GW CS Senior Design Project by Brooke Claroni, Giana Fiore & Jekko Syquia

PhotoComposer

About

PhotoComposer is an Android smart-camera app that teaches users how to take better photos.

To learn more go to the website below: PhotoComposer

Important Notes

Before beginning make sure the following requirements are met to build and run the application.

• Make sure to register and acquire your Pixabay Api Key here. This is required to build the source code.

  • Copy the API key create a new file called keys.xml under PictureComposer > app > src > main > res > values

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
    <string name="pixabay_api_key">PASTE PIXABAY API KEY HERE</string>
</resources>

• Please use on a Pixel 3 device running API 28 + or emulate Pixel 3 API 28 through Android Studio's AVD Manager

• If running on a physical device make sure to enable Developer options.

• Android Studio 4.13 or newer to build the source codes

Installation issues?

• Run gradle sync before building this ensures that libraries are downloaded before building.
• Make sure the correct emulator device requirement is met.

---

Building and running on Emulator

Make sure the requirements are met in the important notes above before proceeding. Download our zip folder of code and unzip. Open an existing project in Android Studio and select PictureComposer from your documents.

Pixel 3 API 28 should be selected beside the app configuration toolbar, if not please select Pixel 3 API 28 as seen on the screenshot below.

Run Gradle Sync by clicking the small elephant icon in the top right corner of Android Studio.

To Run the application press the green play button next to the emulator name (Pixel 3 API 28 in this example)

This will perform a Gradle Build and if it is successful a pop up will display saying “Success. Operation Succeeded” and the app will install and launch on your emulator on a separate emulator window.

Running release apk on a physical Android device

Make sure developer options is enabled.

Open the command prompt/terminal in this directory. cd to the apk-build directory.

cd apk-build/

Run the following to make sure your device is detected.

adb devices -l

A list of devices will be shown and you should see your device connected.

Now to install the application run the following script

adb install ./PhotoComposer.apk

On success you should get the following:

Performing Streamed Install
Success

Running release apk on an emulator

With the Pixel 3 API 28 emulator running in Android Studio. Locate the android-build directory and drag the PhotoComposer.apk file into the emulator screen and the installation will proceed.

Building release apk to run on Android devices

To build your own release apk, in Android Studio navigate to the menu bar and select Build > Build Bundle(s) / APK(s) > Build APK(s).

The release apk will start building, this may take a while. When the application finish installing an indicator on the lower right Event Log will appear indicating that the APK(s) generated succesfully for 1 module.

Click on locate and it will direct you to the .apk file. To install proceed with the same instructions above.

Before continuing development on this project

To continue with development on our project, you may want to gain access to this project’s Firebase console. This can be accomplished by emailing a current admin and requesting for permission to join the project as a Firebase admin. Using a personal email for this is recommended since Firebase treats student accounts differently.