Android 3.0 Application Development Cookbook

Android 3.0 Application Development Cookbook

By : Kyle Merrifield Mew

Buy this Book

Android 3.0 Application Development Cookbook

By: Kyle Merrifield Mew

Buy this Book

Overview of this book

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’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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

Android 3.0 Application Development Cookbook

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Preface

Free Chapter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Customer Reviews

5 star

4 star

3 star

2 star

1 star

Listing available sensors

Android handsets come with a wide variety of sensors but which sensors are included is a matter for manufacturers to decide and differs from model to model. As developers we need some way to detect which sensors are available to us. In particular we may want to select between sensors that perform similar functions. For example it may be preferable to measure motion with a gyroscope if one is available but prepare a function that utilizes the accelerometer when one is not.

Getting ready

The project we put together in the last recipe is as good a place to start this exercise as any, as we will be doing little in the way of coding. You can of course apply this task to any of your own applications if you prefer.

How to do it...

Open up the Java activity file and declare the following private members:

private SensorManager mSensorManager;
private TextView mTextView;
private List mList;

You will have needed to define the TextView in XML and provide it with an android:id.
Inside...

Android 3.0 Application Development Cookbook

By : Kyle Merrifield Mew

Android 3.0 Application Development Cookbook

By: Kyle Merrifield Mew

Overview of this book

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Android 3.0 Application Development Cookbook

Listing available sensors

Getting ready

How to do it...