Surface Duo SDK topics

is TwoPaneBackStackEntry composable list of routes incompatible with arguments / URI Routes?

Papes96 — Sat, 08 Apr 2023 16:08:15 GMT

Hello,

I am doing some tests on the SDK and have encountered a roadblock. Currently, my application uses route arguments to find item details. However, upon navigating to them, the following exception is returned:

java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Invalid route item/4, not present in list of routes [home?, items?, item/{itemId}, ...]

I am unsure if this is a problem stemming from the fact that listOf[Routes] cannot take into account those values or if it is an error on my end. Could you please clarify?

Thank you for all your hard work!

Compose Jetpack TwoPaneLayoutNav can find route for pane1 but not for pane2

tscholze — Sat, 01 Apr 2023 13:11:44 GMT

Hi team,

long time no see but here I'm with another problem which is properly caused by not understanding the API.

I use the version:

implementation("com.microsoft.device.dualscreen:twopanelayout:1.0.1-alpha06")

My code

Based on the tutorial, I tried to get my TwoPaneLayoutNav working.

class MainActivity : ComponentActivity() { override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState) setContent { val navController = rememberNavController() TwoPaneLayoutNav( navController = navController, singlePaneStartDestination = "regions", pane1StartDestination = "regions", pane2StartDestination = "regions" ) { composable("regions") { RegionsScreen( navigateToRegion = { id -> navController.navigate("regions/${id}")} ) } composable("regions/{id}") { backStackEntry -> val id = backStackEntry.arguments?.getString("id") RegionScreen(regionId = id ?: "A") } } } } }

The problem

But as soon as I span the app across both screens, the app crashes with the following error:

java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Invalid route regions, not present in list of routes []

I tried not just "regions" but "regions/a", too. Both does not work. If I introduce another path like "test" is also does not work. In single screen mode, everything works as expected.

Thanks for your help!

Looking for a list with foldable & large-screen device related sessions

tscholze — Sun, 07 Aug 2022 15:35:51 GMT

Hi team,

sometimes the DX team posts that new session recordings are available. But to be honest, I think I miss a lot of them.

Do you have any list with "all" session recordings? It would be awesome! You speak at a lot of of different events which is hard to follow them all. 🙂

Looking for MVP 22/23 recommendations (who to follow)

tscholze — Fri, 22 Jul 2022 12:45:50 GMT

Hi team,

the new MVP year started and I just wanted to ask if someone of you has recommendation who to follow on Twitch, GitHub, Twitter, etc.

I know there is no MVP program related to the Surface Duo community, but maybe there are some Xamarin or other MVPs that are also covering this topic 🙂

Thanks a lot in advance and let's grow this community!

Stream idea: Adapting maps (but not GMaps) for foldables and large screen devices using Compose

tscholze — Tue, 24 May 2022 19:31:46 GMT

Hi team,

thanks to your fast answer to my last post, I know that the emulator does not support Google Play Services. That means Google Maps is not available using your emulator image.

Due to this circumstance you want to cover the topic of how to embed, use and modify maps (but not GMaps) to get the best user experience on foldable or large screen devices incl. navigation and showing detail information for a tapped pin.

To be honest, the official Microsoft Bing Maps SDK is a little bit off and not helpful (only java, no birds-eyed tutorial, no compose, etc.).

If you think this is no topic you wanna cover - it's fine I just think it would a very helpful until the emulator supports GPS - or WSA supports it which will never happen because of the Amazon Store 🙂

Does the current emulator not include Google Play Services?

tscholze — Mon, 23 May 2022 19:28:09 GMT

Hi team,

I fired up my old but still working Windows machine today and updated the Surface Duo Android 11 emulator (SurfaceDuoEmulator_Android11_2022.510.8_windows.exe).

Do you confirm that the emulator does not include the Google Play Services e.g. for Google Maps?

If the emulator has the services included, you could help me to understand the error message below 🙂

W/GooglePlayServicesUtil: com.github.tscholze.duobahn requires the Google Play Store, but it is missing. D/OpenGLRenderer: endAllActiveAnimators on 0x70f287917dc0 (UnprojectedRipple) with handle 0x70f1a79248c0

Thanks for any help!

[Developer story] My thoughts - Surface Duo developer for over 880 days

tscholze — Sun, 01 May 2022 15:51:14 GMT

Since November 19, 2019, at 7 pm German local time I was busy with the development for the Microsoft Surface Duo and thus for smartphones which have more than just a screen. In these now well over 880 days I went through many valleys of tears but also through many moments of pride regarding my spare time occupation of software development. One thing has always remained: The curiosity about the uniqueness of this new class of devices for developers as well as users. Only for the daily use it has not been enough yet.

# Why?

Like many other interested people at the time, I was particularly attracted by the hardware, the hinge, and the "newness" of the device. Things that I did not know from my bread and butter development for iOS and iPadOS, and at the time I was desperately missing them.

It was also quickly clear that I wanted to share my enthusiasm for the new device. Thus began my very first long series of posts on Dr. Windows . My diary about the development of the #rTsd app - My "Road To Surface Duo".

One big thing that kept me going was the free choice of technologies I could use to develop for the Android from Redmond. Xamarin, Flutter, Android and now Jetpack Compose. So it is and was the perfect playground to be able to try out new things from software development in my spare time and still be able to exist through a concrete scenario.

# It's the "niche" that makes it endearing to me

What kept me on the ball all these years was that the entire Surface Duo developer community is "family-like." Of course, this is due to the fact that the Duo has not yet taken off in terms of sales and market penetration.

As an interested developer, you have direct contact with helpful and inspiring people from the DX (Developer eXperience) team directly from Microsoft through various channels. Since all my apps, which I write in my hobby, are open source on GitHub, exciting conversations arise, if one - which admittedly rarely happens - runs into like-minded people.

If you compare this with experiences from the Apple Developer Portal and its DevRel, for example, you'll quickly notice that Duo really makes you feel like a human being, respected and, above all, "listened to".

In addition, it feels like an enormous success to me if you can convince even one more person of the concept of two-screen devices and they start to deal with the UI guidelines and finally understand them. I am incredibly happy about that. Things that are unthinkable for iOS or conventional Android development.

# What I wish for the next 880 days

As mentioned, the most important thing is that Microsoft continues. With updated hardware in the form of a Surface Duo 3, with a rapid update cycle of the Android operating system and with people who help you find your way in the complex world of dual screen devices.

This is the only way to establish an independent community that will continue to inspire and motivate itself over time. A start could be a small Discord server where interested and Microsoft employees can meet and exchange ideas.

Even though we are here on a Microsoft Community my wish remains that Microsoft also brings the emulator of the Surface Duo to the M1 Mac after all these years. Otherwise, a complete target group will be excluded - especially in view of Apple's model policy, which will no longer include x86 processors soon.

# Conclusion

All this shows that it is often the intangible things that motivate us to engage with technology. The new, the unexpected, but also the human interaction between manufacturer and developer.

Thank you for this exciting journey!

This story is a short form of my longer - and more personal Medium article.

More control over the placement of activities on the screens

EvgenyZobnin — Mon, 25 Apr 2022 15:27:00 GMT

Hello again. I'm in the process of adapting my launcher app for the Surface Duo. My idea is to use the left screen as the primary screen and the right screen as the secondary screen (it will display the drawer). In general it works well, but I have two problems:

1. I want to make applications always run on the secondary screen. I tried using the Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_LAUNCH_ADJACENT flag, but it doesn't always give the right result (I guess because the launcher itself takes up both screens).

2. I would like to make the launcher adapt the interface depending on which screen the other application is running on (roughly like Microsoft Launcher does with the dock). But I don't see an API that lets me know which screen is currently occupied by another application.

Dialogs and toasts in spanned mode

EvgenyZobnin — Mon, 25 Apr 2022 03:59:50 GMT

Hi. When the application is expanded to both screens, dialogs and toast are always displayed on the right screen. Is there anything I can do to change this behavior?

What Surface Duo stand do you use while developing?

tscholze — Sun, 24 Apr 2022 11:44:50 GMT

Hi team,

this questions seems odd but to be honest, none of my phone stands, grips, what-ever-thingies are suitable with the Duo's size or USB-C connector position.

I tried the book posture - it works great as a "build in" solution but the angle isn't the best.

What's your favorite stand?

Thanks and happy hacking!

Will be "Android app on Windows 11"-developers a part of this community?

tscholze — Sat, 09 Apr 2022 15:49:51 GMT

Hi team,

I already asked the question in your last Twitch stream, but maybe more people are interested in it.

You (the DX team) said, that you will broad up the samples to "non Duo"-devices like other foldable, tablets, or old school single screen devices.

Windows 11's (nope, I do not have one) "Subsystem for Android" allows to run apps from the Amazon Store on a PC. For me that's a "new form factor" was it is with dual screen devices - and maybe with some special SDKs in the future.

That's why my question: Do you plan to "add this" to your responsibility list or is it another Microsoft team / community that helps developers to work and adopt their apps?

Happy coding,

- Tobi

UI question on foldable: How to display a small amount of content on top of an extended canvas?

tscholze — Sat, 09 Apr 2022 15:50:31 GMT

Hi team,

during my current pet project I learn, that my UI / UX understanding and how thing should work under Android is still not competitive (and useful) that's why I ask you, the awesome Surface Duo community.

You see my following app screenshot. Its foldable emulator because there is sadly no M1 Surface Duo emulator, yet.

I use the navigation rail und the left to trigger some actions. But all pages - besides the "Map" are quite small - on the huge Surface Duo displays.

For this task I assume that its a Surface Duo, spanned displays and in Landscape mode (as it always is).

That's why I do not want a page transition to another view, I thought I use a "BottomSheetScaffold" but a little bot of the sheet is always visible in "collapsed" mode.

Another Idea was a simple "Drawer". But the drawer should be on the right screen and not 90% width of display, that's why this idea was always a fail.

My latest idea was a "Sheet" that moves from the bottom up - like a BottomSheet but not edge to edge and not visible if not active - if the user taps at e.g. "About". The sheet should have some elevation, maybe a close button, etc.

What do you think? I had a look at the samples but I was not able to find such scenario, maybe I overlooked something.

Thanks for your help and keep up with your amazing work,

- Tobi

Unable to launch Surface Duo emulator in Windows 11

samurai2083 — Fri, 08 Apr 2022 21:12:33 GMT

Here's my environment(s):

Surface Book 2 running Windows 11

Surface Book 3 running Windows 10

I have the Surface Duo emulator installed on both systems. On Surface Book 3 the emulator starts fine. On Surface Book 2, I can't launch the emulator (the taskbar slightly opens as if an app is launching but then quickly closes).

I don't know enough to be able to figure out this issue. I've scoured the web looking for an answer but can't find one.

Possible related issue:

I will eventually use this emulator in Visual Studio. On my Surface Book 3, I can run my android project / debug it from Visual Studio using the Surface Duo emulator. On the Surface Book 2, I can't even start an android emulator for the same project. I've found numerous complaints on running Android emulators in Windows 11, but I'm not sure it relates to the Surface Duo emulator (I figure if I can get the Surface Duo emulator issue worked out, it might fix the android emulator issue in general). I've tried all the various suggestions on fixing the android issue (disabling Hyper-V, updating android emulator to version 31.2, etc), but nothing is working.

Can someone here suggest another way to get this emulator working in Windows 11?

Would it be a good idea to use different "layouts" in an app?

tscholze — Tue, 15 Mar 2022 14:17:48 GMT

Hi team,

is it a good idea to use multiple, dual-screen-specific layouts in one app?

For example:

- The map page is just an extended canvas

- The settings page is a two pane layout

- etc

Or should I only use the device-specific layout at the root view?

UI question: How to display a blocking "loading / preparation" screens if device is in book mode

tscholze — Tue, 15 Mar 2022 14:15:36 GMT

Hi team,

I Just wanna ask you how to "design" a full-width, user interaction blocking loading / preparation view for dual screen devices?

For single screen devices, it is quite simple, but what should I do on a second screen?

Should I present the loading view animation on e.g. the left screen and the right screen stays just white? Maybe I duplicated the animation on the second screen, too?

Do you have any recommendation or "unicorn" UIs as a reference?

Thanks for you're awesome and helpful tips in the past and in the future!

Screenshot:

Unable to access internet on Edge

Vedant_Thakkar — Tue, 08 Mar 2022 11:14:46 GMT

Hi Team,

I am not able to access internet using Edge on Surface Duo emulator(Android 11 version). The browser stays in loading state and don't end upon a web page. As Edge is the only browser that comes with the emulator, I am not able to download another browser to access internet.

Please help me in this situation.

Problems using the Jetpack Compose sample

tscholze — Wed, 09 Feb 2022 15:43:59 GMT

Hi team,

a while ago khalper helped me to understand dual screen design patterns a bit better. Thanks!

Now, I tried to run the official Jetpack Compose sample for "Extended Canvas". It compiled successfully and it started running on my Surface Duo Gen 1.

Afterwards I hit a wall and maybe it's totally on my side and before I create an issue I just wanted to check with you if this is the expended behavior. All points below occur in spanned and non-spanned mode.

Things I recognized:

The map is not zoomable
The map is not tap able (no map marker is selectable)
The map is cut off after moving it around - no new tiles are loaded

Screenshot

Is it okay to Z-layer the two pane layout component on top of another component?

tscholze — Fri, 21 Jan 2022 16:08:28 GMT

Hi team,

I was not able to find a sample or a "ui guideline", that's why I'm asking you if my following concept would work - or is "approved" on how the Surface Duo should be used.

My app has a map being fullscreen shown on both displays. But all other screens like a Settings or a Filter page should be displayed just left or right (at the same time).

I hope I could explain what I mean. 🙂

App crashes with "Didn't find class "androidx.window.WindowManager""-exception

tscholze — Fri, 21 Jan 2022 16:04:15 GMT

Hi team,

another newbie question. I try to get the windowManager feature working. After khalper 's awesome tip, I got it building. But now it crashes on runtime. 😕 It must be an simple error but maybe you know it out of the box.

It's also not that easy to transform your sample using the "old" Gradle file to the new Kotlin-based syntax - sorry. Maybe that's the problem and I forget something to include besides the actual dependency.

Links:

- Gist with stacktrace

- Gradle.kts file (GitHub)

Cannot find import com.microsoft.device.dualscreen.windowstate.WindowState

tscholze — Mon, 17 Jan 2022 19:37:16 GMT

Hi team,

this might be a noob question but I try to get started using Compose, the Surface SDK and your Dev blog post "Jetpack Compose Navigation Rail".

But everything I tried, I cannot import WindowState from com.microsoft.device.dualscreen.windowstate.WindowState.

Thanks for helping me out!

Minor finding:

By the way, If I upgrade the versions number to the newest navigation one, NavigationRail is no longer available. Is this true?

My dependencies (Gradle in *.kts style):

dependencies {

    var koin_version = "3.1.5"
    var navigation_version = "2.4.0-alpha10"
    var compose_version = "1.1.0-alpha06"

    // Android
    implementation "androidx.compose.material:material:"
    implementation "androidx.navigation:navigation-compose:$navigation_version"
    implementation 'androidx.core:core-ktx:1.7.0'
    implementation 'androidx.appcompat:appcompat:1.4.1'
    implementation "androidx.compose.ui:ui:$compose_version"
    implementation "androidx.compose.material:material"
    implementation "androidx.compose.ui:ui-tooling-preview"
    implementation "androidx.navigation:navigation-compose"
    implementation 'androidx.lifecycle:lifecycle-runtime-ktx:2.4.0'
    implementation 'androidx.activity:activity-compose:1.4.0'

    // Google
    implementation 'com.google.android.material:material:1.5.0'

    // JetBrains
    implementation 'org.jetbrains.kotlinx:kotlinx-coroutines-core:1.6.0'

    // Flow layout
    implementation 'com.google.accompanist:accompanist-flowlayout:0.22.0-rc'

    // Microsoft
    implementation 'com.microsoft.device.dualscreen:twopanelayout:1.0.0-alpha06'
    implementation 'com.microsoft.device.dualscreen:windowstate'

    // Ktor
    implementation("io.ktor:ktor-client-core:1.6.7")
    implementation("io.ktor:ktor-client-cio:1.6.7")
    implementation("io.ktor:ktor-client-serialization:1.6.7")

    // Koin
    implementation "io.insert-koin:koin-android:$koin_version"
    implementation "io.insert-koin:koin-androidx-compose:$koin_version"

    // Map
    implementation("com.google.android.libraries.maps:maps:3.1.0-beta")
    implementation("com.google.maps.android:maps-v3-ktx:2.2.0")
    implementation("androidx.fragment:fragment-ktx:1.4.0")

    // Testing
    testImplementation 'junit:junit:4.+'
    androidTestImplementation 'androidx.test.ext:junit:1.1.3'
    androidTestImplementation 'androidx.test.espresso:espresso-core:3.4.0'
    androidTestImplementation "androidx.compose.ui:ui-test-junit4:$compose_version"
    debugImplementation "androidx.compose.ui:ui-tooling:$compose_version"
}