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)

Chapter 17: Data Persistence and Sharing

In this chapter, we will look at a couple of different ways to save data to an Android device's permanent storage. Also, for the first time, we will add a second Activity to our app. It often makes sense when implementing a separate "screen" in our app, such as a settings screen, to do so in a new Activity. We could go to the trouble of hiding the original UI and then showing the new UI, but this would quickly lead to confusing and error-prone code. So, we will see how to add an Activity class and navigate the user between them.

In summary, in this chapter, we will do the following:

  • Learn about using Android intents to switch between Activity classes and pass data
  • Create a simple (very simple) settings screen in a new Activity class for the Note to Self project
  • Persist the settings screen data using the SharedPreferences class
  • Learn about JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) for serialization
  • Explore...