May 1, 2010 - RETS Android Project (AREA-F)

 

May 1, 2010 - Digital Construction announces completion of a major 2009 project recently made public by our client. The project involved RETS programming and Android platform development.  Digital Construction is a firm consisting of Principal Mark Scheel and collaborators.

The best way to share this news might be with this trifecta of social-media:

Tweet of FaceBook Post for AREA-F

The picture above shows a Tweet, via Facebook, of a blog posting announcing the open-sourcing of AREA-F, a project we were proud to develop with the Center for Realtor Technology (CRT). 

The project was a blast.  We used the Android Native Development Kit (NDK) to create an efficient RETS client for the Android platform.

The native RETS client interfaces with a RETS server inside a user-friendly Android application we also programmed. The application allows listing searches, photo displays, client email capability with pictures, and Google Maps integration.  We also helped author a white-paper to pioneer mobile development in the Real Estate space.

"Mark's extensive background in the RETS and real estate community made him an excellent choice to work on the NAR mobile project AREA-F, theAndroid Real Estate Application Framework. His innovation and ability to dive into new technology proved essential in understanding the Android Development Environment to enable native mapping and other multimedia extensions into the project." said Chris McKeever, Managing Director, CRT

Most Android programming is in Java, which we did in Eclipse, but the NDK portion of our project was programmed in C which allowed us to bypass the Dalvik Virtual Machine (Android's equivalent of a JVM) for performance reasons.  We ported several libraries to our Android project and deployed the project to a G1, MyTouch, Cliq, Droid, and Nexus One running versions of Android from 1.5 to 2.0.

'This project showcased the ability of Digital Construction to work well with new technologies while leveraging past experience for a fantastic client experience." said Mark Scheel, Principal at Digital Construction.

Here are screenshots of the application shown running in the developer emulator:

AREA-F Screenshot 1

AREA-F Screenshot 2

AREA-F Screenshot 3

We'll be at Google IO 2010 in a couple weeks and can't wait to dive deeper into Android at the conference.  If you can't make Google IO but want your development team to be up to speed, consider our Google Technology Package.  The one day consulting session for teams of up to 20 developers, will be available June 1, 2010.  The interactive learning experience will focus on Android, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and Enterprise Development Trends.  Contact Us to schedule your training!