Update: JyotishTools Pro 1.54 for Android has been released. I want to warn those who do pransa that if you exited Pro with a prasna chart very likely when you run it again it will show that prasna chart. It is not the chart for current time. For that go to the menu and select Prasna. This is “feature” in the way Android 15 works than previous Android versions. A few extra things that been reported will be addressed ia separate post later.
I should have posted this earlier but I only got two reports of a problem with the Android version of JyotishTools Pro. Version 1.53 has a bug which kept from importing an old chart database either on the phone itself or from the cloud. The bug has been fixed but it is a little more complicated that just a simple update.
So don’t run out and buy that new Android phone you want quite yet because you won’t be able to import your charts from the old phone. Don’t worry because an update hopefully will be available this coming week. The update also is much more as I was required to change the framework from Xamarin to .Net MAUI and that requires more testing. Also important as this needs to be submitted before August 31st to Google PLay.
To explain without too much tech talk is that iOS and Windows can just open an external chart database and import it from there. Not so with Android which requires copying the external database to the app’s internal file memory and read import each chart to the existing database from there. I still don’t know how it happened but when the copy is added as a temp file, a message is sent back to the app that it is ready to copy and that line somehow got commented out. So yes, the database got imported but not processed.
I couldn’t just uncomment that line and update that app on Google Play. Xamarin, which Microsoft owns, is no longer supported and also Google Play may not accept any Xamarin built app but MAUI (Microsoft’s replacement) instead. Now Google only requires that the “target SDK” in the app be set for Android 15. A year ago a similar requirement was to target Android 14. In both cases only that is required and the actual build SDK could be the same. This year Microsoft has required that the build SDK be Android 15.
This build needs just a little more testing before uploading. As for MAUI I’ve been building some new apps with it and testing that framework since 2020 but it has taken 4 years for it to be stable enough to release an app with it. I also don’t like to change any UI because astrologers get so used to the old one and are frustrated by changes. I note that is the same for other astrology app companies that instead of changing and updating the UI they release a new app for that. Astrologers can choose whether to keep the old app or move to the new one.
There are some new features in this coming version. First off for astrology you know the date and time usually. Wading through a parade of widgets is cute but not very practical and time wasting. That I have replaced it with a single text line for date and one for time. Those lines are parsed and when correct turn green for go. There’s a bit of AI in that system. If you prefer the widgets then you can click on a button and get those instead.
Also the atlas input has changed. No selecting country is needed, just the name of the city and at that the firs two letter will bring up a list. Need more refinement add a comma and the state or province abbreviation and you’ll get those. Anyway it is faster and more efficient.
The favorite charts feature will now be tagged in the chart database and will travel with it rather than the text list that handled it.
One feature that may be lacking is printing or PDF charts using glyphs. Seems to work with iOS but Android and Windows can handle that like they did in Xamarin. Hopefully that will get fixed by Microsoft.
Also if anyone uses the Map feature (does anyone?) on Windows in the right hand lower corner is a warning about a token. What has happened is Microsoft has no longer issued new keys to use their Bing Maps. What they haven’t done was figure out how to replace it for MAUI.
So you know how much fun developing software is these daze.