GT NextBus

Features Currently Being Worked On

• [?] Fix times for buses in JSON
• [?] Update the JSON data [work in progress]
• Fix Add-to-Favorites icon with a plus sign
• [?] Implement warning for when the API is down? (Look into timeout issues)

Features to Consider

• Add support for Pause/onResume
• Include static schedules for Grocery? Emory?
• Make some sort of delete/reorder list for favorites

Already Completed

• Change static modifiers to private.
• Removed same route for "Other Route" popup
• Added support for Emory route
• Fix support for stops that have different tags but are the same. (i.e. "fitten_a" for Blue and "fitten" for Red)
• Migrate from native JSON parser to GSON
• Fix "Other Route" Cells
• Made the SlidingDrawer use a BaseAdapter instead of an ArrayAdapter

Preferences for code are:

• Prefer smaller, more compact code.
• Try to follow the Android Code Style Documentation as much as possible.
• Move getter/setters/trivial/overrided methods to bottom of file.
• Annotate @Overrides to help understand the purpose of a method.
• If there are multiple Event Listeners being created in the onCreate method, move them to a separate "eventListeners(args)" to keep the onCreate method clean.

Quick Documentation

How to have a working source

Necessary libraries are:

• RoboGuice: used for depedency injection so there aren't unneeded _ = (TextView) findViewById(…) everywhere.
  • Already included in /libs/ and necessary dependent libraries
  • Github Page
  • Tutorials
• ActionBarSherlock. Home Page
  • Version needed is here
• ViewPagerIndicator: used for displaying the information.
  • Requires to make the project as a library available for this project. Should be in the same workspace. GitHub Page
  • Version needed is here

Random Notes for Documentation

• Since Heroku puts dynos to sleep when they become inactive and waking them up is a 10+ second process, on the Route Picker Activity start a wake up request is made to the server.
• Prefer factory methods for creating intents.
• Do not include "android-support-v4.jar" since it is included with the ViewPagerIndicator library.
• Routes, directions, and stops have titles and tags. Titles are displayed to the user because they are the full names. Tags are used for API calls since they are smaller. Example shown at the end of this list. Except Route titles are not used because they are too long to display properly. In that case, use the capitalize method to convert the tag into an appropriate format for display.
• There are inconsistencies in stop tags for different routes. For example, Red and Blue both have a stop at Fitten but for the tags are "fitten" and "fitten_a" for Red and Blue routes, respectively. There are other stops with similar pattern, like for northave and northave_a, and Student Center is sometimes referred to as studcentr and centrstud. This might be a limitation of the NextBus API, but it's an inconvenience for us.
• A route may use one stop in multiple directions. For example, the Midnight Rambler (Night), stops at the Transit Hub twice for two directions (To Clough Commons and To Fitten). So the user should be able to select the route and the direction.

Sample Route/Direction/Stop tag/titles:

RouteTitle: "Red" [Not used]
RouteTag: "red"    
DirectionTitle: "To Transit Hub"
DirectionTag: "hub"    
StopTitle: "Recreation Center"
StopTag: "recctr"

Sample Coding Style:

public class MyClass {
    public static final int SOME_CONSTANT = 42;
    public int publicField;
    private static MyClass sSingleton;
    int mPackagePrivate;
    private int mPrivate;
    protected int mProtected;
}

More information about styling guide here.

Activities

• Route Picker: Shows stops if a route only has one direction. Otherwise shows the direction options for routes with more than one direction, which when selected creates an Stop List intent.
• Stop List: If a route has more than one direction, this is used to display the stops available for a certain direction.
• Stop View: Shows the predicted times for a route/direction/stop.
• Favorites: Displays the favorited route/direction/stops and when selected creates a Stop View for predictions.
• Preferences: Uses native Android preferences activity.
• Credits: Simple list view with contact information.
• Map View: Shows the routes overlayed on a map.

Backend

• API Controller: Used to interact with the API for prediction data.
• Data: Used for save/loading information about route/direction/stop from JSON.

Old README Below

An Android client for the Georgia Tech Nextbus stop service.

Link:

• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.doug.nextbus

Development has ceased due to lack of time and working Android device. However, it's been installed over 1000 times and has over 500 active users. I'd love it if some other kind soul could take over development to provide the Georgia Tech student body with a beautiful, simple Android Nextbus app.

I hope you decide to fork/pull and help out. Contact me if you have any questions!