Accomodating phone and tablets sizes

[tyarmsteadBUSuSfT]

Upon deploying my app to the play store I find that it only recognizes the phone size, I can't see where in the setup or build process that I indicate all phones and tablets or even unto a particular size tablet. Is that in the standalone setup that I am missing. The android tips page suggest:
Explicitly declare in the manifest which screen sizes your application supports
By declaring which screen sizes your application supports, you can ensure that only devices with the screens you support can download your application. Declaring support for different screen sizes can also affect how the system draws your application on larger screens—specifically, whether your application runs in screen compatibility mode.
To declare the screen sizes your application supports, you should include the <supports-screens> element in your manifest file.

How do include tho sin the manifest file? Or am I really just missing something simple?
Thank you
Ty

[newtronsols]

Should read: http://lessons.runrev.com/m/15262/l/156 ... ll-devices

Works (somewhat) with certain app objects. I'm still trying to figure it out for a scrolling app.

[jacque]

I'm trying to decide what to do about the same issue. Right now my Android app is reported as made for phones, though actually it's optimized for tablets. Google says the manifest should include all screen sizes, and the default manifest in a LC build already does that. Google also says you should include assets of all densities, but without a lot of work we can't easily do that because our LC assets don't go into the default assets folder in an Android apk, so Google can't find them (or at least, that's how it is on my app.) The final Google alternative is to set the lowest required OS to 3.0 (Honeycomb) which was the first OS that supported tablets. I think the glitch for my app is that last one, because I have specified the lowest required OS as 2.3 (Gingerbread).

So now I'm trying to decide whether to re-upload with an app that is limited to 3.0 and higher. There are very few Gingerbread devices still out there, but there are some, so I haven't figured out yet which way I want to go with this. If you do decide to build for OS 3.0 and it works to make Google say it supports tablets, I'd appreciate you letting us know. Right now this "fix" is just a hunch, so verification would be great.

[tyarmsteadBUSuSfT]

Is there a planned upgrade to accommodate the differences with the Android Phone and table, similar to the iPhone, iPad, iPod options?
Thanks
Ty

[jacque]

That's what the fullscreenmode does, which is a different thing than how the Play Store sees the app.

[tyarmsteadBUSuSfT]

I guess that is my question, will there be a Lice Code fix to accommodate how the Play Store sees the app?

[jacque]

I think the Play Store's perception is up to us. Google lists three ways it uses to determine whether an app is optimized for phones or tablets:

1. The manifest includes all screen sizes. The default LC manifest includes all but X-Large, and won't (or didn't, I haven't tested lately) compile if you add lines to it. However, the basic large screen designation is also for tablets, so maybe the default manifest doesn't matter. LC could fix this one.
2. The default assets folder contains images/assets of all sizes. LC resources don't use that folder so this won't work. But one workaround might be to include that folder in the Copy Folder pane and put duplicates of the images in there. That seems redundant to me and would increase the size of the app. Another workaround would be to manually create that folder and just use it as the referenced folder for the images. The images would need to be named according to standard Android conventions.
3. The app is compiled for Android version 3.0 or higher. If doing that is all that's needed, then this is the easiest fix. Just set the minimum required version of the OS to 3.0 in standalone settings. That will leave out Gingerbread users, who will never see the app in the Play Store, but there are so few Gingerbread users any more that it may not matter, depending on the targeted user base.

Number 3 is the fix I want to try first, but I'd like to test it without actually doing a release in the Play Store because my app is already there and I have some Gingerbread users. So I'm not sure how to test that theory without eliminating those users, and I was hoping someone with a new app could try it and let us know if it works.

Another thing I'm not sure of is whether using only one of those things is enough, or if all three need to be in place before the Play Store sees the app as "made for tablets."