ACRA – Application Crash Report for Android

Has Android App Error reporting been too arduous to worry about? Kevin Gaudin came up with the idea of sending error reports through to a Google Docs form, and ACRA was born. The problem with the built in Error Reporting in Andoid 2.2+ is that it channels through the Marketplace, and contains limited data.

This is where ACRA steps in. Whilst currently standing on a stable V4 release through Google Code, is on their first supportable version, making it a lot more viable to look into as a solution.

Features

• developer configurable user interaction: silent reports, Toast notification, status bar notification + dialog
• usable with ALL versions of android (compiled with 1.5, not tested on 1.0/1.1 but might work… but who does really care ?)
• more detailed crash reportsabout the device running the app than what is displayed in the Android Market developer console error reports
• you can add your own variables content or debug tracesto the reports
• you can send error reports even if the application doesn’t crash
• works for any application even if not delivered through Google’s Android Market => great for devices/regions where the Android Market is not available, beta releases or for enterprise private apps
• can be used with your own self-hosted report receiver script
• google doc reports can be shared with a whole development team. Other benefits from the Google Docs platform are still to be investigated (stats, macros…)

Tagged android, Android Development