Create AVD using new Android Emulator in Android Studio 2 0 Preview

New Android Emulator Preview is available now, you can create AVD using new Emulator in Android Studio 2.0 Preview.

When I try it, dialog pop up with error message:

emulator: ERROR: Couldnt find crash service executable
C:UsersuserAppDataLocalAndroidsdk oolsemulator64-crash-service.exe
...

I check my system, I have emulator-crash-service.exe, not emulator64-crash-service.exe! I dont know is it a bug, or anything wrong in my setting.

updated@2015-12-13:
Seem its a bug of the new emulator in Windows. Somebody reported this issue: https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=196629

Anyway, the emulator still can run and deploy my Hello World. This video show steps to create AVD using new Android Emulator in Android Studio 2.0 Preview; run on Windows 10 with CPU of Intel i5.


Reference:
- Android Developers Blog: Android Studio 2.0 Preview: Android Emulator
- Android Tools Project Site: Android Emulator Preview (with system requirement and update SDK)

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Episode 30 Android Design Library

This time, Tor and Chet are joined by Chris Banes (again!) to talk about the new Android Design Library, which was released at Google I/O 2015. Listen in to find out all about CoordinatorLayout, FAB, Snackbar, and more, more, more!

Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly.

Relevant Links:
Chriss blog
Android Design Library Demo
Android Design Support Library (Android Developers Blog)

Chris: google.com/+ChrisBanes
Tor: google.com/+TorNorbye
Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase

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Fetching Result from a called activity Android Tutorial for Beginners – Part 5

The next logical step in learning the Android development is to look at how can you call or invoke one activity from another and get back data from the called activity back to the calling activity. For simplicity sake, let us name the first calling activity as parent activity and the invoked activity as the child activity.

For simplicity sake, I use an explicit intent for invoking the child activity. For simple invocation without expecting any data back, we use the method startActivity(). However, when we want a result to be returned by the child activity, we need to call it by the method startActivityForResult(). When the child activity finishes with the job, it should set the data in an intent and call the method setResult(resultcode, intent)to return the data through the intent.

The parent activity should have overridden the method onActivityResult(…)in order to be able to get the data and act upon it.

NOTE: for successful execution of this sequence of events, the child activity should call finish() after setResult(..)in order to give back the handle to the parent activity.

In summary, here are the methods to implement in the parent activity:

• 1.  startActivtyForResult(..)
• 2.  onActivityResult(…)

The child Activity should complete the work as usual and finally call:

• 1.  setResult(…)
• 2.  finish()

Let us delve into the example downloadable here:

The calling Activity is providing 2 buttons to view books and pens. On selecting one of them, either BooksActivityor PensActivityis called, which displays a list (using ListView) of the selected type of objects. The user can select one and the selected object is returned to the parent for display. (Note: this could be extended into a shopping cart example. I have kept it simple for the tutorial’s sake)

Since we are expecting to get back the selected object, the calling Activity’s code is like this:

     Intent bookIntent = new Intent();                bookIntent.setClass(CallingActivity.this,BooksActivity.class);

      startActivityForResult(bookIntent,BOOK_SELECT);

where BOOK_SELECT is just a constant to help us identify from which child activity the is result obtained, when there is more than 1 child activity, as in this case.

At this point the control is handed over to the BooksActivity. This displays the list of books and the user can scroll through and select a book. When the user selects a book, the selected book needs to be passed back to the CallingActivity. This is how it is done:

      Object o = this.getListAdapter().getItem(position);

      String book = o.toString();

      Intent returnIntent = new Intent();

      returnIntent.putExtra("SelectedBook",book);

      setResult(RESULT_OK,returnIntent);       

      finish();

The first 2 lines show how to get the selected book from the ListView. Then, you create a new intent object, set the selected book as an extra and pass it back through the setResult(…)method call. The result code is set to RESULT_OKsince the job has been successfully done.  After that the finish()method is called to give the control back to the parent activity.

In the parent, the method that gets the control is onActivityResult(…)

protected voidonActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data)

      {

      switch(requestCode) {

      case BOOK_SELECT:

            if (resultCode == RESULT_OK) {

                String name = data.getStringExtra("SelectedBook");

                Toast.makeText(this, "You have chosen the book: " + " " + name, Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();

                break;

            }

      ……….

      }

      }  

Here you notice that the BOOK_SELECTconstant is used to act upon the result. If the result code is RESULT_OK, we take the book selected from the “extra” of the intent that is returned from the child activity. data.getStringExtra("SelectedBook") is called to and the name returned is displayed through a Toast. 

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Xamarin Studio for Android Programming A C Cookbook

Over 50 hands-on recipes to help you get grips with Xamarin Studio and C# programming to develop market-ready Android applications

Xamarin Studio for Android Programming: A C# Cookbook
About This Book

• Create Android applications with C# and Xamarin
• Reuse your Android application to develop iOS and Windows Phone applications
• Leverage the easy-to-succeed recipes to exploit the latest Android releases and develop new applications

Who This Book Is For
If you have already developed an Android applications with Java and you now intend to use C# and Xamarin Studios capabilities, or if you have never taken the dive into mobiles, then this book is for you. It would be helpful to have some C# experience so you follow the recipes in this book, though knowledge of Android is not required.

What You Will Learn

• Build a GUI for your Android applications
• Explore Android activities and understand configuration changes
• Manage multiscreens, icons, and multimedia in your applications
• Start and bind Android services and create notifications
• Create beautiful applications using the camera and animations
• Effectively couple your phones hardware with applications
• Integrate advertisements and select the right advertisement providers for your applications

In Detail
Multiplatform applications have taken the development world by storm. This has revolutionized the selection of the right tools for the efficient development and deployment of applications. Xamarin studio is emerging as the preferred choice among .NET/C# developers. It enables them to design cross-platform applications using their favorite language and IDE. Xamarin studio is supported by the Mac OS and Windows platforms, and you can develop your own applications for iOS, Windows, or Android with its help.

This book takes you through all the stages of application development, right from getting started with Xamarin and developing a GUI to putting up your application on the store. The recipes will help you in acquiring sufficient knowledge to go about creating applications.

Starting with introducing Xamarin studio, its underlying technologies, and the Android ecosystem, the book goes on to cover the graphical aspects of creating Android applications. Moving on, you will learn more about data management with Android services. This is followed by techniques on how to interact with the Android OS and the phones hardware, before finally concluding with mobile advertisements and Google Play. By the end of this book, you will have discovered all the specialties related to developing Android application with Xamarin Studio.

Style and approach
This book is organized around hands-on and practical recipes that focus on the development of Android applications using C# and Xamarin. Each recipe is easy to follow to help you progress efficiently through the book.

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Android Eclipse LogCat showing a singe Line only at a time

The LogCat shows different device events. In Eclipse sometimes you notice that only a single line is shown and you cant scroll to see previous events. This happens because the LogCat window gets full, so clearing it will give the window a new emty space to display the log events as usual.

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Android Revolution Needs Your Help! Setting up new servers

Android Revolution HD for various devices has been downloaded more than 4 million times during last 3 years (from official sources). With the average of 1GB  size per ROM, that means almost 4000 terabytes of data we transferred to our users in 3 years, not to count other files (mods, kernels, fixes etc.). With such amount of data this places Android Revolution HD among the most popular custom ROMs.

This also brought us some problems – most servers we used to date can’t manage such traffic. Weve also lost our androidrevolution.nldomain lately, that’s why you can’t download anything at the moment (we hope to fix that as soon as possible).

Now we need to set up some new servers and bring back download links to life. For that we’ll need some extra funds. If you’d like to contribute, please use the PayPal donation link below. We want to ensure that every time you click on the download link you’ll be able to get what you want within minutes, without waiting for hours until download is complete! Any amount counts and helps!

With that being said, I cant thank enough to Lizard, Android Revolution member since the beginning whos taking technical care of the servers. You wont be able to download anything without him!

For latest news follow Android Revolution HD on popular social platforms:

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Android terminology explanation and why ROOT isnt a crime

This Android terminology dictionary will be growing in time. If you have any suggestions for terms to be included here, please leave a proper comment below this article. The purpose of this dictionary is to explain basic and fundamental Android terminology to a regular "noob" Android user. It is supposed to be written in language that everyone can understand.

Related articles:

• Do we really need S-OFF?
• Virtual SD card on Android
• Unlocking bootloader or flashing custom ROM doesnt void your warranty

ROOT (Superuser) - special user account used for system administration with the highest possible access permissions. The root/superuser account on Linux/Android OS has the same purpose as the Administrator account on MS Windows. For some reason however the term "root" has a very pejorative meaning in the Android world. Many users believe that "root" (or "rooting") is a forbidden fruit that might brick their Android device, void its warranty, make it unstable, unsecured or even explode in some situations.

What is the truth? Very simple - just go to the Control Panel on your PC/notebook and in User Accounts check the type of your account. Is it "Administrator"? Ouch! Youre rooted! I really hope you can live with that. Anyway, it seems that having account with an Administrator rights on the Windows powered machine is nothing unusual. What you need to realize, is that having Android powered device without root access is like using the "Guest" account on your Windows computer.

So what will root access give you? Well, it might give you everything, but might give you nothing too. Basically it all depends on what the user would like to do with his device. Root access by itself doesnt change anything. Just like Administrator account on Windows, you can use its capabilities and change almost everything on your device or you might just keep using the OS as it is.

To add root access to Android device you need 2 files - Superuser.apk and su binary. The su binaries people commonly use are modified to latch onto a companion app, which prompts the user when an app requires root access.

ROM (proper definition) - Read Only Memory. Actually it has nothing to do with what most people think. What does an internet definition say about it? "Read-Only memory is a class of storage medium used in computers and other electronic devices. Data stored in ROM cannot be modified, or can be modified only slowly or with difficulty, so it is mainly used to distribute firmware".

ROM (wrong definition) - most people call Android installation package a "ROM" or a "custom ROM". What we call a "ROM" is just a content of /data, /system and boot partitions. Their technical name is "update package". Flashing this package is nothing other than just replacing particular files on device partitions. Where do these files come from?

1. Developers can compile builds from Android Open Source Project (AOSP) or similar open source projects like Android Open Kang Project (AOKP) or CyanogenMod (CM).
2. They can modify closed source vendor images (HTC, Samsung, Sony, LG) by extracting factory system partitions, images (i.e. system.img) or dumping the system partition directly from the device.

What does a typical "custom ROM" looks like? Its a .zip package with files organized in a specific order - applications, framework, binaries, libraries and other files required for proper system work. Imagine a .zip package with "Windows, Users and Program Files" folders inside. That, if we massively simplify it, is what an Android "custom ROM" package is made of.

"Custom ROMs" usually contain root access, so flashing a "custom ROM" results in rooting the device, BUT rooting the device does not always mean flashing a "custom ROM" because you can add root access on a stock system too by adding the su (superuser) binary.

The best name for Android "custom ROM" would be a “modified system zip package”. Why .zip? Because update.zip packages were originally designed for over the air (OTA) updates. So both OTA update and custom "system zip packages" have more less the same construction - system files with the proper update-binary/updater-script (inside META-INF), compressed into ZIP archive. The only method to install (or "flash") ZIP package is via Android recovery.

Boot - The boot.img file is commonly mistaken for the Linux kernel that powers Android. It is actually the image containing the kernel and a ramdisk. The kernel is the fundamental layer of the operating system that controls the input and output of data in the system, it mounts the ramdisk during the boot sequence.

RUU - ROM Update Utility used by HTC to flash/update firmware on HTC device. Again - not very fortunate naming. In fact RUU does contain some "low level" firmware like bootloader, radio, touch panel drivers but it also contains entire EXT3/4 partitions like system or data, which surely cant be considered "Read Only Memory".

Firmware - a combination of persistent memory, program code and data stored in it. "Firmware" is actually a better term than "ROM", but many people are used to calling "Firmware" everything else that comes in the RUU except from system.img. The content of so called "firmware.zip" (called that by HTC itself) was described in this article.

S-OFF/S-ON - S-OFF stands for "Security OFF" and S-ON for "Security ON". Its a term specific to HTC devices (and refers to digital signature checking on the bootloader "hboot"). Retail devices always come with SHIP S-ON locked bootloaders. Hboot can also be found in an engineering version (ENG as opposed to SHIP), but its not easy to get such a device.

Bootloader - a computer program that loads an operating system and has all the parameters for how to boot the OS. Bootloader is located on a separated partition on your device and is responsible for a low level security on your device. Extended bootloader commands (usually executed via fastboot protocol) can basically manage the whole device, including possibility to gather all device sensitive details (like IMEI, software version, serial number and more), flashing a new operating system or recovery, updating bootloader and other parts of the firmware or even formatting EXT partitions. This is why some vendors (like HTC) lock the bootloaders on their devices to avoid giving end-users too much control over the device.

Fastboot - diagnostic protocol used primarily to modify the flash filesystem via a USB connection from host computer. After enabling the protocol on the device itself (entering "fastboot" mode from inside the bootloader), it will accept a specific set of commands sent to it via USB using a command line, for example "fastboot flash boot boot.img" or "fastboot erase cache".

Android Recovery - a separate partition on your device responsible for installing original OTA updates (.zip) and performing some basic operations on partitions (wiping, formatting, mounting). In some way Android recovery is a sort of mini-OS because it has its own kernel (so it boots independently from the main OS) and on custom recoveries (like 4EXT Recovery, TWRP Recovery) you can run simple applications like AROMA installer or AROMA Manager. Custom recoveries also provide touch support and many advanced features like partition conversion (EXT3--->EXT4), Nandroid backup, possibility to use themes, different wipe and format options, permissions fix and more.

Android Recovery can be based on open source or closed source code. The Android kernel inside the recovery must be always based on open source code.

CID/MID - CID (Carrier ID) and MID (Model ID) numbers are specific tags used by HTC to match a particular device with proper software updates. Many Android devices need different settings, hardware drivers and applications depends on the region of the world or carrier. One device can be available in a few different variants, for example HTC One has 6 different models IDs (MIDs) - PN0711000 (Taiwan), PN0714000 (Austraila, Hong-Kong, Singapore), PN0710000 (Europe), PN0712000 (United States and Canada), PN0771000 (China) and PN0720000 (U.S. Sprint). To check your current MID/CID number you need to use fastboot protocol and type "fastboot getvar all" command or respectively "fastboot getvar mid" / "fastboot getvar cid" if you dont want to see all variables output.

NANDroid backup - an 1:1 copy of the /system, /data, /cache and boot partitions. NANDroid backup can be created and restored using custom Android recoveries like CWM, EXT4 or TWRP. The form of NANDroid backup vary from different custom recovery - could be .tar, .zip, .img or other. NANDroid backup is saved on your SD-card (either virtual or physical) and can be easily transferred to the PC. Its highly recommended to do a regular backup, but to be even more secured, remember about having backup of the backup too.

Article contributors:

• Shen Ye
• Want to became an article contributor? Write a comment with an explained term in the the comments section.

Have any questions or comments? Feel free to share! Also, if you like this article, please use media sharing buttons (Twitter, G+, Facebook) below this post!

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Replace ActionBar with android support v7 widget Toolbar

A Toolbar is a generalization of action bars for use within application layouts. While an action bar is traditionally part of an Activitys opaque window decor controlled by the framework, a Toolbar may be placed at any arbitrary level of nesting within a view hierarchy. An application may choose to designate a Toolbar as the action bar for an Activity using the setSupportActionBar() method.

This example show how to replace ActionBar with android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar.

- Create a new project with Minimum SDK of API 16, select template of Empty Activity.

- Edit res/values/styles.xml to use style of "Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar".

<resources>

 <!-- Base application theme. -->
 <style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar">
 <!-- Customize your theme here. -->
 <item name="colorPrimary">@color/colorPrimary</item>
 <item name="colorPrimaryDark">@color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
 <item name="colorAccent">@color/colorAccent</item>
 </style>

</resources>

- Add <android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar> to /res/layout/activity_main.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout 
 
 android_layout_width="match_parent"
 android_layout_height="match_parent"
 android_paddingBottom="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
 android_paddingLeft="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
 android_paddingRight="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
 android_paddingTop="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
 tools_context="com.blogspot.android_er.androidtoolbar.MainActivity">

 <android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
 android_id="@+id/toolbar"
 android_layout_width="match_parent"
 android_layout_height="56dp"
 android_background="#FFA000"/>
 <TextView
 android_layout_width="wrap_content"
 android_layout_height="wrap_content"
 android_text="Hello World!" />
</RelativeLayout>

- Edit MainActivity.java to call setSupportActionBar(toolbar) method.

package com.blogspot.android_er.androidtoolbar;

import android.os.Bundle;
import android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity;
import android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar;

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {

 @Override
 protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
 super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
 setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
 Toolbar toolbar = (Toolbar)findViewById(R.id.toolbar);
 setSupportActionBar(toolbar);
 }
}

- To make the Toolbar fill the width of the layout, edit /res/values/dimens.xml to set both "activity_horizontal_margin" and "activity_vertical_margin" to 0dp.

<resources>
 <!-- Default screen margins, per the Android Design guidelines. -->
 <dimen name="activity_horizontal_margin">0dp</dimen>
 <dimen name="activity_vertical_margin">0dp</dimen>
</resources>

This video show how-to in Android Studio, and how it shown on Android Emulator of API 16 and 23.


More:
- Set title, subtitle and logo of Toolbar
- Add OptionsMenu to Toolbar
- Set image on Toolbar
- Implement checkable items in OptionsMenu of Toolbar

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Gallery View Android Developer Tutorial

Continuing on the Views, I have taken up the Gallery View that helps in showing Images as in a gallery. As per the android documentation, this is the definition: “A Gallery is a View commonly used to display items in a horizontally scrolling list that locks the current selection at the center.”


For this the layout xml in this case, the main.xml will have a ‘Gallery’ element as shown below:

<Gallery
    android_id="@+id/Gallery01"
    android_layout_width="fill_parent"
    android_layout_height="wrap_content"></Gallery>
<ImageView android_id="@+id/ImageView01"
    android_layout_width="wrap_content"
    android_layout_height="wrap_content"></ImageView>

It also has an ImageView element which is used to show the selected Image in a larger ImageView. Here is how it would look when executed.

Now, I create a GalleryView Activity. To view a set of images of Antartica, I have created small sized images of antartica and stored them in the res/drawable-ldpi folder starting form antartica1.png to antartica10.png.

I create an array of these resources/images in my activity with the following code:

Integer[] pics = {
R.drawable.antartica1,
R.drawable.antartica2,
R.drawable.antartica3,
R.drawable.antartica4,
R.drawable.antartica5,
R.drawable.antartica6,
R.drawable.antartica7,
R.drawable.antartica8,
R.drawable.antartica9,
R.drawable.antartica10
};

As we have seen with all the other views so far, we need to have an adapter that associates the view with the data. Here the view is Gallery and the data is the above mentioned 10 images. An Adapter plays the role of linking the two as shown below:

Gallery ga = (Gallery)findViewById(R.id.Gallery01);
ga.setAdapter(new ImageAdapter(this));

However, we do not have a readymade implementation of the ImageAdapter. We have to create our own implementation of the same by extending the BaseAdapter class. This is the core of the code in this example. The moment we extend the BaseAdapter, we have to override 4 methods. They are getCount(), getItem(), getItemId() and getView().

Before we go to each of them, let us see the constructor of the ImageAdpater:

public class ImageAdapter extends BaseAdapter {


private Context ctx;
int imageBackground;


public ImageAdapter(Context c) {
    ctx = c;
    TypedArray ta = obtainStyledAttributes(R.styleable.Gallery1);
    imageBackground = ta.getResourceId(R.styleable.Gallery1_android_galleryItemBackground, 1);
    ta.recycle();
}
…
}

It takes the context that is passed to the constructor. We need to examine this code a little. First, we can define our own resources or attributes in an XML file. Those attributes can be retrieved through the method obtainStyledAttributes. This is a method on the Context object. The returned value needs to be stored in a TypedArray object. A TypedArray is nothing but a container for an array of values that are returned by obtainStyledAttributes.

So, in my example, I have created an xml file by name attributes.xml in the res/values folder with the following content:

<resources>
     <declare-styleable name="Gallery1">
    <attr name="android:galleryItemBackground"/>
     </declare-styleable>
</resources>

Here Gallery1 is a custom name for a style defined by us. In this style, we are trying to say what should be the background of our images. For that we are using a pre-defined backgournd in R.attr class as galleryItemBackground.

So, this is accessed in the ImageAdapter contructor through the line

ta.getResourceId(R.styleable.Gallery1_android_galleryItemBackground, 1);
ta.recycle();

The number 1 is to say that it is the first element in the attributes.xml file under the styelable Gallery1.

The rest of the over ridden methods are simple:

@Override
public int getCount() {
    return pics.length;
}


@Override
public Object getItem(int arg0) {
    return arg0;
}

@Override
public long getItemId(int arg0) {
    return arg0;
}


@Override
public View getView(int arg0, View arg1, ViewGroup arg2) {
    ImageView iv = new ImageView(ctx);
    iv.setImageResource(pics[arg0]);
    iv.setScaleType(ImageView.ScaleType.FIT_XY);
    iv.setLayoutParams(new Gallery.LayoutParams(150,120));
    iv.setBackgroundResource(imageBackground);
    return iv;
}

The getView actually returns a View object when called. Here I have overridden it to return a ImageView object with the selected image inside it alosn with some scale, layout paramaters and the image background set.

Finally in the onCreate() method of the activity I have captured the onClick event on a Gallery item and within that I have toasted a message as well as displayed the image in a bigger manner below the gallery:

ga.setOnItemClickListener(new OnItemClickListener() {
@Override
public void onItemClick(AdapterView<?> arg0, View arg1, int arg2, long arg3) {
    Toast.makeText(getBaseContext(), "You have selected picture " + (arg2+1) + " of Antartica",
        Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
    imageView.setImageResource(pics[arg2]);
}
});

That is it. You may download the complete code from here.

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Have OUYA gone a little DOYA Adverts that fail OUYA Respond

Heres an actual OUYA ad I think? Im not sure. Its kind of gross and very Klasky Csupo in terms of animation. Not sure if this is how OUYA should go marketing-wise, but at least its different.

*Update:* Im certain now that I dont like it. Its needlessly-vulgar and feels like an impressionists take on Internet-centric animation, but unlike similar channels like Egoraptor or Fox ADHD, this isnt entertaining! It also fails as an advertisement, not explaining anything about the OUYA or why its great. 


EDIT : "Genny" the OUYA Rep has responded to the video with this ....

Hi Everyone, a statement on the video: "This is not our official ad. We are experimenting with animated content and posted this video briefly to get feedback from our community. Stay tuned for our official video."

IHAG Blog would like to know how this experiment got to YouTube and the public in the first place. 

by James Mapley

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How To Unbrick tecno A

Somehow, you did install some apps after rooting your Tecno A+ and then it bricked, you started sweating, your heart beat increases. Dont worry, it can be fixed, huge thanks to Seun Payne. You can visit his blog here for more personal info
 
Needed Items
1. Stock rom for phantom A+: Download Here

2. Specific flashtool that works on A+: Download Here

3. Drivers for the A+: Here (I would advice that you uninstall any previous drivers for any Tecno you have installed as they might cause a conflict. Or download the zipped file directly here

If you dont know how to install drivers with the .exe file, follow the link in this tutorial.

To test if your drivers are working properly, with the phone off, open your computers device manager and plug the phone. you should see "Mediatek preloader..." come up for about 5 seconds and disappear. if it shows with a yellow arrow on it then the drivers are not installed correctly. If it doesnt have the yellow arrow then you are good to go.)

DISCLAIMER: Follow THESE instructions and Download THESE files for TECNO PHANTOM A+ only. I will not be held for any mishap caused by instructions followed from somewhere else.

HOW TO FLASH:
1. Open the folder where you downloaded the files (everything must be in d same folder)

2. Cut the scatter file out and paste it in another place (anywhere, just make sure its not in the same folder as the other files). The scatter file is the text document starting with MT6589...

3. Open sp flash tools and use the file tab and click Open Scatter Loading File to load DAT scatter file. remember to copy d cwm recovery and overwrite d recovery inside the folder  Now it should show you a list of things to flash. check only recovery, uboot and system (that means only these 3 should be ticked, see the images). 

5. Now double click on d word recovery and select d cwm recovery you copied there. please make sure everything is in d same folder. Do the same for the uboot and system image u downloaded.

3. Remove the bat3 from the bricked A+. Click download in sp flash tools and plug the bricked f7. flashing will begin and when it ends you should see a green circle. if it doesnt start den remove and plug again. if you try three times and it doesnt flash then you didnt install the drivers correctly.

4. If you see the green circle then congrats you have successfully flashed your phone. now please first things first, after you finish patting yourself on the back about what a wonderful guru you are. put off the phone and wait for it to vibrate. the hold the volume up button and press and hold the power button until it shows you three options. use the volume button to navigate to recovery mode and use the volume down button to select it. cwm should boot. now please backup your phone.

Thank you guys...its been a pleasure.

This is a totally Seun Payne handwork. You can reach him on his blog from this link

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