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)

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Workspace Structure, an introduction the overall workspace. It covers the major features and will be of great use to those who are brand new to the IDE.

Chapter 2, UI Design, introduces the subject of UI design and development, looking at the automating and time saving features of the layout editor.

Chapter 3, UI Development, remaining with UI development tools, explores more sophisticated layouts and how these can be easily implemented using code libraries that come packaged in the support repository.

Chapter 4, Device Development, extends the previous work and looks at developing for physical devices and form factors, covering topics such as screen rotation and shape-aware layouts for wearable devices.

Chapter 5, Assets and Resources, looks at resource management, in particular Android's use of material icons and vector assets. It demonstrates how Android Studio provides great time-saving features for this aspect of development.

Chapter 6, Templates and Plugins, is the first of two chapters on extending Android Studio beyond vanilla usage. Here, we look at ready-made and freely available code samples, provided not only within the IDE but also via third-party plugins.

Chapter 7, Language Support, continues the theme of the previous chapter. Here, we look at how to include C++ and Kotlin code seamlessly.

Chapter 8, Testing and profiling, explores the powerful testing and profiling tools provided by the IDE and how to use them to test and fine-tune our work.

Chapter 9, Packaging and Distribution, covers the final aspects of the development cycle. This involves taking a close look at Gradle and covers monetization technologies.