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    • What is Zebble?
    • Structure of a Zebble solution
    • Zebble Designer (UWP)
    • Installing - Introduction
    • Change log
    • Introduction
    • ViewModel development
    • VM.EXE
    • View development
    • Dialogs
    • Lists and Collections
    • Tips and shortcuts
    • List views
    • ViewModel testing
    • Automatic Views
    • View development process
    • Hello World - Core Concepts
    • Layout: Sizing & Positioning
    • Event handling
    • Navigation
    • Alerts, Dialog, Prompt and toast
    • View lifecycle
    • Managing Files & Resources
    • Config & Debugging
    • Forms
    • Page templates
    • Device API
    • Animations
    • Web Api - Part 1 (reading data)
    • Web Api - Part 2 (post and delete)
    • Web Api - Part 3 (server vs client domain model)
    • Gesture events
    • View class
    • Zebble Markup (.zbl files)
    • Data Binding and MVVM
    • Stack class
    • Sizing and positioning
    • Layout examples
    • ScrollView class
    • Page class
    • Styling in Zebble
    • CSS property mapping to Zebble
    • Supported selectors
    • Zebble CSS: Under the hood
    • Inline styling
    • CSS real-time updates
    • Dynamic expressions in CSS
    • Gradient background colours
    • CSS Pseudo-classes support
    • Using Bold and Light Fonts in Zebble
    • Rotation in Zebble
    • Using custom fonts in Zebble
    • Flashing on tap using AutoFlash
    • Button
    • Carousel class
    • Checkbox class
    • DatePicker
    • Drawing class
    • FilePicker class
    • Grid class
    • IconButton class
    • ImageView
    • ItemPicker class
    • ListView & Grid classes
    • OptionsList
    • SearchInput class
    • Slider class
    • Switch class
    • Tabs Class
    • TextInput class
    • TextView
    • TimePicker
    • TreeView
    • Waiting Indicator
    • WebView class (displaying html)
    • C# Methods and Properties Of UI Components
    • Nav.Forward() vs Nav.Go()
    • Passing parameters to the destination page
    • Going Back
    • Showing Popup pages
    • Waiting class
    • Hardware Back button (e.g. Android)
    • NavigationBar class
    • Tabs class
    • Caching (pages)
    • Navigation without event handler
    • Use the Windows version
    • Logging messages for Debugging
    • Debugging Zebble/Plugin
    • Exception handling in Zebble
    • Debugging layout and styles
    • Zebble Device API
    • Device.Screen and orientation (landscape | portrait)
    • Code that should run on a specific platform
    • Using Lamp (aka Flash, LED and Torch)
    • Using Compass (Smooth compass)
    • Using Accelerometer (device angle)
    • Using Gyroscope (device motion speed)
    • How to Vibrate the device?
    • Launching the device browser
    • Finding device model and manufacturer
    • Responding to System events
    • Handling device shake event
    • Permissions
    • Permissions declaration (manifest files)
    • Sharing
    • Prompt for rating the app
    • Finding if Internet connection is available
    • Device messaging (Make a phone call, send SMS or Email)
    • Showing a local notification
    • Copying to Clipboard
    • Accessing device contacts
    • Reading and writing into Gallery (albums)
    • Playing & Recording Audio
    • Cache and temp files and folders
    • C# async / await
    • Understanding Zebble Threading
    • Debugging - the StackTrace problem
    • Not awaiting (running in parallel)
    • Timer (interval / scheduled running)
    • Post-render changes to the UI (dynamic)
    • Introduction of Geo location
    • Map & Location Services
    • Launch directions to a location (external)
    • Getting current Location
    • Tracking user location
    • Device.Media: Taking and picking photos
    • Playing an audio file
    • VideoPlayer class
    • Augmented reality
    • Recording audio
    • Virtual Reality
    • Speech Recognition
    • Recording or picking video
    • Playing remote videos in iOS
    • Text to speech
    • Introduction to the importance of Mobile Testing
    • Why and what to test
    • Testing mobile apps on different devices
    • Testing mobile apps
    • Xamarin Profiler
    • Performance optimization
    • Moving a view to another container at run-time
    • Attaching custom data (tag) to objects
    • Saving a view as image
    • Naming best practices
    • Fastest way to update your nuget package
    • Tips for Clean and Brief code
    • Splash screen and icon generation
    • Advice for passing Approval
    • Options for iOS app distribution
    • Test Release (internal and UAT)
    • Application Icons in IOS
    • Submitting to App Store
    • Releasing to App Store
    • Crash reporting
    • Optimized Release Build
    • Android - Generating an APK for manual installation
    • Payment (subscriptions & in-app purchases)
    • Introduction to push notifications
    • Registration process (App)
    • Push notification setup - iOS
    • Push notification setup - Android
    • Push notification setup - Windows
    • Sending a push message from the web app
    • Introduction
    • Connecting Zebble to Web API
    • Installation
    • Creating an API class
    • GET APIs
    • Calling a GET API (in the mobile app)
    • POST, PUT, PATCH and DELETE APIs
    • Domain Model
    • Web API and Authentication
    • Versioning
    • Uniquely identifying installations (token)
    • Settings file: config.xml
    • Standard Zebble settings
    • Login/Register with Facebook
    • Creating a composite component / plugin
    • Creating a Zebble component using Html and Javascript
    • CustomRenderedView: Third-party native components / plugins
    • Mapbox
    • Naming considerations
    • Random problems?
    • Display Keyboard for Visual Studio Android Emulator
    • iOS goes mad?
    • Configuring a Windows phone for ad-hoc testing
    • Fixing Error DEP0001 : Unexpected Error: -2147009287 while deploying Windows UWP app on device
    • Fixing Error DEP0001 : Unexpected Error: -1988945906 while deploying Windows UWP app on device
    • Unable tp Connect to the Mac agent from Visual Studio
    • Can't connect to the Mac agent from Visual Studio?
    • Choosing the CPU architecture
    • Zebble CLI
    • How to add a Device API to Zebble source?
    • About Automated UI testing
    • What should we test in mobile applications?
    • Creating an Automated UI Test in Zebble



Tracking user location


If you need to track the user's location (instead of getting just the current one) you should not constantly poll the current location, because that can be very inefficient and drain the battery quickly. 

The reason is that the device may not be moving for long periods of time, or also small changes in location may not be important to your app. For example, if your app is to track lorry drivers around the city, changes below 50m may be ignored in the interest of efficiency.

 

 

 

 

 

Starting to track

Instead of active polling, you should use the built-in feature provided in smartphones for reacting to changes in the location. This way the operating system will notify your app if an important location change has occured, to then only process that for your app's purpose. To start tracking in Zebble you should specify the tracking parameters and then invoke the StartTracking() method.

var settings = new LocationTrackingSettings { ....  };

Device.Location.StartTracking(settings);

Receiving updates

When you start tracking, the system will raise an event to notify you of any changes. You should handle that event and use it for your app's purposes.

Device.Location.PositionChanged += HandlePositionChanged;

void HandlePositionChanged(Zebble.Services.GeoPosition newPosition)
{
     // use the newPosition as you want....
}

Tracking settings

You can specify any of the following settings.

  • Report Interval (default: 1 second): The requested minimum time interval between location updates, in milliseconds. If your application requires updates infrequently, set this value so that location services can conserve power by calculating location only when needed.
  • Movement Threshold (default: 1 meter): The minimum distance of movement needed (in meters) relative to the coordinate from the last change event to report an update.

iOS-only settings

  • Allow Background Updates (default: false): Whether background location updates are allowed (iOS 9+).

    In Info.plist add the following:

    <key>UIBackgroundModes</key>
    <array>
        <string>location</string>
    </array>

  • Auto Pause When Steady (default: true):  Whether location updates should be paused automatically when the location is unlikely to change (iOS 6+).

  • Purpose (enum): The purpose of tracking. This is used by the OS to determine when to auto-pause location updates (iOS 6+).
  • Ignore Small Changes (default: false):  Whether the location manager should only listen for significant changes in location, rather than continuous listening (iOS 4+).
  • Defer Location Updates (default: false): Whether the location manager should defer location updates until an energy efficient time arrives, or distance and time criteria are met (iOS 6+).
  • Deferral Time (default: 5 mins): If deferring location updates, the minimum time that should elapse before updates are delivered (iOS 6+). Set to null for indefinite wait.

Handling tracking errors

In many apps, if the user location is temporarily not available you may want to ignore it. For instance, there might not be GPS signals available, etc.

But if tracking location accurately is vital in your app and you don't want to ignore error cases, you can handle the PositionError event.

Device.Location.PositionError += HandlePositionError;

void HandlePositionError(Exception error)
{
     // ....
}




‹
Zebble is a product of Geeks Ltd , a software house based in London, UK. All rights are reserved.

Telephone: +44 (0)845 643 6229

Email: hello@zebble.net

Address: 66a London Road, Morden

Greater London, United Kingdom, SM4 5BE

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