Force Close Issues with the Nightmare Before Christmas Theme
A couple days ago, I got an email reporting the dreaded "Force Close" errors on the Nightmare Before Christmas theme. Having done many themes and not receiving any word of force close issues, at first I didn't think a lot of it. Especially since I didn't really know much of the needed information, like device type and Android version, to be able to determine whether or not an issue even existed.
But despite not having any information to identify the problem, I decided to try to replicate the issue on my own device. And I think I have found a reason for why some people are getting the "Force Close" error. Its actually something that I've found to occur in every GO Launcher EX theme. The issue is that the way Android handles apps is that it installs the app and then you are given the option to "Open" or be "Done" with the installation. If you hit "Open", the theme will crash. This has nothing to do with anything being wrong with the theme or the device, but it is simply because the Android operating system can't read a GO Launcher EX theme because...well, it's not really an app. It's just a theme. So in order to get around this, you must tap "Done" and close the installation process and then go to apply the theme using the GO Launcher EX interface. Here are a series of screenshots that will help with the process.
As always, feel free to contact me at dan@twobrothersweb.com if you have any questions!
Step 1: After downloading the Nightmare Before Christmas theme, tap the "Install" button to install the theme.
Click on the image to the left to view a full screenshot.
Step 2: This is where you'll want to make sure that you do NOT tap the "Open" button. That causes the force close error because the Android operating system doesn't recognize a theme as a full application -- because it is not. If you do hit "Open" and get a force close error, don't worry about it. It doesn't really mess anything up. Just continue on to the next step.
Click on the image to the left to view a full screenshot.
Step 3: Instead of hitting "Open", tap the "Done" button. That'll finish the installation and close out of the installer. From there, hit the "Home" button on your phone to get to the homescreen.
Click on the image to the left to view a full screenshot.
Step 4: Once on your homescreen, tap the menu button on your phone. That will open the GO Launcher EX menu as seen in this screenshot. From there, tap the "Themes" button.
Click on the image to the left to view a full screenshot.
Step 5: If you have multiple themes installed you may need to swipe left and right to browse the themes you have installed on your phone. Find the Nightmare Before Christmas theme and tap the theme preview.
Click on the image to the left to view a full screenshot.
Step 6: Tap the "Apply" button to apply the theme.
Click on the image to the left to view a full screenshot.
Step 7: Enjoy the theme!
Click on the image to the left to view a full screenshot.
Cuyahoga County for Liberty (CC4L)
Ken lives in Cuyahoga County, in northeastern Ohio. He is also a member of the national Campaign for Liberty organization, which assists local political campaigns which espouse pro-liberty ideals. It was a natural fit, then, when the local affiliate, Cuyahoga County for Liberty, put out a call for volunteers to design and build their own website.
Using WordPress as the foundational platform, we added the BuddyPress layered product to give CC4L the social networking aspects they wanted to incorporate into their web presence. In addition to the construction of their site, we also registered their domain name and are hosting their site on our own WebHost4Life servers.
If you would like to visit their site, please open your browser to http://cc4l.org/.
The Haunted Mill
In 2004, Northeastern Pennsylvania-based haunted house, The Haunted Mill, needed a quick turn-around on a new design for their website. Their old website had been designed and hosted by someone else and they were wanting a fresh look -- but they weren't really sure exactly what that look was. All they knew was that they wanted something that would aappeal to their youthful target market and could fit into their TV spots and printed brochure marketing, which were available for download on the site.
The resulting design won a Webby Honorees distinction for it's haunting design. You can view the listing here.
While the site is no longer active, you can take a peak inside what the design looked like by clicking on the thumbnail to the left.
Realty Professionals of America
In 2005, the Realty Professionals of America (RPA) wanted a clean, professional design that they could use as a template to use as a front end to their own custom development needs.
The site was delivered as a simple HTML/CSS design compliant with current web standards. It has since been under customer control for many years, and is still successfully incorporating the Realtor database (MLS).
If you would like to visit their site, please navigate to http://rpahomes.com/.
Pennsylvania Wine Society
Back in 2004, Ken was doing a variety of business software development projects, using the name “Solutions .NET Corporation” and a colleague of his, at this time, happened to be on the board of directors for the Pennsylvania Wine Society and asked him to put together a community website for their group.
Because they are very event-oriented, they needed a flexible event scheduling and registration system. Dan helped with the graphic design work for the site, creating a custom banner and complementary color palette. The site was built on the Microsoft SharePoint platform, with a public site and a private administrators only site.
At the time, we were not offering ongoing hosting administration services, so the Pennsylvania Wine Society is running their own hosting plan with WebHost4Life. If you would like to visit their site, please browse to http://www.winesocietypa.org/.
Wendee LeFebvre Photography
In between homeschooling their children and keeping the household in line Ken’s wife, Wendee, runs a part-time photography business. She needed a place to send her customers to review the proofs and select which images they wished to purchase, so we put together a simple Flash-based site to display her photographs.
By simply uploading files to a folder on the server, Wendee can maintain the pictures displayed, herself. Of course, as family, we are administering her hosting for free! If you’d like to see her site, and even order some of her beautiful pictures, point your browser to http://www.photosbywendee.com and check it out.
Providence Baptist Church
Once again, our father thought of us, when his church decided they needed a new website to replace their old, static website. They did not wish to pay their site developer every time they wanted to update the content on their site, so we found a content management system that suited their needs, called Cuyahoga.
Our first task was to recreate the content from their original website, but with a brand new, custom theme. Then, we built a custom podcasting module that automatically pulls the ID3 tags from the MP3 files of their recorded sermons, and presents them for their users to browse. Finally, we created a private, members only portal for their church members to use for online fellowship.
To simplify the maintenance of their site, Providence chose to host with us on WebHost4Life, and we assisted them with the timely migration of their domain name from their old hosting provider to GoDaddy for easier DNS management.
If you would like to visit their site, please navigate to http://www.provbaptist.org/.
02/15/2010 Update: Providence Baptist has a new pastor who has decided that he'd like to handle the website for his church on his own. We no longer have anything to do with this site.
NEOHSC
The Northeast Ohio Homeschool Connection (NEOHSC) is a group of homeschooling parents who originally gathered around a Yahoo! Groups mailing list, but eventually determined they needed more features to nurture their community.
With a heavy emphasis on the discussion-oriented nature of their collaboration, we selected DotNetNuke with a commercially available module, ActiveForums, installed to host their email-enabled discussions. They also wanted a picture gallery, event calendar, and a map to let them see where everybody lived.
Most of their site is private, for members only, but you can visit their public landing page to get a taste of what we put together for them, at http://www.neohsc.com/.
We designed, built, and continue to host the site for NEOHSC. Additionally, Ken’s wife, Wendee, even took most of the photographs that we used for the design of the site. If you’d like to see more of Wendee’s work, you can see her website here.
Mertz Manufacturing, LLC
Our father, Lowell LeFebvre, runs the computer department at Mertz Manufacturing, in Ponca City, Oklahoma. Naturally, with our experience building a variety of websites, over the years, he asked us to help him out when it came time to build a site for Mertz.
A critical requirement was the ability to easily update the site with new content, in a flexible and orderly fashion. These updates needed to be delegated to the managers of each product line, so we implemented a role-based security system to allow individual employees the ability to update their own portions of the site. Also, as the programmer on staff is most familiar with Microsoft technologies, we settled upon the DotNetNuke content management system as their platform. In addition to the public site, which you can visit by browsing to http://www.mertzok.com, we also created a private employee-only portal, to act as foundation for their company intranet.
With a little training from us, Mertz chose to control their own hosting environment for the site.
A Prayer to Our Father
A Prayer to Our Father is the exciting journey of faith of a Jewish Bible scholar and an African American pastor who join forces to uncover the truth about the most beloved prayer in the Christian world. Their gripping adventure begins in the ancient city of Jerusalem and takes them to the very spot in Galilee where Jesus taught the multitudes to pray. Along the way they discover a Hebrew version of the Lord’s Prayer, preserved in secret by Jewish rabbis for over a thousand years. The richness of meaning that the Hebrew unlocks reveals a powerful message of spiritual growth for Jew and Christian alike. Join them on this provocative exploration of the Hebrew origins of the Lord’s Prayer!
When Nehemia Gordon and Keith Jackson began planning their book tour, introducing the book A Prayer to Our Father, they came to Dan and asked him to put together a nice looking site that would give them a place to send people who attended their presentations.
In addition to providing a simple order form, for purchasing the book, there is also an ongoing blog which Keith and Nehemia update while they travel the world, a page for testimonials from people who have already read the book or attended one of their presentations, and a schedule of upcoming appearances.
We selected WordPress for their platform, because it offered an extremely simple way for Keith and Nehemia to make their ongoing updates to the site, without requiring technical assistance. The theme was a custom-designed theme to match the colors and styling of the book itself.
Because Nehemia had prior experience with the hosting provider, FutureQuest, we installed their new site to Nehemia’s account on this provider.
If you would like to visit their site, please click this link: http://www.aprayertoourfather.com/