Book Image

Android Programming for Beginners - Second Edition

By : John Horton
Book Image

Android Programming for Beginners - Second Edition

By: John Horton

Overview of this book

Are you trying to start a career in programming, but haven't found the right way in? Do you have a great idea for an app, but don't know how to make it a reality? Or maybe you're just frustrated that in order to learn Android, you must know Java. If so, then this book is for you. This new and expanded second edition of Android Programming for Beginners will be your companion to create Android Pie applications from scratch. We will introduce you to all the fundamental concepts of programming in an Android context, from the basics of Java to working with the Android API. All examples use the up-to-date API classes, and 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 and store your user's data with SQLite. In addition, you'll see how to make your apps multilingual, draw to the screen with a finger, 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 (35 chapters)
Android Programming for Beginners - Second Edition
Contributors
Preface
Other Books You May Enjoy
Index

The Canvas Demo app


Create a new project to explore the topic of drawing with Canvas. We will reuse what we just learned, and this time we will also draw to the Bitmap.

Creating a new project

Create a new project and call it Canvas Demo. This time, be sure to choose the Empty Activity option on the Add an Activity to Mobile screen before clicking Next. Also, be sure to uncheck Generate Layout File and Backwards Compatibility (AppCompat). Don't worry about naming the Activity; this is just an app to play around with. We will not be returning to it.

Notice that Android Studio has not created an XML layout, and furthermore it has not added a line of code in MainActivity.java that calls setContentView. If you ran the app at this stage, you would get a blank black screen.

In addition, we are using the Vanilla version of Activity class, and MainActivity therefore extends Activity instead of AppCompatActivity, as we have been using previously.

Note

The complete code for this app can be found in the...