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)

Amending the code to use the full screen and the best Android class

Find the following line of code near the top of the BulletHellActivity.java file:

import androidx.appcompat.app.AppCompatActivity;

Change the preceding line of code to this:

import android.app.Activity;

Immediately after the preceding line of code, add this new line of code:

import android.view.Window;

The line of code we changed enables us to use a more efficient version of the Android API, Activity instead of AppCompatActivity, and the new line of code allows us to use the Window class, which we will do in a moment.

At this point, there are errors in our code. This next step will remove the errors. Find the following line of code in the BulletHellActivity.java file:

public class BulletHellActivity extends AppCompatActivity {

Change the preceding line of code to the same as this next line of code:

public class BulletHellActivity extends Activity {

All the errors are gone at this point...