Book Image

Learning Java by Building Android Games - Third Edition

By : John Horton
5 (1)
Book Image

Learning Java by Building Android Games - Third Edition

5 (1)
By: John Horton

Overview of this book

Android is one of the most popular mobile operating systems today. It uses the most popular programming language, Java, as one of the primary languages for building apps of all types. Unlike most other Android books, this book doesn’t assume that you have any prior knowledge of Java programming, instead helps you get started with building Android games as a beginner. This new, improved, and updated third edition of Learning Java by Building Android Games helps you to build Android games from scratch. Once you've got to grips with the fundamentals, the difficulty level increases steadily as you explore key Java topics, such as variables, loops, methods, object-oriented programming (OOP), and design patterns while working with up-to-date code and supporting examples. At each stage, you'll be able to test your understanding by implementing the concepts that you’ve learned to develop a game. Toward the end, you’ll build games such as Sub Hunter, Retro Pong, Bullet Hell, Classic Snake, and Scrolling Shooter. By the end of this Java book, you'll not only have a solid understanding of Java and Android basics but will also have developed five cool games for the Android platform.
Table of Contents (24 chapters)

Locking the game to fullscreen and landscape orientation

As with previous projects, we want to use every pixel that the device has to offer, so we will make changes to the AndroidManifest.xml file that allow us to use a style for our app that hides all the default menus and titles from the user interface.

Make sure the AndroidManifest.xml file is open in the editor window.

In the AndroidManifest.xml file, locate the following line of code: android:name=".GameActivity">.

Place the cursor before the closing > shown previously. Tap the Enter key a couple of times to move the > a couple of lines below the rest of the line shown previously.

Immediately below ".GameActivity" but before the newly positioned >, type or copy and paste this next line of code to make the game run without any user interface:

android:theme=
"@android:style/Theme.Holo.Light.NoActionBar.Fullscreen"

Your code should look like this next code:

…...