RHIC Status Android App
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The RHICStatus Android app is a simple application that scrapes information from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider status broadcast pages and shows you the current status of this major scientific facility.
The application was originally designed for the Motorola Xoom tablet, but will work properly with tablets and phones running Android 2.1 or higher. Tablets such as the Samsung Galaxy, Motorola Xoom, Nexus 7, or LG GPad 8.3 work nicely with a 2x2 panel display, while devices with smaller screens will display in a linear landscape mode. Scrolling is enabled so that you can still see all the plots at a reasonable size. Information from RHIC is updated every minute.
To install the app, click on the version link below to download and follow the usual procedure for your device. Note that you will have to configure your Android device to accept third-party applications.
The application was originally designed for the Motorola Xoom tablet, but will work properly with tablets and phones running Android 2.1 or higher. Tablets such as the Samsung Galaxy, Motorola Xoom, Nexus 7, or LG GPad 8.3 work nicely with a 2x2 panel display, while devices with smaller screens will display in a linear landscape mode. Scrolling is enabled so that you can still see all the plots at a reasonable size. Information from RHIC is updated every minute.
To install the app, click on the version link below to download and follow the usual procedure for your device. Note that you will have to configure your Android device to accept third-party applications.
Download
The most recent version of the application can be downloaded here:
| rhicstatus.apk |
After downloading and installing the application, be sure update the configuration using the menu item "Update Configuration". This configures the application for the current RHIC run by reading a configuration file from the JLC server. If you are having problems with out-of-date information, images, etc., try updating the configuration. In general I produce a new configuration file for each running period and colliding species.
The menu item "About" will show you the application version and the configuration version and date.
The menu item "About" will show you the application version and the configuration version and date.
Screen Shots
Appearance on a typical Android phone (Nexus 5):
Appearance on a typical 7-inch tablet (Nexus 7):
Version History
Version 1.8 March 26, 2014: Fixed formatting of long status messages, added color bar to status messages (based on colors used in RHIC Broadcast). Fixed landscape mode to allow either rotation (90 or 270 degrees).
Version 1.7 March 24, 2014: Major overhaul of application formatting, should work properly on the wide variety of new phones and tablets released since 1.6. Revised formatting for the RHIC images to keep a fixed size, so that the formatting doesn't change when CAD changes the image size. Also added alternate tags for pulling out the RHIC status message.
Version 1.6 March 29, 2012: Fixed whitespace formatting for AGSTV message.
Version 1.5 March 21, 2012: Added an "Update Now" menu item, and changed the app lifecycle so that it will not update when in the background, but will update immediately when brought back to foreground. This prevents draining the phone battery as well as saving that precious download quota. Also changed the "Configuration Info." menu item to an "About" item that shows the current app version.
Version 1.4 March 11, 2012: Now that I have an Android phone (Motorola Photon 4G) I found the application unresponsive, especially when downloading new data. I changed the download to an AsyncTask, and the update frequency to 1 minute and every 3 minutes for the images (they aren't updated that often in any case). Nice and zippy now, and you get a progress bar when downloading! Should also help those on fixed data plans...
Version 1.3 March 10, 2012: New release with lots of new features! Android menus have been added to display the current RHIC status message and update the configuration from the jlajoie.com server. On occasion things will change between runs or when RHIC switches species and this can confuse the app. This is now handled by storing configuration information on the jlajoie.com server, and can be accessed using the "Update Configuration" menu item. Once a new configuration is retrieved it is stored locally so you only have to update occasionally.
Version 1.2 April 23, 2011: Mistakenly released Version 1.1 signed with the debug key, which prevented updating. New version 1.2 is same as 1.1 but signed with release key. If you installed version 1.1, you will need to manually uninstall it to update to version 1.2
Version 1.1 April 22, 2011: Updated for LE Au running, fixed exponent in Ions list. Added progress bar for cases when the network speed is less than optimal.
Version 1.0 April 6, 2011: Initial release, working for RHIC Run-11 pp @ 500GeV, tested on Motorola Xoom and Samsung Galaxy S. Will probably need some tuning for different run configurations.
Version 1.7 March 24, 2014: Major overhaul of application formatting, should work properly on the wide variety of new phones and tablets released since 1.6. Revised formatting for the RHIC images to keep a fixed size, so that the formatting doesn't change when CAD changes the image size. Also added alternate tags for pulling out the RHIC status message.
Version 1.6 March 29, 2012: Fixed whitespace formatting for AGSTV message.
Version 1.5 March 21, 2012: Added an "Update Now" menu item, and changed the app lifecycle so that it will not update when in the background, but will update immediately when brought back to foreground. This prevents draining the phone battery as well as saving that precious download quota. Also changed the "Configuration Info." menu item to an "About" item that shows the current app version.
Version 1.4 March 11, 2012: Now that I have an Android phone (Motorola Photon 4G) I found the application unresponsive, especially when downloading new data. I changed the download to an AsyncTask, and the update frequency to 1 minute and every 3 minutes for the images (they aren't updated that often in any case). Nice and zippy now, and you get a progress bar when downloading! Should also help those on fixed data plans...
Version 1.3 March 10, 2012: New release with lots of new features! Android menus have been added to display the current RHIC status message and update the configuration from the jlajoie.com server. On occasion things will change between runs or when RHIC switches species and this can confuse the app. This is now handled by storing configuration information on the jlajoie.com server, and can be accessed using the "Update Configuration" menu item. Once a new configuration is retrieved it is stored locally so you only have to update occasionally.
Version 1.2 April 23, 2011: Mistakenly released Version 1.1 signed with the debug key, which prevented updating. New version 1.2 is same as 1.1 but signed with release key. If you installed version 1.1, you will need to manually uninstall it to update to version 1.2
Version 1.1 April 22, 2011: Updated for LE Au running, fixed exponent in Ions list. Added progress bar for cases when the network speed is less than optimal.
Version 1.0 April 6, 2011: Initial release, working for RHIC Run-11 pp @ 500GeV, tested on Motorola Xoom and Samsung Galaxy S. Will probably need some tuning for different run configurations.