Huge thanks to @adamwolf (and of course @saranli who wrote the original version of Beedroid eons ago) for a huge list of improvements! (And huge boo to Google for making Android development kind of awful these days.)
Here’s a top-ten list of changes you’re most likely to care about:
You can log in via your Google account again, finally!
We’ve totally redone notifications and you now set them on the website – beeminder.com/reminders – like all other kinds of reminders (email, SMS, iOS, Slack, webhook). This should make notifications more reliable and more consistent, but they now require an internet connection to work.
Bonus: No more dumb permanotification!
Lots of things should look better at different font sizes and load faster and stay in sync better as you move between screens.
Streamlined settings, like killing things that are built in to Android now.
Sending datapoints to Beeminder is faster / more reliable.
You can set longer goal descriptions.
Create homescreen widgets by long-pressing on goals in the app!
Better widget previews, other widget aesthetics, and widgets never say “derailed” when it’s just that they haven’t loaded yet.
The list widget, showing all your most urgent goals, now shows a faded edge so you know to scroll to see more than what fits on your screen.
There’s also a much longer list of fixes and improvements you’re less likely to notice or to have been affected by but they’re a big deal for some of you!
If you’ve noticed anything not on that list, we’d love to hear about it!
I do too! I’m curious–does long pressing the goal list to pop up the widget doohickey feel janky on your phone? It sometimes, like, seems like maybe it eats one of my touches, but every time I try to isolate it, I can’t find it! Some confirmation that “nah, it’s great here” or “you know… now that you mention it, it is kinda janky?” would be awesome.
(Android Studio was screaming about many many “touch target too small” “font too small” accessibility issues so I corrected some of the most egregious ones for Beedroid 5.)
i absolutely love this! it’s way quicker than scrolling through the widget list to find the beeminder widget.
however, if there were a way to automatically add the widget for the goal one long-presses … that would be even more amazing!
(i know the solution for me is to just remember to long press the first goal on the list and not look for the one i want the widget of before i press it, but i just wanted to mention it.)
That’s how it works for me - open the Beeminder app, long-press a goal, add the widget, and it’s for the goal I pressed.
Maybe it’s dependent on the Android launcher. I use Nova Launcher.
If you’re looking to try different launchers, I’d thoroughly recommend Nova. It’s excellent in many ways.
One thing it lets you do is long-press on an app’s icon and then tap on a widget symbol to see a list of widgets for only that app, which is also way quicker than scrolling through the full widget list to find the app.
You should be able to get to the widget screen by long pressing on the goal on the goal list screen and by selecting Pin Widget on the top menu of the goal detail screen.
Definitely let me know if that doesn’t work for you.
oh, that might be it! i’ve only ever used the built-in launchers.
when i click/long press these, i get the “add [widget] to home screen” little pop-up, where i can confirm “add,” but then it opens the “shortcut widget” window which prompts me to “select goal for account enbee,” so i have to select the correct goal again, it doesn’t automatically add the widget for the goal i long-pressed/clicked “pin widget” on. maybe that’s also because i still have the option to fill out the auto-fill value?
but as alys suggested, it might be different with a launcher!
I’m delighted to confirm that at long last Beedroid’s notifications have so far been rock solid ever since this major release, despite my phone being a OnePlus which are famous for aggressive battery optimisation strategies which kill background apps. Now I’m only derailing when I deserve to. Kudos to @adamwolf and everyone involved in this huge leap forwards!
