Book Image

Hands-On Android UI Development

By : Jason Morris
Book Image

Hands-On Android UI Development

By: Jason Morris

Overview of this book

A great user interface (UI) can spell the difference between success and failure for any new application. This book will show you not just how to code great UIs, but how to design them as well. It will take novice Android developers on a journey, showing them how to leverage the Android platform to produce stunning Android applications. Begin with the basics of creating Android applications and then move on to topics such as screen and layout design. Next, learn about techniques that will help improve performance for your application. Also, explore how to create reactive applications that are fast, animated, and guide the user toward their goals with minimal distraction. Understand Android architecture components and learn how to build your application to automatically respond to changes made by the user. Great platforms are not always enough, so this book also focuses on creating custom components, layout managers, and 2D graphics. Also, explore many tips and best practices to ease your UI development process. By the end, you'll be able to design and build not only amazing UIs, but also systems that provide the best possible user experience.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
Title Page
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface
13
Activity Lifecycle

Data binding and fragments


When working with the data binding framework, it's important to put some additional thought into where to encapsulate the various parts of your user interface. As you can hook the logic directly into the layout files, it will often be a better idea to use classes similar to the DatePickerWrapper you wrote in Chapter 3, Taking Actions, with an <include> and <merge> tag, rather that wrapping groups of components in classes. Data-bound layouts that are included in other layouts still have variables, and it's the responsibility of the outer layout to pass those variables downward, into the included layout file. For example, a layout including a date picker might look something like this:

<include layout="@layout/merge_date_picker"
         app:date="@{user.dateOfBirth}"
         android:layout_width="match_parent"
         android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>

As long as either user or its dateOfBirth is Observable, the layout will automatically reflect...