OppiaMobile Android App

This page describes some of the basic customisations you may want to make when implementing your own version of the OppiaMobile learning platform. Here we describe some of the more common requests for basic customisations, however since the code is open source, you are, of course, free to make any customisations you like.

Prerequisites

Before being able to create your own version of the OppiaMobile app, you should have an understanding of:

  • Using Eclipse IDE for development
  • Basic understanding of the Android Java framework
  • How to use GitHub for source code management

If you are completely new to any of the above, here are a few links to help get you started:

Getting Started

  • Set up your development environment (Eclipse and Android framework)
  • Create a fork of the oppia-mobile-android repository in GitHub
  • Clone your new GitHub repository to your machine
  • Create a project in Eclipse connected to this repository
  • Ensure that you are able to compile and run (either on your physical Android phone or on an Android Virtual Device)

Please ensure that you are able to compile and run the core version of the app before you start to make any changes to the code.

Server Connection

Assuming you have set up and installed you own OppiaMobile server, clearly you’ll want your users to connect to this by default.

The core OppiaMobile android app is configured to point to our demonstration server (http://demo.oppia-mobile.org). To have your version of the app automatically point to your server:

  • Open the /res/values/strings.xml file
  • Change the prefServerDefault string to be the url to your server

Design/Layout

For changes to the design/layout such as changing the logo in the header, colour scheme etc., this should be fairly straightforward and you should look at the following files in which to make these changes:

For more significant changes to the interface over and above changing the basic colour scheme and header etc, then this will require more substantial updates and familiarity with the code base.

Splash Screen

Preloading Courses

If you would like to distribute your app with some courses preinstalled, for example if you have a lot of phones you would like set up with the same set of courses, then follow these steps:

  • Place the course zip file(s) in the assets/www/preload/courses/ directory

  • Add the following lines to the doInBackground method of org.digitalcampus.oppia.task.UpgradeManagerTask:

    if(!prefs.getBoolean("upgradeVXXX",false)){
            Editor editor = prefs.edit();
            editor.putBoolean("upgradeVXXX", true);
            editor.commit();
            publishProgress("Upgraded to vXXX");
            payload.setResult(true);
    }

    where XXX is the new version number. The first time the app is installed and run, the courses will be automatically installed.

  • To subsequently distribute an updated version of the app (with new versions of the courses), then you will need to add another code block (with new version number) to trigger the automatic installation of the updated/new courses.

Preloading Media Files

Registration Form

Other Activity Types

Application distribution and auto-updating