Engine Monitor Progress

I am gaining a bit of experience in Android development. Some things I did in that last app are helping, while I need to learn more to make this work. One thing I have clearly learned, the drawing canvas can be made into tiles. This is important, since if the app is to display both in portrait and landscape, it will be much easier to move individual gauges around than trying to use different offsets depending on orientation.

rough example

The other thing I learned, these gauges can have a million options! I may need about half that many before I am done as well. Should the round gauge turn clock wise or counter clock wise? Should the green arc be thick or thin, should the ticks be shown or not. Of course I can add all those options, and I still need to add more.

I've built the individual instruments using normal Object Oriented (OO) concepts. I could just as easily substituted the tachometer as a bar graph as a round gauge. I also have the ability to build an new type that can be a line graph or something, and only have to change the code a little. I can change the individual gauges, and probably not have to change the implementers code as well.

The OO concept allows a great deal of flexibility. Everything is abstracted away, such that the value of the fuel pressure will not really care what color the pointer is, or that the gauge is round or some other shape. Where it is placed on the screen is equally irrelevant, and allows the user to change the layout of the screen to suit their needs, and present the most important information in the most prominent position.

I am making progress, I just keep getting bogged down in implementation details, that can probably wait. Some of you are looking at this and saying, "it isn't very good". Fine, tell me what other things I should change to make it better looking. I've already considered OpenGL 3D looking instruments, and non-linear scales, red lines at limits, and many other things. The app will include audio and visual alerts depending on settings.

For now, I have all the instruments I need for my airplane on the screen. I have provisions in the code for 6 and 8 cylinder EGT/CHT values, as well as manifold pressure, and temperature. I want the screen layout to be customizable by the user, so they can pick the instruments they want, and where they are on the display.  


 Thanks for your feedback so far.