How to upgrade to Handicap Pro

As people transition from using Handicap: Golf Tracker to Handicap: Golf Tracker Pro they will want to migrate their round data as well.  If you are on version 2.5 or 2.6 of the legacy app you should be ok assuming you've used the app.  The app should create an auto backup and that should get loaded into the Pro version when you open it the first time.  If this doesn't work you'll need to follow the manual backup/restore process.

Open Handicap: Golf Tracker Lite and click the menu button in the upper right corner.  Then click Backup.

If the Backup is successful you should see the following screen:

Now that you've run the backup program, you can check for a folder on your SD card called handicap and see that it contains an export.xml file.  There may be an auto_export.xml file as well if you are currently on Handicap: Golf Tracker version 2.5 or higher.

Now that you have run the backup, you can open Handicap: Golf Tracker Pro and chose the Restore option from the menu on the top level screen.

After you run this you should see a success message.  If the title bar still says Player 99 you may need to go into Your Stats and see if your correct name is displayed.  Once you back out of that screen your correct name and handicap should appear.

If you are still having problems you can email the developer for assistance (from the Play Store).  You may need to provide the export.xml file so that the developer can see if the file was corrupted.  

Warning - Under Construction


I've recently decided to move my Android app to Github for source control hosting. As a result the master and branches are now safely checked in on a remote server. This allows me to make changes to the application locally and have a master copy on a remove computer.  Now I can have a viable archive of my code changes so I can rollback changes if they don't work as desired.

What this has bought me is the comfort to fully refactor my app. I've decided to rollback my most recent changes adopting the Android Action Bar.  I will create a version of the app only using Android 2.x libraries. I've found the transition to using Fragments and the Action bar more difficult than originally estimated.  It seems once I solve one issue, I find another one waiting for me.  Since less than 5% of my users are on an Android 3 or 4 device I am not going to optimize for those version of Android in my next release. 

What I plan on doing this year is finish this refactoring then refactor again to only support Android 3.x and up. I will then have two deployed apps that target the two different UI approaches in Android. My hope is this will allow me to release a quick update for a new feature I have in mind and give me time to resolve the flaw I discovered in my current implementation.

Moving


The new site url is http://voghanapps.blogspot.com/.  I've successfully moved all the blog post and comments to the new location.

Action Bar

A new version of Handicap is now on the android market. The main changes have been around navigation and the help screens.  Now on the help screens you find information on using Backup and Restore functions as well as the version of Handicap you are using.

The navigation change has been the adition of a Home button on the action bar. For now all android devices have buttons for back, menu and search. Gradually that might change. Now a button in the top left will return you to the Handicap dashboard screen so you don't need to use the bach button. For now i will keep the menu buttons as an alternative to the buttons on the screen. Eventually more buttons will be shown in the action bar.

Version 2.0.1 Released!

A new version of Handicap: Golf Tracker was released for the Android market last night.  The changes are mostly all under the covers for the Pro users and a couple layout changes for the Lite users.  A few of the processes that run behind the scenes when you add a round or delete a course no longer require you to wait for them to complete.

For the Lite folks you may see a change in the ads displayed.  As part of the Google purchase of Admob, a code change was required to display ads.  I was able to change some of the screen layouts for landscape users so that the ads don't take up too much room.

Handicap: Golf Tracker Pro

Handicap: Golf Tracker Lite

Working on Handicap 2.0

I'm currently working on delivering a sizable amount of new functionality.  The feature list includes more course data, a new crowd sourcing approach to course data and new stats.  I'm hoping to deliver a really top notch experience that will distinguish my app with the others available for Android.  Below are a couple new screens I'm working on.  You'll see there is now info for the hole like par and yardage.  I have also added the option to track the club hit off the tee.

Handicap: Golf Tracker 1.9 released!

A new version of Handicap: Golf Tracker is now available on the Android marketplace.  The new version contains changes to the Play Golf screen that allows you to enter a round hole by hole.  The new screen removes the golf ball links and allows you to go directly to the first hole or the next hole you haven't entered a score on.  You can now choose to save the round on this screen as well as share the round.  The cancel button will remove the temporary round created when you clicked on the Play Round button.

The main feature I hope this will resolve is the occasional force close error being reported.  On occasion the
round data has been lost which causes a force close to occur when you clicked on the next hole to play.  The fix should handle the issue by reloading the saved round data.

Here are a couple screen shots of the new Play Golf screens for both the Pro and the Lite versions.  The lite version will display ads and has a solid green background.

Android Market links:
Handicap: Golf Tracker Pro
Handicap: Golf Tracker Lite

Version 1.8 Now Available

A new version of Handicap: Golf Tracker is on the market.  Now you will see a Pro and a Lite version on the market.  This will follow my plan to add more features into the pro version of the application.  I will be working on a 2.0 version of Handicap which will include several new features in the pro version.  The Lite version will not be seeing the same features.

In the Pro version I added a licencing service that will ensure that each copy was purchased through the Android market.  This should not affect any of the current users of the paid version of the application.  If there are any issues please feel free to contact me.

In both versions of the application I fixed some minor bugs with the display and resolved an issue when in the Play Round screens.  This should resolve the Force Close bug some had reported to Google.  I hope this didn't inconvenience too many people.

Version 1.7 Released!

Version 1.7 of Handicap: Golf Tracker is now available on the android market.  The major change with this version of the application has to do with using the Play Round feature.  Now if you have started to keeping track of a round using the Play Round screens, your round will be saved if you exit the app.  Once returning to the app and selecting Play Round you will be prompted to continue the round or start over.  You can also now go to the Rounds screen and see the abandoned round.  You will be able to enter your complete rounds stats there if you’d like.

I made a small UI change to all of the screens in the application.  I added a title bar to each screen that should help distinguish each screen a little better. This space will host some of the ads when in landscape perspective.

The other change has been to the ads shown in the free version of the app.  I have removed the ads from the Add Round and Add Course screens to make entering courses and rounds easier.  I have also adjusted where ads are shown when the phone is in landscape.  This should hopefully utilize screen space better.

Please feel free to contact me about any additional functionality you’d like to see in the applications.  The changes above have come from user reviews and emails I have received from consumers of my application.

Filtering Rounds

As people start to play more rounds it can be a little more difficult to find specific rounds.  In an effort to resolve this I have added two new menu options about filtering the Rounds list screen.

Now when viewing an individual course you can now open the menu and go to a new round list screen with just rounds played at that course.  I thought this might be helpful to see how you’ve played a course in the past.  You can now see how you are trending at that course.

The second menu change is to the Rounds list screen.  Now if you press the menu button you will have the option of filtering the courses.  This menu button will navigate you to a new screen where you can choose to filter by course, year and/or holes.  Make you choices then click Apply and you’ll be navigated to a filtered rounds list screen.   To remove the filter just navigate to the Filter screen again and click clear.

I am using these new features to see how I’m going in my 9 hole league and to see the rounds I entered last year.  Hopefully this will be beneficial for those of you that play a ton of golf each year.  If you would like to have some more filtering options please drop me an email.