ProCon

ProCon is an Android remote control application that lets you control programs written using the Processing computer programming language. If you don't use Processing then this app will be of no use to you. It requires an Android device with OS v1.6+ and built-in wifi.

To control Processing, ProCon has a large panel to use as a mouse-like touch panel, a slider and four buttons. The position of your finger on the touch panel is sent to Processing, together with messages telling your program when the slider position changes or a button is pressed. If you have a g-sensor (accelerometer) in your Android device then it's values will be streamed to Processing, together with the orientation of any compass you also have in your device. That all allows you to do some quite sophisticated remote controlling of your Processing programs. You can also send a toast message to ProCon from Processing (try pressing the 'h' key on your PC while trying out the demo code).

To use ProCon simply do the following:

1. Connect your Android and PC to the same wifi network. Also, make sure you have the demo Processing code (see below).

2. Run ProCon on your Android and change the IP address in your Processing code to be the same as will be shown on the ProCon title bar (if it says 127.0.0.1 then try running ProCon again).

3. Run the Processing code and soon the title bar in ProCon should tell you that you're connected, in which case try some remote controlling.

4. If you get an error in Processing (e.g. 'No route to host') it's most likely that you have a network problem. Mostly this shouldn't happen, but if it does then closing the programs, disconnecting from the wifi, and trying again usually works.

Depending on how popular ProCon is future revisions could include additional button layouts, user defined layouts/graphics, and keyboard code sending.

If you like ProCon, why not take a look at the app store page at www.geocomputing.co.uk. Processing code to use with ProCon can be found at http://www.geocomputing.co.uk/getpage.php?type=page&page=androidprocon which you can adapt to your own needs.

This app is Copyright 2011 Andrew Thomas. No warranty is provided even of merchantability.