Book Image

Android Studio 2 Essentials - Second Edition

By : Belén Cruz Zapata
Book Image

Android Studio 2 Essentials - Second Edition

By: Belén Cruz Zapata

Overview of this book

Android Studio 2, the official IDE for Android application development, dramatically improves your workflow by letting you quickly see changes running on your device or emulator. It gives developers a unique platform by making app builds and deployment faster. This book will get you up and running with all the essential features of Android Studio 2 to optimize your development workflow. Starting off with the basic installation and configuration of Android Studio 2, this book will help you build a new project by showing you how to create a custom launcher icon and guiding you to choose your project. You will then gain an insight into the additional tools provided in Android Studio, namely the Software Development Kit (SDK) Manager, Android Virtual Device (AVD) Manager, and Javadoc. You’ll also see how to integrate Google Play Services in an Android project. Finally, you’ll become familiar with the Help section in Android Studio, which will enable you to search for support you might require in different scenarios.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Android Studio 2 Essentials Second Edition
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Google Maps Android API


Google Maps Android API allows the users of your application to explore maps available through a Google service. It offers functionalities such as 3D maps, indoor and satellite maps, efficient caching and drawing using vector-based technology, and animated transitions through the map. Add the following dependency, to your Gradle's build file, to include the Google Maps API package in your app:

compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-maps:8.4.0'

Let's create a new activity, Google Maps Activity, to examine the most important generated classes. Navigate to File | New | Activity | Gallery.... In the Add an Activity to Mobile dialog, select a Google Maps Activity and click on Next. In the Customize the Activity step, leave the default values like they are in the screenshot: MapsActivity for Activity Name, activity_maps for Layout Name, and Map for Title:

Click on Finish. Three new files were created: the activity MapsActivity.java (at src/main/java), the layout activity_maps...