ORCID iD
This is an update post for my progress on Mendeley for Android.
I have just committed code that provides almost working background synchronization to the device. Indeed, the strange image that you can see here is an emulator dump of the Android logcat while the synchronization procedure is running.
It's probably worth, at this point, detailing a little bit of what I'm doing. After all, there are some other Android clients for Mendeley in the works and they seem to be making rapid progress. My work has been slower, but I believe it is also better designed.
I am implementing the Mendeley API as a background sync service. This means that you perform a sync when you have access to the internet and the content is pulled down to your device for offline browsing. Other implementations appear to be reliant upon a constant internet connection to browse the collection.
Secondly, I am implementing the API under a ContentProvider and as an Account. This means that, in the long run, multiple clients will be able to ask for permission to get hold of the stored Mendeley data; this design does a favour to all working on the platform.
Anyway, there's a couple of bugs left in the sync procedure that I hope to get sorted over the next few days and then I can release a new APK for those who would like to beta test.