Monday 21 January 2013

Weight Recorder Release 1.03

Download Weight Recorder

A new version of Weight Recorder, the diet tracking app, has been released with new exciting features.

Import Data

James Rendek requested that the app should let you import data as well as exporting data. To implement this I decided to let the user copy and paste their data directly into the app. Example data here:

93.70,2012-12-23 11:00:00,"pigged out on hot dogs after the pub"
94.80,2012-12-24 11:00:00,""
94.40,2012-12-26 11:00:00,""



The idea is that you would open up the text file or email containing the data, select all, copy and then paste into the app:


Since this is raw data and I consider that it is important that data should be stored in a standard format so that it can be easily exchanged, there are several points to note.


  • Weights are expressed in kilograms, the international standard unit for mass. To convert to pounds multiply by 2.20462 in your spreadsheet.
  • The date / time has the following format: yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss. Note that 24 hour clock is used. No time zone information is stored.
  • Comments are enclosed in quotation marks
  • Fields are separated by commas and each weight reading starts on a new line (\n).

If these restrictions are too inconvenient, please drop me an email and I'll try to accommodate extra settings such as expressing weight in pounds.


Stones and Pounds

Adrian Smith requested the British (and Irish) weight units Stones and Pounds. In Britain people quote their weight in stones,  for example 14 stone and 9 pounds which is same as 205lb.

The difficulty here is that I didn't want two text fields, one for stones the other for pounds. In the end I designed a custom number picker that displays the weight in the correct units and format. You can now adjust the weight by small amounts (1 pound or 0.1kg) or press the button showing the weight to enter it as a decimal number. I've removed the speech for text feature for entering numbers as I can't see it been particularly useful.


What's Next?

Kevin Diles has request a paid version of the app without any ads. After researching Android App development  I reckoned there was no hope for paid apps on Android, but it looks like I was wrong. 

In the next few weeks I'll put together a pro version of Weight Recorder with Admob removed. I'll also make the import and export features only available in the pro version so that users at least get some extra value for their money. Charges will be $0.99, £0.99 or €0.99 depending on country. The difficult part will be sorting out tax codes...



Hope the diet is going well, I've lost over 6 pounds since Christmas.

Pig Dog Bay





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