Over the years I have noticed that everything breaks when I am away from my workstation.
To avoid have to drive back to the office, my home, or the hotel I have been looking for a good set of Android applications that will allow me access to my code and publish it back to the server or a SVN repository.
The keyboard – A.I. Keyboard Free
The first thing I needed was a full keyboard. Let’s face it you cannot edit long blocks of code or URLs with default touch screen keyboard. So, I downloaded A.I. Keyboard Free.
This keyboard allows for the most important thing needed to navigate source code. Arrow Keys. I know that does not sound like much. But, I have issues with touch devices to going to the spot that I clicked in the URL or in a paragraph.
The keyboard also offers keys to undo and redo text or cut and paste items, use extended symbols, and allow the user to adjust the keyboard size to that which best fits your typing.
SVN – OASVN Free
I will admit there are not a lot of choices for SVN on Android. But, OASVN does a good job for when you are out of the office.
To down load your repository you just need to fill out a few form fields. Set the path where you want to store everything on your mobile device. Then you are ready to check out.
The editor – DroidEdit Free
I needed an application that would do more than a simple text edit. DroidEdit does syntax highlighting, undo, and redo. As an added bonus you open file from the local path, Dropbox, and Box.
When opening a document you can have the application prompt you to select the encoding. This is helpful when working with document such as XML that require UTF-8 encoding.
SSH – ConnectBot
I use a Linux server to host and test my sites. So, I need to be able to SSH to my servers and update the local SVN repository. ConnectBot allows me to that.
Browsers – Firefox,Google Chrome,Dolphin,Opera, etc.
There are several browsers these days for Android. Each behaves and renders things a little differently. So, you will need to find the one that best fits you testing and development needs.
For my sites I like to use Dolphin. It seems to render more like a desktop browser. It allows you to toggle the User Agent between Android, Desktop, iPhone, iPad, and Custom triggering sites to load different versions or a web page. Not all sites will load correctly in Dolphin. This is because of developers limiting what browsers are support on their sites. Just another reason to test things in various browsers and on different devices/platforms.
Lighthouse Knowledge 