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

42.8 Designing the Menu

Within the Project tool window, locate the project’s app -> res -> menu -> menu_main.xml file and double-click on it to load it into the Layout Editor tool. Switch to Design mode if necessary and select and delete the default Settings menu item added by Android Studio so that the menu currently has no items.

From the palette, click and drag a menu group object onto the title bar of the layout canvas as highlighted in Figure 42-5:

Figure 42-5

Although the group item has been added, it will be invisible within the layout. To verify the presence of the element, refer to the Component Tree panel where the group will be listed as a child of the menu:

Figure 42-6

Select the group entry in the Component Tree and, referring to the Attributes panel, set the checkableBehavior property to single so that only one group menu item can be selected at any one time:

Figure 42-7

Next, drag four Menu Item elements from the palette...