Book Image

Android Programming for Beginners - Third Edition

By : John Horton
Book Image

Android Programming for Beginners - Third Edition

By: John Horton

Overview of this book

Do you want to make a career in programming but don’t know where to start? Do you have a great idea for an app but don't know how to make it a reality? Or are you worried that you’ll have to learn Java programming to become an Android developer? Look no further! This new and expanded third edition of Android Programming for Beginners will be your guide to creating Android applications from scratch. The book starts by introducing you to all the fundamental concepts of programming in an Android context, from the basics of Java to working with the Android API. You’ll learn with the help of examples that use up-to-date API classes and are created within Android Studio, the official Android development environment that helps supercharge your mobile application development process. After a crash course on the key programming concepts, you’ll explore Android programming and get to grips with creating applications with a professional-standard UI using fragments and storing user data with SQLite. This Android Java book also shows you how you can make your apps multilingual, draw on the screen with a finger, and work with graphics, sound, and animations. By the end of this Android programming book, you'll be ready to start building your own custom applications in Android and Java.
Table of Contents (30 chapters)

What makes an Android app?

We already know that we will write Java code that will itself use other people's Java code and will be compiled into bytecode that is converted into machine code on our users' Android devices. In addition to this, we will also be adding and editing other files that are included in the final APK as well. These files are known as Android resources.

Android resources

Our app will include resources such as images, sound, and User Interface (UI) layouts, which are kept in separate files from the Java code. We will slowly introduce ourselves to them over the course of the book.

It will also include files that have the textual content of our app. It is the convention to refer to the text in our app through separate files because it makes them easy to change and easy to create apps that work for different languages and geographical regions.

Furthermore, the actual UI layout of our apps, despite the option to implement them with a visual designer...