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2012 | Book | 2. edition

Preliminary Information: Before We Get Started Read chapter Read first chapter

Android Apps for Absolute Beginners

Author: Wallace Jackson

Publisher: Apress

Part of: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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About this book

Anybody can start building simple apps for the Android platform, and this book will show you how! Recently updated to include Android Jelly Bean, Android Apps for Absolute Beginners, Second Edition takes you through the process of getting your first Android apps up and running using plain English and practical examples.

This book cuts through the fog of jargon and mystery that surrounds Android apps development, and gives you simple, step-by-step instructions to get you started.

Teaches Android application development in language anyone can understand, giving you the best possible start in Android development Provides simple, step-by-step examples that make learning easy, allowing you to pick up the concepts without fuss Offers clear code descriptions and layout so that you can get your apps running as soon as possible

This book is Android Jelly Bean compliant, but is backwards compatible to most of the previous Android releases.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. Preliminary Information: Before We Get Started
Abstract
This chapter introduces the Android operating system, giving you a little background information to help put things into perspective. We’ll visit just how expansive this platform has become in today’s Internet 2.0 environment of portable consumer electronic devices. Internet 2.0 here refers to the consumption of the Internet over a wide variety of different types of data networks using highly portable consumer electronic devices, including smartphones, tablets, e-book readers, and even new emerging consumer electronic products such as interactive television (iTV).
Wallace Jackson
Chapter 2. What’s Next? Our Road Ahead
Abstract
Before getting into the details of Android applications development, we’ll take a look at our “road ahead.” This chapter provides an overview of what is covered in this book, and why it’s covered in the order that we will cover it in.
Wallace Jackson
Chapter 3. Setting Up Your Android Development Environment
Abstract
It’s time to get your hands dirty. In this chapter, starting from scratch, you’ll equip a computer system to develop Android applications. You’ll first install Oracle’s (formerly Sun’s) Java 6 SE JDK and the Java 6 Runtime Environment, then the Eclipse for Java EE IDE, and finally the Android SDK, the tool set that provides Eclipse with the tools you’ll need to create Android apps. Sound convoluted? It is. After all, this is high-end software development, remember. What these Software Development Kits (SDK) are, and how exactly they relate to each other will become evident as you proceed through this chapter.
Wallace Jackson
Chapter 4. Introducing the Android Software Development Platform
Abstract
The Android platform is a collection of software that includes an operating system and a number of higher-level libraries that simplify the task of communicating with the operating system. It also includes several applications that smartphone, tablet, e-reader and iTV users have come to expect, such as a phone (obviously) dialer, e-mail client, social media client, contact manager, Google Maps, Google Search, a web browser, a calendar, basic games, and so on.
Wallace Jackson
Chapter 5. Android Framework Overview
Abstract
The primary programming language used in developing your Android applications is Java SE, from Oracle (formerly Sun Microsystems). As noted in Chapter 1, Java SE stands for Java Standard Edition, and many people shorten this to just Java when referring to the programming language. Two other editions of the Java programming language are called Java EE, short for Java Enterprise Edition, and Java ME, for Java Micro Edition.
Wallace Jackson
Chapter 6. Screen Layout Design: Views and Layouts
Abstract
One of the most important parts of any application’s design and development is the graphical user interface (GUI) and screen layout design. Many of the most widely circulated Android applications are popular because of their visual design, animated graphics, and easy- or fun-to-use interfaces. We will explore the Java classes that provide the core foundation for all of these front-end capabilities in this chapter.
Wallace Jackson
Chapter 7. UI Design: Buttons, Menus, and Dialogs
Abstract
The UI design determines the usability of your application, which will ultimately determine its success and even its profitability if you are selling it. We’ll build on what we learned in Chapter 6 as UI elements in Android are View classes (widgets) and are grouped together using ViewGroup classes (layout containers).
Wallace Jackson
Chapter 8. An Introduction to Graphics Resources in Android
Abstract
This chapter will serve as an introduction to how to best integrate and optimize graphical elements within your Android apps. These include static graphics such as bitmap images, as well as motion graphics, such as tween animation (transform-based or procedural animation), bitmap animation (frame-based or flipbook animation) as well as image transitions (crossfades, or blended image fades from one image into another image).
Wallace Jackson
Chapter 9. Adding Interactivity: Handling UI Events
Abstract
In this chapter, we will explore how to wire those super-cool UI designs that you have seen in the previous chapters, so that your UI design becomes highly functional within your Android application. You worked briefly with event handling in the last section on Dialogs in Chapter Seven, so we’ll give you the foundation in this chapter to be able to handle all types of events within the Android OS.
Wallace Jackson
Chapter 10. Understanding Content Providers
Abstract
In this chapter, we are going to take a look at how to provide content within your application. We’ll cover how to share that content, and how to access, add, and display the data that represents that content.
Wallace Jackson
Chapter 11. Understanding Intents and Intent Filters
Abstract
This chapter will delve into intents, which are messaging objects that carry communications between the major components of your application—your activities, services, and broadcast receivers, which handle Android messaging. We have seen that Android development is highly modularized, and intents provide a way to wire these modules together to form a cohesive yet flexible application with secure, fluid communication among all of its components.
Wallace Jackson
Chapter 12. Advanced Android Topics
Abstract
There are a number of advanced Android topics that are beyond the scope of this book, but it’s still good for you to know about them, so that you can continue learning on your own. I will try to expose as much of this information within this chapter as possible. This will be information that we were unable to cover in this book, outlined here just so that you know it exists, and that you should take a closer look at when you have a chance. Most of it is really amazing functionality that you can add to your apps to make them more marketable.
Wallace Jackson
Backmatter
Metadata
Title
Android Apps for Absolute Beginners
Author
Wallace Jackson
Copyright Year
2012
Publisher
Apress
Electronic ISBN
978-1-4302-4789-0
Print ISBN
978-1-4302-4788-3
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4302-4789-0

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