding an orange color set. Do you have other colors to use or should they all just be orange? I can PM you (and anyone else who wants to know) some of the details if you'd like to contribute to this.

I'm guessing that XDA notifications don't work any more because somehow I've missed posts put up here in the past 3 days... weird stuff.
[Android Apps and Games] 21productionz:
All orange would be great, much appreciated.

CMX
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
Not sure how the Catalog problem came up, but its my fault, as I was working on that stuff over the past few days.

We're looking into it right now and will get back to you on what the issue is shortly. Sorry!
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
OK, everything should be all fixed up. Sorry about that. In my quest to clean up all the different widgets I made a small error that impacted all of the catalog widgets that I touched. That has been fixed now and all of the widgets and categories should appear once again.

Let us know if you find something else out of place or acting funny and we will jump in and try to fix it. Otherwise we're going to keep on trucking towards the 1.0.5 release.
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
21productionz, go take a look in the Catalog at the new color set, Oranges, and see if that works for you. It seems plenty orange to me :)
[Android Apps and Games] 21productionz:
You are awesome. But you missed one! There are 2 5x2 weather clock widgets in the market exact same widget just there 2wice.

Orange is great, thank you sooooo much

CMX
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
21productionz, I looked on one of our devices and I don't see a duplicate of two of the 5x2's. For "Clock Weather Date Widget" there is an alternate, "Wider" version, which is a wider version of the normal option, so maybe that is what you are seeing?

Also, I don't see the images here on Google Chome.
[Android Apps and Games] 21productionz:
Xda won't let me upload and tapatalk isn't working. I'll post it when it's working.

Did you see my post about the margins?

CMX (AOKP)

---------- Post added at 08:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:07 PM ----------

Here it is, so you don't have to search. http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=30556251

CMX
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
Yes, I saw your comments but they didn't match up with what we see here on our devices. As I mentioned above, there are two different 5x2 widgets that are similar now, and both of them have slightly different widths. So we would need the information on which version of these two you are using, since it makes a difference.

For the record, the ONLY difference between these two widgets is the overall width. There is no change happening in the height, layout, individual items within the widget, colors, fonts or anything else. If something visually changed for you, the only thing it could be is that your device doesn't like the width on one of the versions of that widget. The easy fix... use the other widget layout :)
[Android Apps and Games] 21productionz:
I tried them both, and both sit just as far from the top. If I revert back to .02 it works as expected. Don't know if that helps.

CMX
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
Sadly, reverting to 1.0.2 isn't something that we can not test against. The way Recast draws backgrounds is completely and irreversibly different in 1.0.4 and forward, so there is no way to compare directly with older versions. These changes were necessary to support landscape layouts, newer devices like the Nexus 7, and to better support (and standardize metrics) for non-standard layouts like those found on the Galaxy Note.

This is a case of needing to support more devices, new devices, and more layouts vs not doing any of this and remaining on the older version of the Recast drawing code. We can't support both methods, so we are now setup for forward compatibility. Hopefully you can live with what Recast now draws?
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
One additional note on this topic from the devs: the older 1.0.2 and previous builds were out-of-compliance with the Android specifications for handling padding and border area around widgets. In 1.0.3 and 1.0.4 we worked to fix these issues, which is what allows Recast to now draw correctly on so many more devices than it did in previous versions.

So while I understand the desire to have drawing done "the old way" for widgets, what Recast now does is actually to-spec and should be much more device neutral for everyone... meaning more folks can use Recast and hopefully we can continue to support the product more easily with each new version. Hopefully this helps explain our reasons for making the changes on the product.
[Android Apps and Games] 21productionz:
I am using the current version made available to me (thank you again). I don't plan on reverting as this build is more reliable.

Both the wide and regular versions are the exact same size on my note running CMX and AOKP.

CMX
[Android Apps and Games] mstroud:
Wow, that is really weird. The "wider" version is longer than the original version. Try putting the 5x1 weather widget directly below your existing widget AND turn on backgrounds for both. That should allow you to see the visual difference between them.