Kostya Vasilyev's software blog

I know it’s taken me a long time, but the new version is finally here:

Full changelog:

• Two new widget themes, styled after Android 4.0 (part of premium package).
• Support for IP address and proxy server configuration for Android 3.0 and 4.0 (free functions).
• Added widget to toggle WiFi Tethering
• Adjusted widget sizes for a wider range of screens.
• Support for EAP (802.11x) networks, Android 2.2 and higher.
• A new way of connecting to networks, see app settings. Keeps all networks active, if you move out/in range (home/work etc.) your device should connect.
• Easier IP address configuration for Andorid 2.* (when connecting for the first time).
• Connection speed info in the main window (tap on the currently connected network; actual value is reported by the firmware).
• Fixed Android 1.6 compatibility broken in 2.1.8 (sorry!)

Note: IP address and proxy configuration for Android 3.*/4.*, as well as EAP network support, use undocumented functions. May not work on some devices, depending on how extensive the manufacturer’s firmware changes are.

Version 2.5.0 had wrong widget widths on Android 1.6-2.1. Fixed in 2.5.1.

And now the same thing again, but this time in Russian:

• Две новые визуальные темы для виджетов в стиле Андроида 4.0 (входят в платный пакет).
• Поддержка конфигурации IP адреса и прокси сервера для Андроида 3.0 и 4.0 (бесплатные функции).
• Добавил виджет для управления точкой доступа WiFi.
• Коррекция размеров виджетов для более широкого набора экранов.
• Поддержка сетей EAP (802.11x), на Андроиде 2.2 и выше.
• Новый алгоритм подключения к сетям, включается в настройках. Все сети остаются активными, при выходе/входе в зону действия (дом/работа, etc.) должно быть подключение.
• Более простая конфигурация IP адреса в Андроиде 2.* (сразу при подключении).
• Отображение скорости соединения в основной программе (нажмите на сеть; зависит от прошивки).
• Исправил совместимость с Андроидом 1.6, сломанную в 2.1.8 (извините!)

Учтите: для настроек IP адреса и прокси сервера на Андроиде 3.*/4.*, равно как и для работы с сетями EAP, используются недокументированные функции. Может не работать на некоторых устройствах, в зависимости от степени изменений прошивки, внесенных производителем.

Версия 2.5.0 неверно отображала виджеты, по ширине. Исправлено в 2.5.1.

I’m working on adding support for EAP networks to WiFi Manager.

My test environment uses dd-wrt running on an old Linksys WRT54GL and freeradius running on my main development system. It actually turned out to be fairly easy to configure.

Some useful links:

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-howto/30213-how-to-setting-up-freeradius-for-wpa-a-wpa2-enterprise-part-2

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,9286052~mode=flat

http://habrahabr.ru/blogs/wireless/128405/

http://www.ixbt.com/comm/prac-wpa-eap_3.shtml

• Added Polish and Czech translations.
• The 3×1 wiget on 10″ tablets now shows connection speed info, like the 4×1 widget on smaller screens.
• Sharper graphics for the Galaxy Nexus.

Some screenshots:

• Added Slovak translation.
• Added a workaround for an Android Market / Checkout issue.

More on the Market / Checkout issue:

Starting with about three weeks ago, I’m seeing those dreaded “Order canceled / took too long to deliver” errors again. Maybe it’s the latest Market app version, maybe it’s the Wallet / Checkout merge, there is no way for me to know.

These errors are not new, but what is new is that now when this happens, there is no “order canceled” notification from Google’s servers to the application.

Google Groups discussion

Bug tracker discussion #1

Bug tracker discussion #2

Android Market Forum discussions

As a result, the app would get stuck waiting for the order to complete or fail, and the user could not retry his purchase.

Version 2.1.7 adds code to automatically reset from “order in progress” state after four hours.

Now if one of these Market errors happens again, there is a way to retry the purchase.

Unfortunately, it does not mean that the repeat order will succeed – that’s up for Google to fix, and they’ve not done that for a few months now.

Subtitled: why I never buy any Andorid devices made by Samsung.

This update has a workaround for a firmware bug on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.

About a month or so ago, someone left a Market comment saying that the app crashes on his Galaxy Tab 10.1. With no way to contact the user via Market (thank you, Google, one way “communication” is so effective!), I had no way to verify and resolve the issue. In fact, I have two Honeycomb based tablets, and the app works just fine on both of them.

Now, two days ago, a very nice user contacted me via email, reporting that WiFi Manager crashed when trying to disable the device’s WiFi. He provided screenshots, one of them had an error message displayed by the firmware: “the application does not have the android.permission.CHANGE_NETWORK_STATE permission“.

I added the permission, emailed the apk to the user, the issue went away.

And here is why I “looove” Samsung.

Working with WiFi does not require android.permission.CHANGE_NETWORK_STATE. It requires android.permission.CHANGE_WIFI_STATE, which is a different permission.

The firmware on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 thinks that CHANGE_NETWORK_STATE is required for disabling WiFi – probably because the device also has a 3G modem, and disabling WiFi kind of, sort of, like, maybe implies enabling 3G (which might be done a bit later by the firmware and not by the application that disabled WiFi).

This is wrong and is clearly a bug in the firmware.

All my users will now need to update the app manually due to the added permission, which is an inconvenience.

I wonder how this one slipped past Google’s certification testing. Perhaps this is not tested by the CCD, or perhaps firmware updates are not required to be submitted for testing, only the initial releases are.

The latter seems likely – seeing how the 3.2.1 firmware for the Motorola Xoom also has a serious issue with WiFi APIs (a thread deadlock, it seems).

A user recently reported an issue with IP switching on his office network: the automatic switching wouldn’t work.

To fix this, I added a “compatibility” setting to “Switch early”. If the application doesn’t notice a WiFi network connection change and doesn’t switch to its IP, try enabling this setting and see if it makes a difference.

More info:

WiFi Manager watches WiFi related events which are broadcast by the networking code inside Andorid. There is a number of events during a single connection, so there is a choice as to which one is used to check and update the device’s IP settings.

The new setting instructs the program to make the check / switch on an earlier event than before.

This is disabled by default, to make sure the application keeps working as before on those devices that don’t need this change.

A new release: WiFi Manager 2.1.3.

This is a small update, first of all, it now has an option to display network signal strength as dBm in the radar mode:

I also fixed a couple of crashes, one of which merits a small story.

There is a setting in the application to play a sound when it discovers a new open network. To let the user pick the sound, I used RingtonePreference, which is a class built into Android for picking a sound (does just what it says on the box… nice).

Some manufacturers make changes to Android’s UI components, the ringtone picker included, and as it turns out, one of them, Samsung, didn’t properly test their modificaitons for the Galaxy S.

The ringtone picker on the Galaxy S crashes if the applciation reqests that the “None” option not be included in the available sounds list. My application did exactly that, because it has a separate checkbox to enable or disable sound notifications. Now, this option is a standard part of Android. It’s documented, it’s supported on all Andorid versions, but Samsung didn’t properly test their modifications to this class.

Nice. But it doesn’t end here – I’ve been seeing crash reports in this code “from the field” in my Market Developer Console for a few months now, but the device was listed as “Other”. Does it make sense that one of the most commercially successfull Android devices is listed the same as a non-name device from an unknown manufacturer? Wait, it gets better – apparently, Google’s own Nexus S, which is also affected by this bug, is also listed as “Other”. So all this time I just assumed that the app crashed on some weird device with broken firmware and ignored it.

The end of this story is that the bug is a really trivial one, and it’s fixed in this release, but it could have been fixed a long time ago (or not be there at all) if only Samsung and Google had set their quality bar just a little bit higher.

It seems that Google fixed the significant problems with activation that were happening all of July. And so, here it is, a new version, 2.0.4.

This version has a few bug fixes, as well as a new widget size, 4×1, which shows your device-to-router connection speed.

There are a quite few devices already that have 802.11n WiFi chips in them, and are capable of establishing WiFi connections at speeds higher than 54 Mbps. One of these is my HTC Incredible S, shown in the screenshot below. The Incredible S correctly reports the actual connection speed (checked at the router management page), which is then shown in the widget. Some other devices that are capable of high speeds with 802.11n always report 54 Mbps to the program (my Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc is one of these).

So, if you like this feature, and your phone is one of those that can connect at 802.11n speeds, but you always see 54 Mbps in the widget, please report it to the manufacturer / firmware author so it can be fixed.

One other change is that there is now a setting to select which widget sizes you’d like to see in the launcher. Android requires that multiple widget sizes are implemented as separate widgets, and the Launcher’s widget list can get too long and uncomfortable. With this in mind, you can now select which widgets sizes you’d like to see in the Launcher’s widget list.

Detailed changelog for version 2.0.4:

• Fixed dns2 after the program is reloaded.
• Added a warning about IP address switching in Android 3.0.
• Added a 4×1 widget with WiFi link speed (most devices report 54Mbps).
• Added settings to select which widget sizes are shown in the launcher.

The list of changes is small this time, but that second fix is pretty important.

• Fixed network security type not updating when scanning.
• Fixed application crashing if left at a dialog in the background for a long time.
• Added more icons that can be assigned to networks.

The new ions look like this (the bottom row):

Exactly one week ago, I uploaded WiFi Manager 2.0 to Android Market. I would like to say a few Thank You’s, each for its own reasons.

Thank You number One

This goes to all those who like the premium features enough to actually buy them. Adding paid features was to a large degree an experiment, and I can say at this point that it is a succesfull one.

Some (about 5%) had difficulty activating the premium features, caused by Google being too slow with sending the purchase confirmation back to the application. All those who contacted me about this were able to resolve the issue by uninstalling / reinstalling the application. Reinstalling makes the application run a repeat check with Google for an existing purchase. This is how someone can get a new phone, or do a factory data reset, and still make use of his past purchase.

Thank You number Two

This goes to all those who have read the app’s description, which clearly explains that some features are now available for a small fee and decided to stay with the previous version. Also to those who updated to version 2.0, but don’t feel the need to update to premium, and are ok with that.

Why is this a thank you? Because there is mutual respect and understanding here.

Thank You number Three

This thank you goes to those who got angry at me for deciding to split the free / premium features, and posted angry, emotional comments to Market (and by the way, Google doesn’t provide a way for me to respond there).

Some of these comments are factually incorrect, let’s look at some typical ones:

- Claiming that I took “all the features” away.

This is not true. All the essential features for managing your connections are still there. You can scan, add networks, connect, disconnect, etc. The widgets showing the current WiFi state, including the toggle are still there, in two sizes, just like before.

By the way, those widgets will get better later this week, with a configurable transparency setting.

- Claming that in-app purchases cannot be paid for once, and then used on multiple devices.

Again, not true. You can link all the devices you own to your primary Google account (the one you used to make the purchase), which makes the app’s features available on all of them.

- Calling this is “bait and switch” and “illegal”.

Get real. Bait and switch is something entirely different, essentially false advertising, or to put it another way, intentional misrepresentation, advantageous to one party, where some deal sounds better than it is, or could possibly be.

The app’s description is very clear about there being some pay-for features, and there is no misrepresentation or confusion about this of any kind.

And the reason this is a “thank you” is:

- Comments where I’m called a “scumbag”, “the f…ing scumbag”, “greedy”, “deceitful”, “voleur” (that’s “thief” in French), the application is called “junk” (why were you using it then?), things like “what the f…”, “should be banned from Market”, “reminiscent of organized crime tactics”, and so on.

Well. English is not my native language, I was only immersed in it for about twelve years, while living and working in the Silicon Valley area from about 1989 to 2001. So, I carefully wrote down all those words I’d been called and stored the piece of paper in a safe place, for the unlikely case if I ever feel the need to insult someone.

In other words, thank you for expanding my vocabulary.