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

57.1 Adding Sample Data to a Project

During the design phase of the user interface layout, the RecyclerView instance (Figure 57-1) bears little resemblance to the running app tested at the end of the previous chapter:

Figure 57-1

In the “Modern Android App Architecture with Jetpack” chapter earlier in the book the concept of sample data was introduced. To demonstrate sample data in use, the project will now be modified so that the fully populated cards appear within the RecyclerView from within the layout editor. Before doing that, however, it is worth noting that the layout editor has a collection of preconfigured sample data templates that can be used when designing user interfaces. To see some of these in action, load the content_main.xml layout file into the layout editor and select the RecyclerView instance. Right-click on the RecyclerView and select the Set Sample Data menu option to display the Design-time View Attributes panel:

Figure 57-2

...