Book Image

Android Studio 4.0 Development Essentials - Kotlin Edition

By : Neil Smyth
Book Image

Android Studio 4.0 Development Essentials - Kotlin Edition

By: Neil Smyth

Overview of this book

Kotlin as an Android-compatible programming language is becoming increasingly popular. Fully updated for Android Studio 4.0, this book will teach you the skills necessary to develop Android-based applications using Kotlin. Starting with the basics, this book outlines the steps necessary to set up Android development and testing environments, and goes on to introduce you to programming in Kotlin. You’ll practice Java to Kotlin code conversion and explore data types, operators, expressions, loops, functions, as well as the basics of OOP in Kotlin. You’ll then learn about Android architecture components and advanced topics, such as intents, touchscreen handling, gesture recognition, multi-window support integration, and biometric authentication. As you make progress, you’ll explore Android Studio 4.0’s key features, including layout editor, direct reply notifications, and dynamic delivery. You’ll also delve into Android Jetpack and create a sample app project using ViewModel, the Android Jetpack component. Finally, you will upload your app to Google Play Console and model the build process using Gradle. By the end of this Android book, you’ll be fully prepared to develop applications using Android Studio 4.0 and Kotlin.
Table of Contents (97 chapters)
97
Index

11. An Introduction to Kotlin

Android development is performed primarily using Android Studio which is, in turn, based on the IntelliJ IDEA development environment created by a company named JetBrains. Prior to the release of Android Studio 3.0, all Android apps were written using Android Studio and the Java programming language (with some occasional C++ code when needed).

Since the introduction of Android Studio 3.0, however, developers now have the option of creating Android apps using another programming language called Kotlin. Although detailed coverage of all features of this language is beyond the scope of this book (entire books can and have been written covering solely Kotlin), the objective of this and the following six chapters is to provide enough information to begin programming in Kotlin and quickly get up to speed developing Android apps using this programming language.