The Busy Coder’s Guide to Android Development, Version 7.4

3940 Pages·2016·37.8 MB·English

by  Murphy M.L.

Table of Contents
Headings formatted in bold-italic have changed since the last version.
Preface
Welcome to the Book!
The Book’s Structure
The Trails
About the Updates
What’s New in Version 7.4?
Warescription
About the APK Edition
Extending Your Warescription
Source Code and Its License
Creative Commons and the Four-to-Free (42F) Guarantee
Acknowledgments
Key Android Concepts
Android Applications
Android Devices
Don’t Be Scared
Choosing Your Development Toolchain
Android Studio
Eclipse
IntelliJ IDEA
Command-Line Builds via Gradle for Android
Yet Other Alternatives
IDEs… And This Book
What We Are Not Covering
Tutorial #1 - Installing the Tools
Step #1 - Checking Your Hardware Requirements
Step #2 - Setting Up Java and 32-Bit Linux Support
Step #3 - Install the Developer Tools
Step #4 - Install the SDKs and Add-Ons
In Our Next Episode…
Android and Projects
Common Concepts
Projects and Android Studio
Starter Project Generators
Tutorial #2 - Creating a Stub Project
About Our Tutorial Project
About the Rest of the Tutorials
About Our Tools
Step #1: Creating the Project
Step #2 - Set Up the Emulator
Step #3 - Set Up the Device
Step #4: Running the Project
In Our Next Episode…
Getting Around Android Studio
Navigating The Project Explorer
Running Projects
Viewing Output
Accessing Android Tools
Android Studio and Release Channels
Visit the Trails!
Contents of Android Projects
What You Get, In General
The Contents of an Android Studio Project
The Contents of an Eclipse-Style Project
What You Get Out Of It
Introducing Gradle and the Manifest
Gradle: The Big Questions
Obtaining Gradle
Versions of Gradle and the Android Plugin for Gradle
Gradle Environment Variables
Examining the Gradle Files
Introducing the Manifest
Things In Common Between the Manifest and Gradle
Other Gradle Items of Note
Where’s the GUI?
The Rest of the Manifest
Learning More About Gradle
Visit the Trails!
Tutorial #3 - Changing Our Manifest (and Gradle File)
Some Notes About Relative Paths
Step #1: Supporting Screens
Step #2: Adding our Minimum and Target SDK Versions
In Our Next Episode…
Some Words About Resources
String Theory
Got the Picture?
Dimensions
The Resource That Shall Not Be Named… Yet
Tutorial #4 - Adjusting Our Resources
Step #1: Changing the Name
Step #2: Changing the Icon
Step #3: Running the Result
In Our Next Episode…
The Theory of Widgets
What Are Widgets?
Size, Margins, and Padding
What Are Containers?
The Absolute Positioning Anti-Pattern
The Theme of This Section: Themes
The Android User Interface
The Activity
Dissecting the Activity
Using XML-Based Layouts
Basic Widgets
Common Concepts
Assigning Labels
A Commanding Button
Fleeting Images
Fields of Green. Or Other Colors.
More Common Concepts
Visit the Trails!
Debugging Your App
Get Thee To a Stack Trace
The Case of the Confounding Class Cast
Point Break
LinearLayout and the Box Model
Concepts and Properties
Android Studio Graphical Layout Editor
Other Common Widgets and Containers
Just a Box to Check
Don’t Like Checkboxes? How About Toggles or Switches?
Turn the Radio Up
All Things Are Relative
Tabula Rasa
Scrollwork
Making Progress with ProgressBars
Visit the Trails!
Tutorial #5 - Making Progress
Step #1: Removing The “Hello, World”
Step #2: Adding a ProgressBar
Step #3: Seeing the Results
In Our Next Episode…
GUI Building, Continued
Making Your Selection
Including Includes
Morphing Widgets
Preview of Coming Attractions
AdapterViews and Adapters
Adapting to the Circumstances
Lists of Naughty and Nice
Clicks versus Selections
Spin Control
Grid Your Lions (Or Something Like That…)
Fields: Now With 35% Less Typing!
Customizing the Adapter
Visit the Trails!
The WebView Widget
Role of WebView
WebView and WebKit
The Android System WebView
Adding the Widget
Loading Content Via a URL
Links and Redirects
Supporting JavaScript
Alternatives for Loading Content
Listening for Events
Addressing the Link/Redirect Behavior
Visit the Trails!
Defining and Using Styles
Styles: DIY DRY
Elements of Style
Themes: Would a Style By Any Other Name…
What Happens If You Have No Theme
Android Studio’s Theme Editor
JARs and Library Projects
The Dalvik VM, and a Bit of ART
Getting the Library
The Outer Limits
JAR Dependency Management
OK, So What is a Library Project?
Using a Library Project
Library Projects: What You Get
The Android Support Package
Tutorial #6 - Adding a Library
Step #1: Attaching the Android Support Package
Step #2: Attaching the Third-Party Dependencies
In Our Next Episode…
The Action Bar
Bar Hopping
Yet Another History Lesson
Your Action Bar Options
Setting the Target
Defining the Resource
Applying the Resource
Responding to Events
The Rest of the Sample Activity
MENU Key, We Hardly Knew Ye
Action Bars, Live in Living Color!
Visit the Trails!
Tutorial #7 - Setting Up the Action Bar
Step #1: Acquiring Some Icons
Step #2: Defining Some Options
Step #3: Loading and Responding to Our Options
Step #4: Trying It Out
In Our Next Episode…
Android’s Process Model
When Processes Are Created
BACK, HOME, and Your Process
Termination
Foreground Means “I Love You”
You and Your Heap
Activities and Their Lifecycles
Creating Your Second (and Third and…) Activity
Warning! Contains Explicit Intents!
Using Implicit Intents
Extra! Extra!
Pondering Parcelable
Asynchronicity and Results
Schroedinger’s Activity
Life, Death, and Your Activity
When Activities Die
Walking Through the Lifecycle
Recycling Activities
Application: Transcending the Activity
The Case of the Invisible Activity
Tutorial #8 - Setting Up An Activity
Step #1: Creating the Stub Activity Class and Manifest Entry
Step #2: Launching Our Activity
In Our Next Episode…
The Tactics of Fragments
The Six Questions
Where You Get Your Fragments From
Your First Fragment
The Fragment Lifecycle Methods
Your First Dynamic Fragment
Fragments and the Action Bar
Fragments Within Fragments: Just Say “Maybe”
Fragments and Multiple Activities
Tutorial #9 - Starting Our Fragments
Step #1: Create a SimpleContentFragment
Step #2: Examining SimpleContentFragment
In Our Next Episode…
Swiping with ViewPager
Swiping Design Patterns
Pieces of a Pager
Paging Fragments
Paging Other Stuff
Indicators
Tutorial #10 - Rigging Up a ViewPager
Step #1: Add a ViewPager to the Layout
Step #2: Obtaining Our ViewPager
Step #3: Creating a ContentsAdapter
Step #4: Setting Up the ViewPager
In Our Next Episode…
Resource Sets and Configurations
What’s a Configuration? And How Do They Change?
Configurations and Resource Sets
Screen Size and Orientation
Coping with Complexity
Choosing The Right Resource
API-Versioned Resources
Default Change Behavior
State Saving Scenarios
Your Options for Configuration Changes
Blocking Rotations
And Now, a Word From the Android Project View
Material Design Basics
Your App, in Technicolor!
Dealing with Threads
The Main Application Thread
Getting to the Background
Asyncing Feeling
Alternatives to AsyncTask
And Now, The Caveats
Event Buses
Visit the Trails!
Requesting Permissions
Frequently-Asked Questions About Permissions
Characteristics of Permissions
New Permissions in Old Applications
Android 6.0+ Runtime Permission System
Tutorial: Runtime Permission Support
Step #0: Install the Android 6.0 SDK
Step #1: Import and Review the Starter Project
Step #2: Update Gradle for Android 6.0
Step #3: Review the Planned UX
Step #4: Detect the First Run
Step #5: On First Run, Ask For Permissions
Step #6: Check for Permissions Before Taking a Picture
Step #7: Detect If We Should Show Some Rationale
Step #8: Add a Rationale UI and Re-Request Permissions
Step #9: Check for Permissions Before Recording a Video
Step #10: Detect If We Should Show Some Rationale (Again)
Step #11: Support Configuration Changes
Assets, Files, and Data Parsing
Packaging Files with Your App
Files and Android
Working with Internal Storage
Working with External Storage
Multiple User Accounts
Linux Filesystems: You Sync, You Win
StrictMode: Avoiding Janky Code
Files, and Your Development Machine
XML Parsing Options
JSON Parsing Options
Visit the Trails!
Tutorial #11 - Adding Simple Content
Step #1: Adding Some Content
Step #2: Using SimpleContentFragment
Step #3: Launching Our Activities, For Real This Time
Step #4: Getting a Bit More Material
Step #5: Seeing the Results
In Our Next Episode…
Tutorial #12 - Displaying the Book
Step #1: Adding a Book
Step #2: Creating a ModelFragment
Step #3: Defining Our Model
Step #4: Examining Our Model
Step #5: Defining Our Event
Step #6: Loading Our Model
Step #7: Registering for Events
Step #8: Adapting the Content
Step #9: Showing the Content When Loaded
Step #10: Attaching our ModelFragment
Step #11: Showing the Content After a Configuration Change
Step #12: Setting Up StrictMode
In Our Next Episode…
Using Preferences
Getting What You Want
Stating Your Preference
Collecting Preferences with PreferenceFragment
Types of Preferences
Tutorial #13 - Using Some Preferences
Step #1: Defining the Preference XML Files
Step #2: Creating Our Preference Activity
Step #3: Adding To Our Action Bar
Step #4: Launching the Preference Activity
Step #5: Loading the Preferences
Step #6: Saving the Last-Read Position
Step #7: Restoring the Last-Read Position
Step #8: Keeping the Screen On
In Our Next Episode…
SQLite Databases
Introducing SQLite
Thinking About Schemas
Start with a Helper
Getting Data Out
The Rest of the CRUD
Hey, What About Hibernate?
Visit the Trails!
Tutorial #14 - Saving Notes
Step #1: Adding a DatabaseHelper
Step #2: Examining DatabaseHelper
Step #3: Creating a NoteFragment
Step #4: Examining NoteFragment
Step #5: Creating the NoteActivity
Step #6: Examining NoteActivity
Step #7: Add Notes to the Action Bar
Step #8: Defining a NoteLoadedEvent
Step #9: Loading a Note from the Database
Step #10: Loading the Note Into the Fragment
Step #11: Updating the Database
Step #12: Saving the Note
Step #13: Adding a Delete Action Bar Item