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

Using the SQLite database


SQLite is an excellent little SQL compatible database that is embedded into the core Android system. This allows you to leverage a complete SQL database without having to ship one with your application (which will raise your code size dramatically). This makes it the most common tool for storing structured data on Android, but it's by no means the only option.

For many applications that require real-time synchronization with a server, people use Firebase Database. Firebase is a Google cloud product that includes a powerful document database that synchronizes its data in real time, all the way to the client. This means that an event is triggered on a client when any of its data is modified from outside, making it suitable for chat and messaging applications. However, tools such as Firebase require a large additional client-side API, tie your application to a service, and are very difficult to port your application away for later. Applications built with them may also...