Book Image

Android Studio 4.0 Development Essentials - Java Edition

By : Neil Smyth
Book Image

Android Studio 4.0 Development Essentials - Java Edition

By: Neil Smyth

Overview of this book

Android rolls out frequent updates to meet the demands of the dynamic mobile market and to enable its developer community to lead advancements in application development. This book focuses on the updated features of Android Studio (the fully integrated development environment launched by Google) to build reliable Android applications using Java. The book starts by outlining the steps necessary to set up an Android development and testing environment. You’ll then learn how to create user interfaces with the help of Android Studio Layout Editor, XML files, and by writing the code in Java. The book introduces you to Android architecture components and advanced topics such as intents, touchscreen handling, gesture recognition, multi-window support integration, and biometric authentication, and lets you explore key features of Android Studio 4.0, including the layout editor, direct reply notifications, and dynamic delivery. You’ll also cover Android Jetpack in detail and create a sample app project using the ViewModel component. Finally, you’ll upload your app to the Google Play Console and handle the build process with Gradle. By the end of this book, you’ll have gained the skills necessary to develop applications using Android Studio 4.0 and Java.
Table of Contents (88 chapters)
88
Index

18.7 ConstraintLayout Advantages

ConstraintLayout provides a level of flexibility that allows many of the features of older layouts to be achieved with a single layout instance where it would previously have been necessary to nest multiple layouts. This has the benefit of avoiding the problems inherent in layout nesting by allowing so called “flat” or “shallow” layout hierarchies to be designed leading both to less complex layouts and improved user interface rendering performance at runtime.

ConstraintLayout was also implemented with a view to addressing the wide range of Android device screen sizes available on the market today. The flexibility of ConstraintLayout makes it easier for user interfaces to be designed that respond and adapt to the device on which the app is running.

Finally, as will be demonstrated in the chapter entitled “A Guide to using ConstraintLayout in Android Studio”, the Android Studio Layout Editor tool has been...