Book Image

Mastering Android Studio 3

By : Kyle Mew
Book Image

Mastering Android Studio 3

By: Kyle Mew

Overview of this book

Android Studio is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) designed for developing Android apps. As with most development processes, Android keeps resources and logic nicely separated, and so this book covers the management of imagery and other resources, and the development and testing tools provided by the IDE. After introducing the software, the book moves straight into UI development using the sophisticated, WYSIWYG layout editor and XML code to design and test complex interfaces for a wide variety of screen configurations. With activity design covered, the book continues to guide the reader through application logic development, exploring the latest APIs provided by the SDK. Each topic will be demonstrated by working code samples that can be run on a device or emulator. One of Android Studio's greatest features is the large number of third-party plugins available for it, and throughout the book we will be exploring the most useful of these, along with samples and libraries that can be found on GitHub. The final module of the book deals with the final stages of development: building and distribution. The book concludes by taking the reader through the registration and publication processes required by Google. By the time you have finished the book, you will be able to build faster, smoother, and error-free Android applications, in less time and with fewer complications than you ever thought possible.
Table of Contents (10 chapters)

Summary

In this chapter, we have looked at two approaches to assisting the process of code development: ready-made code, and assistant plugins and add-ons. Templates are often a great way to get a project off the ground quickly, and class inspection plugins allow us to easily understand larger templates, without having to pore over reams of code.

The other plugins we looked at in this chapter offered some different ways to make the task of app development easier and more fun. There are, of course, very many fantastic tools out there, and coding is continually becoming less monotonous and more creative.

This chapter has focused on programming in Java, but as any developer knows this is by no means the only language available. Android Studio provides support for both C++ and Kotlin (the latter can even be included alongside Java code).

In the next chapter we will explore how to...