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

About the Note To Self app


Welcome to the first of the three major apps that we will implement in this book. When we do these projects, we will work on them more professionally than we work on the mini apps. We will use Android naming conventions, string resources, and proper encapsulation.

Sometimes, these things are overkill when you try to learn a new Android/Java topic, but they are really useful and important for real-world projects. It is good to start using them as soon as possible. Then, they become like your second nature, and the quality of our apps will benefit from this. Here is a quick refresher of String resources and Android naming conventions.

Using naming conventions and String resources

In Chapter 3, Exploring Android Studio, we talked about using String resources instead of hardcoding text in our layout files. There were a few benefits of doing things this way, but it was also slightly long-winded.

As this is our first real-world project, it would be a good time to do things...