Car Manager MIDlet
Platform: J2ME MIDP 1.0
Description: The Car Manager application is a helpful tool that can be used to monitor your car’s gasoline consumption and expenses. You can easily add new tanking up entries and edit old ones. You can also examine the automaticly generated report that will calculate average consumption and total values from your entries. Midlet is designed to be used on all devices that support Java MIDP 1.0 applications. You will need a phone with File Connection (JSR 75) support if you want to export entries to a CSV file.
Screenshots have been taken from Sony Ericsson Z800 emulator but application works on all devices that support Java J2ME MIDP 1.0 profile. NetBeans 5.5 project files and source codes are included in the downloadable package.
License: GPL (General Public License)
The source code with NetBeans IDE 5.5 project files is available under the GPL license. You are free to use and distribute this application.
Downloads
Car Manager (source + binaries)
Version history:
Version 1.4 (February 19th 2007)
- Added: Ability to export entries to CSV file
Version 1.3 (August 5th, 2006)
- Added: Settings screen
- Added: New entry type: Cost per liter
- Changed: “Kilometers” to “Current mileage”
- Changed: Comment size to 32 characters (was 10)
Version 1.2 (June 8th, 2005)
- Added: Splash screen
- Added: Ability to choose time span on report form
- Added: Predictable kilometers on new fill-up entry
Version 1.1 (May 21th, 2005)
- Fixed: Report didn’t calculate average consumptions correctly
Version 1.0
- First release
August 4th, 2005 at 15:26
Hi,
Might be a stupid question, but what should I put in the kilometers field in a new entry? My current mileage, or the km’s I drove with the last fill?
-Thanks
August 4th, 2005 at 20:07
Thank you for the feedback. You are not the first one who have asked this question. You should put your current mileage in the “kilometers” field. I’ll change the field’s title to “Current mileage” in the next release.
April 21st, 2006 at 10:50
Hi,
Thanks for a great job.
I think that it would be better to enter how much you paid and cos per liter and than on those values to count liters. Maybe you would consider it in new version.
Anyway are you developing new versions ?
November 14th, 2006 at 15:31
I get no feedback on average consumption, and on average consumption since last full fill-up. It always says 0.00l/100km. Everything else works though.
November 18th, 2006 at 21:36
Mr.Damir: What phone are you using? Could you email some data that you have logged? I could try to hunt down the possible bug with that information.
January 1st, 2007 at 09:28
I tried car manager on NOKIA 6235 CDMA.The average fuel consumption always says 0.00l/100km. Suggestions please.
January 1st, 2007 at 14:34
indranil: What have you entered as your consumption data? Would you be able to send me a screenshot of the main screen containing your consumptions? I haven’t been able to reproduce this bug with the following phones Nokia N80, 6670 and 7650.
January 8th, 2007 at 00:02
Very small russian review Car Manager MIDlet
http://www.mobsoft.ru/content/view/201/42/
January 25th, 2007 at 09:55
It doesn’t work with my Samsung SPHM500
It’s J2ME capable but it exits automatically
February 16th, 2007 at 22:39
Great applet! I’m using it for already three months.
Now I’m wondering if you can export the data to Excel?
February 16th, 2007 at 23:11
Thanks Stefan! I have though about the idea so that user would be able to export the data to phone’s memory card as simple CSV file that could be opened in Excel. I’ll look into this and I’ll try to implement it within the following weeks.
If this feature is implemented then the user would need a phone with File Connection (JSR 75) support as Java ME application can’t otherwise write data to local folders.
February 17th, 2007 at 01:45
Thanks Tommi :-))
Only one more wish:
Maybe an additional column “l/100km” in the fill-ups list showing the average consumption since the last full fill-up, would be possible? I think it would make it easier to see when fuel consumption varies.
PS:
Will the upgrade to the new version keep the fill-up entries from version 1.3?
February 18th, 2007 at 15:12
I might add a new column for “l/100km” and probably add an user option to select what columns will be displayed.
It might be necessary to upgrade the application to MIDP 2.0 and therefore I’m not sure if the old entries will be kept when installing the upgrade. We’ll wait and see.
February 19th, 2007 at 00:34
I’ll take that back. It seems that I don’t have to upgrade the application to MIDP 2.0 so the old entries are kept if your phone supports the updating. My Nokia phones, N80, 6670 and 7650, keep the old entries when updating Java ME software.
February 23rd, 2007 at 22:35
Thank you, I’ll give the update a try this weekend! :-) I’ve got a Sony Ericsson K750i and hope it’ll keep the entries when upgrading. Do you know where the application data is stored, so I can back it up? Well maybe I’ll just move the application to the memory stick and copy all files from it to rhe PC before upgrading. :)
Having the export feature will also make it easier if you ever have to use MIDP 2.0. You could now implement an import function for transferring the data to MIDP 2.0 ;)
I hope you still consider implementing the new column. Adding an user option what columns are displayed sounds like a good idea as well.
February 24th, 2007 at 13:21
My K750i kept the entries on upgrade. When sending the JAR file to the phone it asked me if I wanted to replace the existing version 1.3 with 1.4. Good! :)
So I immediately tried out the new Export functionality and it worked fine. However I had to adjust the liter-entries in Excel because here the decimal separator is a comma. So Excel would expect 30,65 instead of 30.65 in the CSV. Also the date/time format is not recognized by Excel but that’s no big issue for my calculations at the moment (Excel would expect something like 24.02.2007 11:16).
In fact I just calculated a l/100km column so I did not need the date value yet. Very interesting results here - especially there seems to be nearly no difference between synthetic and normal motor oil in fuel consumption.
May 9th, 2007 at 20:16
Hi,
Recently I found this program and as soon as possible I put it into my Siemens C75 and started using it. I’ve been using the Car Manager from 8mobile.org since nov/06, it´s a good program but it calculates the average consumption wrong, unfortunately. I’ve told the developer about the problem but until now he don’t upgrade the program.
Allow me to give you some suggestions about the CarManager. Here in Brazil it is more common to express the average consumption of a car by Km/L. This can be easy done on CarManager since you already calculate L/100Km. Maybe the Km/L can also be a good info for europeans. ;)
Maybe it is preferable to change the euro sign for $ sign, since euro sign is just used in europe and $ I think, everybody can understand as money sign. Also can be benefical to present the total milage on report-sheet.
Fill-up panel suggestions. You can save space on “Date” colunm by changing the “/” by a simple “.”. As the price of gas here increases almost every 2 months, to fill-up is common to have a 3 digit bill, e.g. R$ 100.00, and the cents info are not SO important for a visual report, maybe the cent on the fill-up panel eurosign column should be hidden, as a round $.
And finally there here some more difficult/time spent suggestions that you may take into account is to insert a second panel with repair costs and/or other spents, just to record. And the last one, a possible implementation of the dot on * button. I think people are not confortable using centiliters and cents to express the quantities used to add a new record.
Hope help you.
sorry about bad english, am not here to criticise you, just to congratulate and help to improve this good cell-phone program
best regards from brazil
Cleber Zanatta
May 16th, 2007 at 23:49
I would like ask you - Do you have plan some new future?
thx
May 18th, 2007 at 12:53
Hi,
this works fine on my Nokia 6234 and i’m gladly using it.
Apart from the compliments, i’d like to be able to see a “multiple veichles” feature, so i could keep track of my car as well as my scooter.
A multi language support would be nice, i offer my services for the italian translation.
Thanks
May 18th, 2007 at 22:50
Cleber, thank you for your detailed feedback!
I’ll try to include the km/l calculation in the next release of Car Manager. I have also thought about changing the currency character to be configured so that user could choose whatever to use $ or € or £.
Repair and/or other costs panel is also under consideration as many users have been requesting this feature.
May 25th, 2007 at 10:51
Hi Tommy, you have done a great great great job!
Maybe you haven’t understand… GREAT!
It works very well on my Nokia N70!
The only thing that I would like to have is PROFILES. Probably is my fault, but I have 2 cars :)
Apart from that, it’s a so cute application. Well done.
P.S. Sorry for my English I’m an italian boy :)
May 25th, 2007 at 11:08
Thanks Rubens!
Comments like this will drive me to improve the app :) So according to the latest comments the most requested features would be PROFILES and OTHER COSTS.
I’ll see what I can do.
June 13th, 2007 at 11:10
The only thing that I would like to have is PROFILES. Probably is my fault, but I have 2 cars :)
June 18th, 2007 at 23:18
Thanks Tommi, been looking for such a software and not surprised I could find one under GPL coming from a Finn ;)
Keep up the good work!
Jul.
July 1st, 2007 at 08:42
Do I dare ask if there could be a “switch” for liters to gallons and kilometers to miles?
Thought I would ask…
=)
September 11th, 2007 at 22:48
Moro,
miksihän poisto tai muokkaus ei toimi E61i nokialaisessa? Muokkaus antaa muuttaa arvoja mutta ne ei tallennu ennen uudelleen käynistystä, poistolla ei mitään vaiutusta mihinkään. Minne ohjelma tallentaa tiedot, että voisi käsin käydä muuttamassa oikeiksi?
T. Miikka
September 14th, 2007 at 17:43
Unfortunately I had to reset my phone recently. So I moved Car Manager to the memory card thinking this would make the database persist. However Car Manager was empty after moving the application to the memory card. Moving it back to phone also did NOT help.
Fortunately I also had an up-to-date export to CSV so I could reenter the data from the CSV-file manually (but that would mean to enter about a year of data)
So it would be very helpful to have a function to import the CSV data again (for poor users who lost the database)… ;))
October 4th, 2007 at 00:24
I allso downloaded car manager and I find it very useful! I would allso like to have some more features in order of importance (more important are on top):
1. Last fill consumption column in main view
2. Other costs (eg. toll roads, car repair, …)
3. CSV import
4. Profiles
BTW. this app works perfectly on E65.
Keep on.
Matej
Is it possible that you publish a update with just 1. request soon and then when you find more time try to implement other features?
October 16th, 2007 at 15:29
Work on V3? If yes, how to install? I installed the *. jar by a software, and is an Application Error. What can I do?
October 16th, 2007 at 17:00
Hi. I managed to add some features to Car Manager. It is feature, that I prioritized first. So, you can display last fill consumption in main view (form) for each row (if calculation is possible).
I commented all changes very well, so Tommi if you are interested, please give me your e-mail and I will send you modified version.
Matej
October 29th, 2007 at 23:52
Some new verison on horizont?
December 23rd, 2007 at 22:45
Currently it does not seem like that.
Merry Christmas to all anyway!
January 9th, 2008 at 00:06
The latest version (1.4) didn’t work in my cell phone (LG Black Safira). I would like to test the older versions, maybe it works… This application is everything I need. Where can I find the version 1.1? I’ve tried to find it not successfully in Google for a lot of time…
February 12th, 2008 at 19:29
The version 1.4 is about to complete 1 year…..
is there some new version coming on?
March 12th, 2008 at 15:56
Hello and thanks for this nice application. It’s nice to follow my car’s fuel consumption on a longer time line.
It would be nice to have also that other costs -option. Taxes and repairs and so on. If there would be an option that the application tells you how much it actually costs to drive one kilometer. I wonder that it would be shocking number :)
March 12th, 2008 at 21:04
Actually this application is open source. :-)
But since Tommi does not seem to have time
to improve the application I hope some
additional good J2ME programmer will contact
him to become a developer of Car Manager
as well.
March 12th, 2008 at 22:57
Jussi: Thanks! Many users have requested the other expenses feature. As Stefan mentioned the app is open source so hopefully there are developers who’d like to contribute this kind of a feature.
I have my hands quite full these days but there might come a day when I have some time to code Mobile Car Manager. Your idea of displaying actual cost to drive one kilometer would be really interesting (and indeed shocking) to see.
May 12th, 2008 at 14:04
Very useful app. Very :) Unfortunately can be used with only 1 vehicle. Profiles would be great option to people with more than one car.
Big thanks however.. ;)
Please, don’t stop working, improve it :D
July 2nd, 2008 at 17:13
Is there a trip record application to go with this really useful piece of software?
July 2nd, 2008 at 19:00
I’m not aware of such a trip record app. What kind of application would that be? What features should it have?
July 11th, 2008 at 11:36
Hi Tommi
Once again, great work and keep them coming. I will have a look and see if I can possibly assist with having the app display the actual cost to drive one kilometer.
Will let you know if I had any success.
Regards
July 12th, 2008 at 08:32
Would be very nice if there’d be an csv-importer as well.
When you’ve got a new phone all entries reside
on the old phone :-/
July 24th, 2008 at 21:52
Hi Tommy,
I developed the webapp motor0.net. It’s a car manager too. If you want, we can make that they work togheter. I can make some web services in motor0.net in order to CarManager can upload data.
Regards
August 10th, 2008 at 09:25
Please anybody develop an import function!
Just had to install everything on the mobile again
after updating the phone to a newer firmware version
and of course also Car Manager’s database starts from scratch again :-(