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

Getting started with the Snake game


To get started, make a new project called Snake. This time, we will use the Empty Activity template as we will not be creating any UI whatsoever.

  • Rename the Activity Name to SnakeActivity.

  • Uncheck the Generate Layout File option—we do not want a layout generated as we will be laying out every pixel ourselves.

  • Uncheck Backwards Compatibility (AppCompat)—we won't need it for our game and it will still run on almost every phone and tablet. We will be working with the plain vanilla Activity class in this final project.

Note

All the code and assets for this project are in the Chapter 28 folder of the download bundle. Note that for this project, the completed game, as it will be by completing the steps up to the end of Chapter 29, Enumerations and Finishing the Snake Game, is in the Chapter 28 folder. There is no separate code bundle for Chapter 29, Enumerations and Finishing the Snake Game.

Now, we will take an additional step to stop the screen from rotating and...