Book Image

Mastering Android Studio 3

By : Kyle Mew
Book Image

Mastering Android Studio 3

By: Kyle Mew

Overview of this book

Android Studio is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) designed for developing Android apps. As with most development processes, Android keeps resources and logic nicely separated, and so this book covers the management of imagery and other resources, and the development and testing tools provided by the IDE. After introducing the software, the book moves straight into UI development using the sophisticated, WYSIWYG layout editor and XML code to design and test complex interfaces for a wide variety of screen configurations. With activity design covered, the book continues to guide the reader through application logic development, exploring the latest APIs provided by the SDK. Each topic will be demonstrated by working code samples that can be run on a device or emulator. One of Android Studio's greatest features is the large number of third-party plugins available for it, and throughout the book we will be exploring the most useful of these, along with samples and libraries that can be found on GitHub. The final module of the book deals with the final stages of development: building and distribution. The book concludes by taking the reader through the registration and publication processes required by Google. By the time you have finished the book, you will be able to build faster, smoother, and error-free Android applications, in less time and with fewer complications than you ever thought possible.

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Table of Contents (10 chapters)
Preface
Preface
What this book covers
What you need for this book
Who this book is for
Conventions
Reader feedback
Customer support
Free Chapter
1
Workspace Structure
Workspace Structure
How Android Studio differs
Workspace structure
The Android SDK
Importing projects into Android Studio
Summary
2
UI Design
UI Design
The Layout Editor
The constraint layout
Multiple screen previewing
Summary
3
UI Development
UI Development
Material design
The design library
Collapsing app bars
Summary
4
Device Development
Device Development
Screen orientation
Virtual devices
Android Wear
Accessing sensors
Device monitoring
Summary
5
Assets and Resources
Assets and Resources
Asset Studio
Animated icons
General drawables
Summary
6
Templates and Plugins
Templates and Plugins
Project templates
Custom templates
Project samples
Third-party plugins
Summary
7
Language Support
Language Support
Kotlin support
C/C++ support
Android Things
Summary
8
Testing and Profiling
Testing and Profiling
Logcat filters
JUnit testing
Testing a UI
Performance monitoring
Summary
9
Packaging and Distribution
Packaging and Distribution
Gradle build configurations
An APK analysis
Publishing applications
Summary

Performance monitoring

We may have ironed out all the glitches in our code, but there is still plenty of fine-tuning to do, and one of Android Studio's most innovative features, the Android Profiler, allows us to do just that.

The Android Profiler is not available for modules developed using C++.

The Android Profiler was introduced in Android Studio 3.0 and replaced the previous Android Monitor. At the most basic level, it monitors live CPU, memory, and network usage. This allows us to test our app under different conditions and configurations and improve its performance. It can be accessed from the View | Tool Windows menu or the tool window bar.

Performance monitoring

This basic monitoring is no different from the Android Monitor of previous incarnations. This is because features such as method tracing and memory allocation inspection have a negative impact on build times...

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