Book Image

Android 3.0 Application Development Cookbook

By : Kyle Merrifield Mew
Book Image

Android 3.0 Application Development Cookbook

By: Kyle Merrifield Mew

Overview of this book

<p>Android is a mobile operating system that runs on a staggering number of smartphones and tablets. Android offers developers the ability to build extremely rich and innovative applications written using the Java programming language. Among the number of books that have been published on the topic, what&rsquo;s missing is a thoroughly practical, hands-on book that takes you straight to getting your job done without boring you with too much theory.<br /><br />Android 3.0 Application Development Cookbook will take you straight to the information you need to get your applications up and running. This book is written to provide you with the shortest possible route between an idea and a working application. <br /><br />Work through the book from start to finish to become an Android expert, or use it as a reference book by applying recipes directly to your project.<br /><br />This book covers every aspect of mobile app development, starting with major application components and screen layout and design, before moving on to how to manage sensors such as internal gyroscopes and near field communications. Towards the end, it delves into smartphone multimedia capabilities as well as graphics and animation, web access, and GPS. <br /><br />Whether you are writing your first app or your hundredth, this is a book that you will come back to time and time again, with its many tips and tricks on the rich features of Android 3.</p>

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Android 3.0 Application Development Cookbook
Kyle Merrifield Mew
Jul, 2011 | 272 pages
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Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Android 3.0 Application Development Cookbook
Android 3.0 Application Development Cookbook
Credits
Credits
About the Author
About the Author
About the Reviewers
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Activities
Activities
Introduction
Declaring an activity
Starting a new activity with an intent object
Switching between activities
Returning a result from an activity
Storing an activity's state
Storing persistent activity data
Managing the activity lifecycle
2
Layouts
Layouts
Introduction
Declaring a layout
Applying a relative layout
Applying a table layout
Using ListViews and ListAdapters
Applying gravity and weight
Controlling layout during runtime
Optimizing for tablets and multiple screens
Dividing the screen into fragments
Running 3.0 and higher applications on older platforms
3
Widgets
Widgets
Introduction
Inserting a widget into a layout
Adding images to widgets
Creating a widget at runtime
Applying a style
Turning a style into a theme
Using a platform style or theme
Creating a custom component
4
Menus
Menus
Introduction
Creating and inflating an options menu
Designing Android compliant menu icons
Building a context sensitive menu
Handling menu selections
Building menu groups of checkable items
Applying shortcut keys and submenus
5
Data and Security
Data and Security
Introduction
Using internal storage for private data
Storing public data on external storage
Creating a SQLite database
Sharing multimedia files across applications with Content Providers
Defining and enforcing permissions
Providing backup functionality
6
Detecting User Activity
Detecting User Activity
Introduction
Reading a device's orientation
Measuring motion with the accelerometer
Listing available sensors
Recognizing a touch event
Detecting multi-touch elements
Recognizing gestures
Handling multi-touch gestures
Controlling on screen keyboards
7
Notifying the User
Notifying the User
Introduction
Displaying an alert dialog
Displaying a progress dialog
Customizing a dialog
Making a Toast
Notifying the user with the status bar
Using the Notifcation.Builder class
8
Graphics and Animation
Graphics and Animation
Introduction
Adding graphics to the ImageView class
Rotating an image with a matrix
Using ShapeDrawable and Paint
Drawing with a Canvas
Using tween animations
Animating with Honeycomb APIs
Creating stop frame animations
Working with OpenGL
9
Multimedia
Multimedia
Introduction
Playing an audio file from within an application
Playing back video from external memory
Playing multiple sounds with a SoundPool
Recording audio
Recording video
Capturing photos with the camera
10
Telephony, Networks, and the Web
Telephony, Networks, and the Web
Introduction
Initiating a phone call
Listening for phone events
Sending SMS messages
Monitoring SMS messages
Connecting to WiFi
Connecting Bluetooth devices
Including web content
11
GPS, Locations, and Maps
GPS, Locations, and Maps
Introduction
Detecting a device's location
Listening for location changes
Setting up Google Maps
Zooming in on a MapView
Setting a map's location with a GeoPoint
Marking a location on a map with an overlay
Index
Index

Creating and inflating an options menu

To keep our application code separate from our menu layout information, Android uses a designated resource folder (res/menu) and an XML layout file to define the physical appearance of our menu; such as the titles and icons we see in Android pop-up menus. The Activity class contains a callback method, onCreateOptionsMenu(), that can be overridden to inflate a menu.

Getting ready

Android menus are defined in a specific, designated folder. Eclipse does not create this folder by default so start up a new project and add a new folder inside the res folder and call it menu.

How to do it...

  1. Create a new XML file in our new res/menu folder and call it my_menu.xml. Complete the new file as follows:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu
  xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
  <item
    android:id="@+id/item_one"
    android:title="first item" />
  <item
    android:id="@+id/item_two"
    android:title="second item...
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