Book Image

Android Programming for Beginners

By : John Horton, Paresh Mayani
Book Image

Android Programming for Beginners

By: John Horton, Paresh Mayani

Overview of this book

Android is the most popular OS in the world. There are millions of devices accessing tens of thousands of applications. It is many people's entry point into the world of technology; it is an operating system for everyone. Despite this, the entry-fee to actually make Android applications is usually a computer science degree, or five years’ worth of Java experience. Android Programming for Beginners will be your companion to create Android applications from scratch—whether you’re looking to start your programming career, make an application for work, be reintroduced to mobile development, or are just looking to program for fun. We will introduce you to all the fundamental concepts of programming in an Android context, from the Java basics to working with the Android API. All examples are created from within Android Studio, the official Android development environment that helps supercharge your application development process. After this crash-course, we’ll dive deeper into Android programming and you’ll learn how to create applications with a professional-standard UI through fragments, make location-aware apps with Google Maps integration, and store your user’s data with SQLite. In addition, you’ll see how to make your apps multilingual, capture images from a device’s camera, and work with graphics, sound, and animations too. By the end of this book, you’ll be ready to start building your own custom applications in Android and Java.
Table of Contents (37 chapters)
Android Programming for Beginners
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Chapter 11. Widget Mania

Now that we have a really good overview of the layout and coding of an Android app, our newly acquired insight into object-oriented programming, and how we can manipulate a UI from our Java code, we are ready to experiment with more widgets from the palette.

OOP is tricky at times, but by gradually learning new concepts, practicing, and becoming familiar with them, over time, it will actually become our friend.

In this chapter, we will diversify a lot by going back to the Android Studio palette and looking around at half a dozen widgets that we have either not seen at all or have not used fully yet.

Once we have done so, we will put them all into a layout and practice manipulating them with Java code. In this chapter, we will:

  • Refresh our memories on how to declare and initialize layout widgets

  • Quickly see how to create widgets with just Java code

  • Take a look at the EditText, ImageView, RadioButton (and RadioGroup), Switch, CheckBox, WebView, and TextClock widgets

  • Learn...