Progress report: December 2020

Thursday, Dec 10, 2020 · 4 min read · 735 words

Skit

Earlier this year, there was a huge update for Skit - 2.0 “Odin”. It came out big and brought a lot of changes for users. But as it turned out a little later, these changes also introduced minor problems, namely performance problems and problems with people understanding of “.apks” files and “App Bundle” apps. These are the issues that I decided to focus on in update 2.1 “Frigg”.

Performance

I slightly reworked the mechanism for loading applications and saving their icons to the memory cache. This made loading applications a little faster, especially if you have more than 150 of them. Also, the initial loading mechanism was changed to speed-up loading. Now only custom (installed) apps will be loaded natively. If you also need system applications, just enable their loading in the settings dialog. This also includes facilitating the exchange of data between screens, which should speed them up.

I have not finished optimizing the application and work in this direction will still be carried out in the future.

Apps list

This tool has undergone improvements and bug fixes. It includes:

• Prevention of creating apps list without any selected apps;
• Handling of unknown errors, which excludes crashes related to such errors;
• Added sorting to the apps lists created after update;
• Updated design of the “View apps list” dialog, which includes dividers and new fonts.

Other changes and fixes

• Added: New card in the “Analytics” screen - RAM.
• Added: Proper margins from top and bottom in the “Manifest” screen.
• Removed: Over-scrolling mode in all dialogs to prevent overlapping of the UI.
• Updated: The memory measurement unit is divided into “Apps” and “Analytics”. Megabytes are set as default for “Apps” and gigabytes are set as default for “Analytics”.
• Fixed: Sorting by size not working.
• Fixed: “Components” buttons radius is broken on older Android versions in the “Details” screen.
• Fixed: Incorrect margins for the buttons in the “Other apps” and “More” screens.
• Fixed: Crash during successful extraction of any app with enabled Chinese Simplified localization.
• Fixed: “Empty state” in some screens missing image on older Android versions.
• Fixed: Keyboard opens with the app launch on some devices.
• Fixed: Apps lists may not be updated after creating/importing the first list in the “Apps list” screen.
• Fixed: “Create” button is not disabled, while the apps list still loading in the “Apps list” screen.
• Fixed: User not able to send feedback using the in-app form on Android 11.
• Fixed: Missing icon for the promotional notifications.

Castro

New big update for Castro - 4.1 “Prophet” mainly brings fixes for most of the known bugs, as well as a new tool for all users - the “Noise Meter”.

Noise checker

This new tool helps all users to check noise in the environment around you. It measures noise in decibels and also shows the maximum and minimum noise since the beginning of the recording. This tool does not save or send any records to third parties or even me. Measurements can also be viewed in a graph on the same screen.

Other changes and fixes

• Added: New devices in the DB: Realme 7 Pro, POCO (C3, M3), Samsung Galaxy A02S, Xiaomi (Redmi Note 9 4G, MI 10i, Redmi 9 Power), and LG Q52.
• Improved: Caching of the information in the “DRM” screen.
• Updated: Icons for some “Sensors” and “Modules”.
• Removed: Incorrect information about biometric authentication in the “Device” screen.
• Fixed: Every sensor in the list has the same information.
• Fixed: User not able to send feedback using the in-app form on Android 11.
• Fixed: Legend items for the graph not properly tinted for older Android versions in the “Sensor’s details” screen.
• Fixed: Crash during creating any type of “Data report”.
• Fixed: Crash in the “Memory” screen with enabled root-access.
• Fixed: The temperature of some sensors may be incorrect in the “Thermal” screen.
• Fixed: Crash related to the GSF ID in the “ID” screen.
• Fixed: Crash, when clicking on switches in the “Data report” screen.
• Fixed: Crash, when a user on Android 11 tries to open the “Network” module without granted permissions.
• Fixed: Missing icon for the promotional notifications.

Sale

Also closer to Christmas, the last sale of this year will take place and all my applications will receive a 50 percent discount on Google Play. So if you wanted to buy one of my apps, now is the best time to do so!