Ass (Ackee Screenshotting System)

We often found our testers submitting screenshots with details about the issue, device specific information and user id to our bug tracking system. We wanted to automate this activity in a way that would be minimally intrusive for our applications and as helpful as possible for our testers.

During weekend hackathon session we created this library that allows testers to shake the device to take screenshot, add description of the problem, and send all device/app specific information to our servers.

Setup

You have to initialize the library first:

class MyApp : Application() {

    override fun onCreate() {
        super.onCreate()

        Ass.initialize(this, "https://your.project.firebaseapp.com", "authtoken")
    }
}

The initialize method requires 3 arguments:

• Application reference (because it hooks into its ActivityLifecycleCallbacks),
• url of the server where requests should be sent,
• authToken that is sent as part of Authorization header.

That is enough to set up the library.

Usage

If you initialized the library and shake the device while the application is in a resumed state, a screenshot of currently resumed Activity is taken and sent via intent to FeedbackActivity.

FeedbackActivity automatically collects device specific information such as device name, OS version and static application information such as app name, version and package. All these details together with the screenshot are uploaded to a server when you hit send button.

Extra parameters

If you want to send extra information you can define global parameters that are uploaded with each request or local parameters that are scoped to a specific Activity and uploaded only if shaken with that Activity active.

Ass.setGlobalParameters(
    "flavor" withValue "premium"
)

Ass.setLocalParameters(this,
    "anonymous" withValue false,
    "accountName" withValue "pan.unicorn@ackee.cz",
    "userId" withValue 10
)

You might want to set user's id and username as global parameters once he is logged in or just scope it to profile screen if that makes more sense.

Disabled activities

Sometimes you might not want to enable shake gesture for a specific Activity. For that you can use addDisabledActivities:

Ass.addDisabledActivities(
    LoginActivity::class.java
)

Shake sensitivity

Depending on the kind of application you develop, you might want to increase or reduce sensitivity of the shake gesture. For that you can use setShakeSensitivity:

Ass.setShakeSensitivity(Ass.Sensitivity.Light)  // makes it easier to activate
Ass.setShakeSensitivity(Ass.Sensitivity.Medium) // default
Ass.setShakeSensitivity(Ass.Sensitivity.Hard)   // makes it harder to activate

Dependency

Library can be added as a dependency from mavenCentral repository:

dependencies {
    implementation 'io.github.ackeescreenshoter:android:2.0.0'
}

Due to third party library relying on another library, make sure to add this to your project-level build.gradle:

allprojects {
   repositories {
      	jcenter()
       	maven { url "https://jitpack.io" }  // This row
   }
}

This is a temporary measure and will be possibly resolved in the future (this issue)

License

Copyright 2018 Ackee, s.r.o.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.