Android widget

[kennelh]

I'm a Mach-E owner and member of the Mach-E forums, and inspired by @tonesto7 and others made an Android widget for my car. Over the weekend someone from this forum reached out to me about supporting the F-150. They'd tried my app with their truck and most things worked, but obviously since I wrote it specifically for my car some things didn't work. We've traded information a few times and last night I made some mods for preliminary support:

From a support standpoint, I see two hurdles immediately:

1. Graphics. There are many variants of the F-150, and so far I've only located the free 2-door image above. I need help locating free images for those other variants. Otherwise everyone is stuck with the above image.
2. Testing. There's only so much I can do without access to a truck myself to test new features. The easiest thing (for me) would be for some users to voluntarily let me sync my FordPass with their vehicle. This would just give me access to info on the vehicle, not access to anyone's Ford account. The alternative is for some tech-savvy users to capture JSON output and forward to me so I can use as test data.

I plan to commit a version in the next day or two, and I'll post here that happens.

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[kennelh]

Ok.... Version 2022.02.22 is out on GitHub with initial support for F-150 trucks. It will have some bugs until I get more data from users. Once you open the app, go to "Settings" in the three-bar menu and toggle the setting for F-150 Mode.

At this time I don't want to hassle with putting the app on Google Play, so you need to be comfortable sideloading the APK on your phone. That means you need to trust that nothing nefarious is happening in it.

Other various stipulations:

1. I'm open to suggestions for improvements, but since this just something to do in my spare time please don't expect any requests to be implemented immediately. If anyone wants to actively join in on development, I'm open to giving access to the project for anyone who's got Android programming skills. It's also open-source, so anyone can just clone the project and off you go....
2. My phone is a Pixel 5 running Android 12, so it's only being extensively tested there. I've created virtual devices running Android 10 and 11 for additional testing, but nothing earlier than that, so if you're using an older version of Android there are no guarantees.
3. If you discover a bug or have feature requests, just go over to the GitHub Issues page, create a post (or add to an existing post), and put "Bug" or "Feature request" in your title.

Some Mach-E owners have seen issues with the app still not updating on a regular basis: I suspect sometimes this may be caused by how Android handles background tasks in order to save battery. My suggestion is to find where your phone sets the battery usage for the app, and change it to "unrestricted" or "not optimized". Note that the app normally only runs when it's time to refresh data, so should you see increased battery usage set the time between widget refreshes to a longer interval.

Update: thanks for the enthusiastic support for far. After post #8 below, I've added a "Donate" link in the GitHub page. Proceeds will go toward purchasing assets for the app (i.e., purchasing other graphics needed for other vehicles), and surpluses donated to charities.

 

[skwrtle]

Doh snap! I'll see if I can find and/or make a schematic for ya

 

[skwrtle]

This usable?

 

[kennelh]

This usable?

That could be very usable; what's the source?

 

[skwrtle]

I modified an image i found on google lol

Here's where I got it from, i just removed the lettering..
https://cad-block.com/336-ford-f-150-xlt.html

 

[Fordphanatic]

I'm a Mach-E owner and member of the Mach-E forums, and inspired by @tonesto7 and others made an Android widget for my car. Over the weekend someone from this forum reached out to me about supporting the F-150. They'd tried my app with their truck and most things worked, but obviously since I wrote it specifically for my car some things didn't work. We've traded information a few times and last night I made some mods for preliminary support:

From a support standpoint, I see two hurdles immediately:

1. Graphics. There are many variants of the F-150, and so far I've only located the free 2-door image above. I need help locating free images for those other variants. Otherwise everyone is stuck with the above image.
2. Testing. There's only so much I can do without access to a truck myself to test new features. The easiest thing (for me) would be for some users to voluntarily let me sync my FordPass with their vehicle. This would just give me access to info on the vehicle, not access to anyone's Ford account. The alternative is for some tech-savvy users to capture JSON output and forward to me so I can use as test data.

I plan to commit a version in the next day or two, and I'll post here that happens.

VERY COOL!! Thank you for putting this out there. I just downloaded it now and it works great.

 

[kennelh]

I modified an image i found on google lol

Here's where I got it from, i just removed the lettering..
https://cad-block.com/336-ford-f-150-xlt.html

Yeah, that's what I'm trying to avoid (original images from a paid sites). I'm not opposed to a crowdfunding approach to buying images; I'd be willing to accept funds by Paypal and donating anything in excess to charities.

 

[Darkjeep]

This is awesome already.

 

[kennelh]

For anyone willing to supply some data to help me finish implementing other features: there is a setting under "Developers Options" for "Enable verbose HTTP logging". When that is enabled, the app will dump more data that I can use. To gather it, you need to do additional steps:

1. Install the Android Debug Bridge (adb) tools on your computer, then use "adb logcat" to grab information. If you're running Linux/*nix, you can do it more efficiently with

   adb logcat | egrep "(OkHttp|934TXS)"

2. Install a Android app which can capture logcat information
3. If your phone is rooted, install a terminal emulator like termux and, in a window, su to root and run

   logcat | egrep "(OkHttp|934TXS)"

Once you're running logcat, then do something in the F-150 app to generate network activity: if your issue is something incorrect in the widget (i.e., the distance to empty is wrong), force a refresh and after all the nonsense spews forth, cut-and-paste all the output and post as a text file either in a DM to me or post here on GitHub.

 

[DT444T]

Added it! Seems like a cool concept. What's the percentage under/behind the truck? Mine says -5.2% lol.

Edit: Not the miles to empty, the one under that.

 

[DJCurtis81]

Just downloaded now. Running on s20 ultra running Android 11. So far so good. Any way to determine what the ota update info means.

 

[DJCurtis81]

Added it! Seems like a cool concept. What's the percentage under/behind the truck? Mine says -5.2% lol.

Edit: Not the miles to empty, the one under that.

Think is percentage of fuel in tank

 

[kennelh]

Think is percentage of fuel in tank

Yeah, that's one of the things I need on which I need data. Everything I've seen is a negative number, so unless you're running on fumes....

 

[DJCurtis81]

Yeah, that's one of the things I need on which I need data. Everything I've seen is a negative number, so unless you're running on fumes....

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