aCar - Track your vehicles

lulugirl896 · May 5, 2010

njperry said:
Now, could you possibly create a program for a Personal Health Record/Tracker? I use ProfileMD for Palm and can find no replacement app on Android. I like to keep track of my Dentist, Vision, doctor visits, allergies, meds, etc, for the whole family. I can't remember all this stuff so I desperately need this app!

I would like to second this request. Your app looks like exactly what I'd like to use for Medical data complete with backup. Donated to aCar today and I would happily fork over much more for a Medical version of this.

Cadamus · May 6, 2010

I just upgraded, and I think there is an issue with some of the statistics. Right it says it costs $732/day for total costs. I think the issue is related the service records I have. I only have two entires for services, together they are about $727. I wonder if the math on the service is off because I don't have the same history length. Would you be able to do something like totalcost/daysofhistory or even better, totalcost/milesofhistory? Thanks! Cad

kevinrs · May 6, 2010

Have a moment running android 1.5, was planning to donate once the 2.1 official update comes out. Got the new version of acar last week, it seemed to work fine, then when I went to add a fill up yesterday, it force closes every time I try to open.

Now I see in the market, it's saying for android 1.5 and 1.6 to uninstall first.

Question, if I uninstall now, do I lose my data?

x16wda · May 6, 2010

lulugirl896 said:
I would like to second this request. Your app looks like exactly what I'd like to use for Medical data complete with backup. Donated to aCar today and I would happily fork over much more for a Medical version of this.

So, would you use the "fill-up record" for restaurant visits?

Actually, this kind of app could be extremely useful for a lot of similar tasks!

DangBruhY · May 6, 2010

Awesome app! Thanks!

kevinrs · May 7, 2010

kevinrs said:
Have a moment running android 1.5, was planning to donate once the 2.1 official update comes out. Got the new version of acar last week, it seemed to work fine, then when I went to add a fill up yesterday, it force closes every time I try to open.

Now I see in the market, it's saying for android 1.5 and 1.6 to uninstall first.

Question, if I uninstall now, do I lose my data?

so, no one knows if the data stays in an uninstall?

alb · May 7, 2010

The data does stay after an uninstall. I had the force close issue as well, then I uninstalled and reinstalled and all my problems were fixed. Just to be sure I copied the data to another folder on the SD card but uninstalling didn't seem to delete the original acar data folder on there. Can anyone else confirm this too before people start doing it based on my experience?

-EDIT
Others have lost data when uninstalling!! Back up before you uninstall.

Gobd · May 7, 2010

I lost my fill-up records after my uninstall.

kevinrs · May 7, 2010

well, I uninstalled, and reinstalled, and get the force close still...

well, now it opened, but no data

the backup files are still there, along with the renamed copies. Auto restore, the one time it probably tried to happen, caused the force close. Manual restore is unavailable in the free version.

Ok, retried the remove and reinstall, and it worked, luckily the last backup was between a fillup and the update.

alb · May 7, 2010

I wonder if mine stayed because I copied it. My information is stored in com.zonewalker.acar.

I have mine set to back up automatically so it may have just been my most recent copy that was put back in to the program.

Armond · May 9, 2010

ceene said:
I was a previous user of open source program pFuel por Palm OS (pfuel.sf.net). You can go there and check how it works, in case you find something useful you may want to implement.

Okay! I will take a look... Tnx

ceene said:
One thing I'm missing is the ability to fill any two of the three related values. That is, in aCar I must fill in Volume and can choose to fill Price or Total Cost, while in pFuel I could type price and total cost and let it calculate the volume. It's just the same you already do when filling only total cost or price and get the other one calculated.

The feature is already there. What does stop you from entering price and total cost and see the volume automatically get calculated for you?

ceene said:
Oh, and another thing you should fix is that it seems you're not using standard Android date/time picker, since I always see the date in MM/DD/YYYY format, and in my case it should be DD/MM/YYYY as I have configured it. I suppose you could check the default Android settings for this and just skip that setting in aCar?

aCar has its own date/time settings. Go to application Settings and change the date/time format however you like!

ceene said:
And, just a related comment, not specially meant for aCar, I'm having trouble adjusting to the few rows Android apps show at a time. If you look at pFuel snapshots, you'll see at least 10 rows of data. I really hate that

v2.0.x lists more records on screen in compare with 1.x versions

See if you like it!

Armond · May 9, 2010

ETMegabyte said:
I read through all the posts here, and I remember you saying something about the actual data being stored is pretty small (something about 2-3 years worth only being like 200K?)... If it's so small, what about an option to automatically back up all of the data to Google Docs?

Integration with Google Docs is already in my list. But frankly I've not planned it for any specific release yet.

ETMegabyte said:
Another thought is automatically (or on command) exporting a separate CSV for each defined car to Google Docs... I'd feel more comfortable if I had a data file that I can see to prove to myself that the data is actually backed up...

"Export to CSV" already has the option to export your desired cars only. Tap on "All Vehicles" button there and select only the ones you want.

ETMegabyte said:
Another thing I'd like to see is the incorporation of the services in the cost per mile calculations. Gas usage is nice, but if I have 2 cars, one of which gets 25mpg and the other of which gets 10mpg, the current graph would say the 25mpg car is the one that's best to use. But if the 25mpg car costs twice as much in service/repairs over the course of time, it'd be good to incorporate that. Also, I create a service record for registration as well, since it differs from car to car, so the overall cost per mile should really be the total cost of having that car on the road... This would also be good for checking trends. It'd be nice to see that my 15 year old car, while it still gets good gas mileage, costs me more per mile to run than my brand new super-huge plow truck, since I keep having to get the old car fixed...

The newly released 2.0.x version has this feature

It shows you "per mile" and "per day" statistics for fillup and service records separately as well as a total of both! Give it a try!

ETMegabyte said:
A further thought on the services inclusion would be to have a checkbox when defining services to specifically exclude this particular type of service from all cost-per-mile calculations. So I can, for instance, include the cost of oil changes and gas fillups and tires, etc (the default), but specifically exclude car stereo purchases (Don't laugh - When I used my old tracking software, I included Car Stereo and other Accessory purchases as it was an easy way to check purchase dates, where I got it, etc)...

You can go to "Advanced Search" (if you're using 1.x.x) or "Search" tab (if you're using 2.0.x) and there you'll find list of services to include or exclude... After entering your desired criteria, all the records, statistics and charts will be filtered based on them.

ETMegabyte said:
One way I could see it happening is to create a third type of record, a trip record. You could put a button to the right of the search button (the last available place in the top bar). You'd click it, from there it'd create either a trip start or a trip end record. At the beginning of the trip, you'd create the 'Trip Start' record, entering the Trip Name, odometer reading, and time. Then, at the end of the trip, you'd create another record, a 'Trip End' record, with an odometer reading and a time. It'd be assumed that anything between the start record and the end record would be part of that trip... That should keep the entries looking proper with the rest of the application since it would be just another line item like the gas fillups and services, and a data export will be able to manipulate that data any way that it wants.

Thanks for your further explanations... Now that I've released v2.0.x, I have more space on screen to start the trip tracking feature

ETMegabyte said:
Thinking further on this (wow, this 'quick thought' turned into a mini-book), if you also included my above idea (the non-cost-per-mile for specific 'service' records), then one could feasibly create a 'non-vehicle trip expenses' category, and keep track of hotels, food, etc while on that trip, and not have those costs become part of the cost-per-mile calculations, but have them as part of the overall expense of the trip... Oh, the possibilities are endless!

Thanks for further ideas. Yes, the possibilities are really endless... I should think more about these

Armond · May 9, 2010

alb said:
I've been having a problem for the past few weeks. On all three of my vehicles the most recent fill ups aren't showing MPG on the regular display screen nor are they appearing on the graph that comes up in Landscape mode. I'm entering the same amount of information as always - mileage, volume, price.

Any ideas as to what's going on?

If you download version 2.0.x and take a look at the FAQ section (accessible from options MENU on main screen), you'll find out why this may happen.

The short answer is that you might have partial fillups. According to MPG calculation formula, it's impossible to calculate MPG for partial ones unless you have a FULL TANK fillup after them... Enter a test FULL TANK fillup and see if they get calculated.

Armond · May 9, 2010

gilligan156 said:
I love the app! I've been telling all my friends to download it. Also, I love the new GUI, much more user-friendly than the old one(and I hate change so that's saying something).

Glad to see you've liked the new interface

Let me know if you have any further feedback...

gilligan156 said:
One bug I've noticed since the update - when selecting which activity you did when logging a maintenance record, the background of the dialog box flickers between transparent and solid white when you touch and slide your finger up and down. Minor, but something I noticed.

I'm using a Motorola Droid, rooted using DroidMod 1.0 ROM, btw.

Yes, I confirm the bug. The good news is that this has already been fixed in 2.0.1

Please update your copy and let me know if it works then.

Armond · May 9, 2010

donotronix said:
The new U.I. changed this from a two star app to a five star app. Thank you for your work!

Thanks a lot

Armond · May 9, 2010

njperry said:
Now, could you possibly create a program for a Personal Health Record/Tracker? I use ProfileMD for Palm and can find no replacement app on Android. I like to keep track of my Dentist, Vision, doctor visits, allergies, meds, etc, for the whole family. I can't remember all this stuff so I desperately need this app!

Thanks for the idea! I will consider this for my next apps

Armond · May 9, 2010

gilligan156 said:
oh! One other thing!

I have a scooter, and it requires oil changes every 500 miles. I tried to change this service while inside my Scooter's profile, but then when I go into that service in either of the car profiles, it's set to 500 miles instead of 3,000. Is this a bug or is it designed this way?

I can't stress enough, though, how much I love this app, and will be donating. You deserve it.

Perhaps you've updated the service reminder from "Manage Services" screen which contains the default reminder values for "newly created cars". If you want to update the reminders of an already existing car, just edit that car and tap on "Service Reminders" button on "Edit Vehicle" screen. The screen you'll see is the one you should do your desired customizations on.

Please let me know if it doesn't work for you.

Armond · May 9, 2010

njperry said:
In aCar setup, when it asks when you want service reminders to start, does "start at 10%" mean when it's 10% done or 10% remaining?

Generally reminders are useful if they warn you before you reach that milestone

So it's 10% remaining...

Armond · May 9, 2010

koticphreak said:
I'm liking the new version, but have a few suggestions:

1. on the main screen where it shows last month and last 3 months, would be nice to have a setting to change those to be something like last 3 months and last year.
2. someone mentioned the seasons comparison - which would be great, but I think it would be even better if you could compare individual date ranges, like jan-jun vs jul-dec or just jul vs aug, and so on.
3. The charts all look great, would be awesome to be able to export them into a jpg and email it to someone, or just save it somewhere...

thanks for all the work, keep it up!

1. I was thinking about the same, but my original goal was to put there a quick preview of what has happened "recently". If you need full statistics, you can go to the statistics dedicate screen and see every kind of stats there for any date range you like.
After all, I may make this configurable so that every user can customize what to see there.

2. I guess I should somehow extend the statistics screen to be able to use it for comparison as well. I will think more about adding more date ranges. My goal was to keep the date ranges limited to make it simple to work with for not-geeky users... Otherwise I can add any kind of date ranges you can imagine but it will render that unusable!! They should be categorized somehow so that casual users do not get afraid of.

3. Already in my list ;-) Even I'm thinking to export them in desktop full screen resolutions (e.g. 1024x768 - 1280x800 - etc)

Armond · May 9, 2010

mikey517 said:
I downloaded the update and liked it a lot.i have about one and a half months worth of data
for 3 vehicles. When I went to open up Pay Pal to make donation for full
version so I could back up all data to Excell, it force closes. Haven't ben able to open it since
Have I lost all that data?. Can anyone help please?

There is a high probability that you're affected by a bug in Android 1.5 (Issue 2047 - android - Market copy protection totally breaks file access after updating - Project Hosting on Google Code) which has been
already fixed in 1.6. The short story is that when a developer switches the copy protection flag of his app, it breaks on Android 1.5 devices.
And I did it because I wanted all Android devices to see aCar. Not all devices see copy protected apps which cause problem for them.

There is no other way but to uninstall aCar and do a clean install. I'm so sorry! But if you don't have any backup from your data, the old version (1.3.1) is available on the following address so that you can install it manually (point your phone browser to that address), backup your data. Then uninstall it and download and install v2.0.0 from Market and restore your backup file.

http://www.armondavanes.com/aCar-1.3.1.apk

If the old update didn't do the job for you and you still get FC, there will be no other way but uninstall any version you have and do a clean install of new version right from Market. Uninstalling the app will wipe out your data as well if you do not have any backup.

Armond · May 9, 2010

Gobd said:
Force closes for me right away with the new 2.0 and 2.0.1 version on my Eris. Actually it opened fine a few times, enough for me to look at it and add a fuel record but it hasn't opened since I added that record. Would uninstalling and reinstalling help? Anyone else got any suggestions?

Please see my other reply:
http://androidforums.com/android-applications/14917-acar-track-your-vehicles-5.html#post707133

Armond · May 9, 2010

lulugirl896 said:
I would like to second this request. Your app looks like exactly what I'd like to use for Medical data complete with backup. Donated to aCar today and I would happily fork over much more for a Medical version of this.

So one more votes for this

Okay! Thanks!

Armond · May 9, 2010

Cadamus said:
I just upgraded, and I think there is an issue with some of the statistics. Right it says it costs $732/day for total costs. I think the issue is related the service records I have. I only have two entires for services, together they are about $727. I wonder if the math on the service is off because I don't have the same history length. Would you be able to do something like totalcost/daysofhistory or even better, totalcost/milesofhistory? Thanks! Cad

You are quite right! I confirm the bug. But the good news is that this has already been fixed in the upcoming 2.0.2

You'll have it in a few days!

Armond · May 9, 2010

kevinrs said:
Have a moment running android 1.5, was planning to donate once the 2.1 official update comes out. Got the new version of acar last week, it seemed to work fine, then when I went to add a fill up yesterday, it force closes every time I try to open.

Now I see in the market, it's saying for android 1.5 and 1.6 to uninstall first.

Question, if I uninstall now, do I lose my data?

Only Android 1.5 phones are affected NOT 1.6 and above.

Yes, you'll lose your data if you don't have any backup. Android deletes its database when uninstalls an application.

See my other reply for complete descriptions:
http://androidforums.com/android-applications/14917-acar-track-your-vehicles-5.html#post707133

Armond · May 9, 2010

x16wda said:
So, would you use the "fill-up record" for restaurant visits?

Actually, this kind of app could be extremely useful for a lot of similar tasks!

Okay! One more vote! It seems I have to start the implementation pretty soon ;-)

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