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

Configuration qualifiers


We have already met configuration qualifiers, such as layout-large or layout-xhdpi, in Chapter 3, Exploring Android Studio and the Project Structure. Here, we will refresh and expand our understanding of them.

We can begin to alleviate our reliance on the controller layer to influence app layout by using configuration qualifiers. There are configuration qualifiers for size, orientation, and pixel density. To take advantage of a configuration qualifier, we simply design a layout in the usual way, optimized for our preferred configuration, and then place that layout in a folder with a name that Android recognizes as being for that particular configuration.

For example, in the previous app, putting a layout in the land folder tells Android to use that layout when the device is in the landscape orientation.

It is likely that the above statement seems slightly ambiguous. This is because the Android Studio project explorer window shows us a file and folder structure that...