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Table of Contents
1. What is Android? 2. Security and permissions 3. Android applications and tasks 4. Android user interface components 5. Other Android components 6. Android Development Tools 7. Android Application Architecture 8. Resources 9. Using Resources 10. Assets 11. Installation 12. Android virtual device - Emulator 13. Tutorial: Create and run Android Virtual Device 14. Solving Android development problems 15. Conventions and API level 16. Tutorial: create and run Android project 17. LogCat view 18. Using log statements and the LogCat view 19. Views 20. Tutorial: Create a temperature converter 21. Starting an installed application 22. Layout Manager and ViewGroups 23. Tutorial: ScrollView 24. DDMS perspective and important views 25. Deployment
1. What is Android?
1.1. Android Operation System
Android is an operating system based on Linux with a Java programming interface. The Android Software Development Kit (Android SDK) provides all necessary tools to develop Android applications. This includes a compiler, debugger and a device emulator, as well as its own virtual machine to run Android programs. Android is currently primarily developed by Google. Android allows background processing, provides a rich user interface library, supports 2-D and 3-D graphics using the OpenGL libraries, access to the file system and provides an embedded SQLite database. Android applications consist of different components and can re-use components of other applications. This leads to the concept of a task in Android; an application can re-use other Android components to archive a task. For example you can trigger from your application another application which has itself registered with the Android system to handle photos. In this other application you select a photo and return to your application to use the selected photo.
4.1. Activity
An activity represents the visual representation of an Android application. activities use views, i.e. user interface widgets as for example buttons and fragments to create the user interface and to interact with the user. An Android application can have several activities.
4.2. Fragments
Fragments are components which run in the context of an activity. A fragment encapsulates application code so that it is easier to reuse it and to support different sized devices. Fragments are optional components which allow you to reuse user interface and non user interface components for different devices configurations.
5.1. Intents
Intents are asynchronous messages which allow the application to request functionality from other Android components, e.g. from services or activities. An application can call a component directly (explicit Intent) or ask the Android system to evaluate registered components based on the intent data (implicit intents). For example the application could implement sharing of data via an intent and all components which allow sharing of data would be available for the user to select. Applications register themselves to an intent via an intent filter. Intents allow an Android application to start and to interact with components from other Android applications.
5.2. Services
Services perform tasks without providing a user interface. They can communicate with other Android components and notify the user via the notification framework in Android.
5.3. ContentProvider
A content provider provides a structured interface to application data. Via a content provider your application can share data with other applications. Android contains an SQLite database which is frequently used in conjunction with a content provider. The SQLite database would store the data, which would be accessed via the content provider.
5.4. BroadcastReceiver
Broadcast receivers can be registered to receive system messages and intents. A broadcast receiver gets notified by the Android system, if the specified event occurs. For example you can register a broadcast receivers for the event that the Android system completed the boot processor or for the event that the state of the phone changes, e.g. someone is calling.
The .dex file and the resources of an Android project, e.g. the images and XML files, are packed into an .apk (Android Package) file. The program aapt (Android Asset Packaging Tool) performs this packaging. The resulting .apk file contains all necessary data to run the Android application and can be deployed to an Android device via the adb tool. The Android Development Tools (ADT) performs these steps transparently to the user. If you use the ADT tooling you press a button the whole Android application (.apk file) will be created and deployed.
android:versionName="1.0"> <application android:icon="@drawable/icon" android:label="@string/app_name"> <activity android:name=".Convert" android:label="@string/app_name"> <intent-filter> <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" /> <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" /> </intent-filter> </activity> </application> <uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="9" /> </manifest>
The package attribute defines the base package for the Java objects referred to in this file. If a Java object lies within a different package, it must be declared with the full qualified package name. Google Play requires that every Android application uses its own unique package. Therefore it is a good habit to use your reverse domain name as package name. This will avoid collisions with other Android applications.
android:versionName and android:versionCode specify the version application. versionName is what the user sees and can be any String. versionCode versionCode,
of your
must be an integer. The Android Market determine based on the if it should perform an update of the applications for the existing installations. You typically start with "1" and increase this value by one, if you rollout a new version of your application. The <activity> tag defines an activity, in this example pointing to the Convert class in the de.vogella.android.temperature package. An intent filter is registered for this class which defines that this activity is started once the application starts (action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" ). The category definition category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" defines that this application is added to the application directory on the Android device. The @string/app_name value refers to resource files which contain the actual value of the application name. The usage of resource file makes it easy to provide different resources, e.g. strings, colors, icons, for different devices and makes it easy to translate applications. The uses-sdk part of the AndroidManifest.xml file defines the minimal SDK version for which your application is valid. This will prevent your application being installed on unsupported devices.
call. The Android system defines a lifecycle for activities via predefined methods. The most important methods are:
- called after the activity is stopped. Used to save data so that the activity can restore its states if re-started onPause() - always called if the activity ends, can be used to release resource or save data
onSaveInstanceState() onResume()
7.4. Context
The class android.content.Context provides the connection to the Android system and the resources of the project. It is the interface to global information about the application environment. The Context also provides access to Android services, e.g. the Location Service. Activities and services extend the Context class.
8. Resources
8.1. Using resource files
Android supports that resources, like images and certain XML configuration files, can be keep separate from the source code. These resources must be defined in the res directory in a special folder dependent on their purpose. You can also append additional qualifiers to the folder name to indicate that the related resources should be used for special configurations, e.g. you can specify that a resource is only valid for a certain screen size.
The following table give an overview of the supported resources and their standard folder prefix. Table 1. Resources Resource Simple Values Layouts Folder /res/values Description Used to define strings, colors, dimensions, styles and static arrays of strings or integers. By convention each type is stored in a separate file, e.g. strings are defined in the res/values/strings.xml file. XML file with layout description files used to define the user interface for activities and Fragments. Files which define the appearance of your Android application.
/res/layout
Define animations in XML for the property animation API Animations /res/animator which allows to animate arbitrary properties of objects over time. Menus /res/menu Define the properties of entries for a menu.
The gen directory in an Android project contains generated values. R.java is a generated class which contains references to certain resources of the project. If you create a new resource, the corresponding reference is automatically created in R.java via the Eclipse ADT tools. These references are static integer values and define IDs for the resources. The Android system provides methods to access the corresponding resource via these IDs. For example to access a String with the R.string.yourString ID, you would use the getString(R.string.yourString)) method. is automatically created by the Eclipse development environment, manual changes are not necessary and will be overridden by the tooling.
R.java
9. Using Resources
9.1. Reference to resources in code
The Resources class allows to access individual resources. An instance of Resources can get access via the getResources() method of the Context class. The Resources class is also used by other Android classes, for example the following code shows how to create a Bitmap file from a reference ID.
BitmapFactory.decodeResource(getResources(), R.drawable.ic_action_search);
If a View needs to be accessed via Java code, you have to give the View a unique ID via the android:id attribute. To assign a new ID to a View use . The following shows an example in which a @+id/yourvalue Button gets the button1 ID assigned.
<Button android:id="@+id/button1" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:text="Show Preferences" > </Button>
By conversion this will create and assign a new yourvalue ID to the corresponding View. In your Java code you can later access a View via the method findViewById(R.id.yourvalue). Defining layouts via XML is usually the preferred way as this separates the programming logic from the layout definition. It also allows the definition of different layouts for different devices. You can also mix both approaches.
10. Assets
10.1. Whats are assets?
While the res directory contains structured values which are known to the Android platform, the assets directory can be used to store any kind of data.
11. Installation
11.1. Options
You have different options to install the Android development tools. The simplest way is to download a full packaged pre-configured Eclipse.
11.2.2. Standalone ADT installation Extract the zip file and start Eclipse from the eclipse folder via the eclipse native launcher, e.g. eclipse.exe under Windows.
12.4. Parameter
The graphics of the emulator can use the native GPU of the computer. This makes the rendering in the emulator very fast. To enable this, add the GPU Emulation property to the device configuration and set it to true.
You can also set the Enabled flag for Snapshots. This will save the state of the emulator and will let it start much faster. Unfortunately currently native GPU rendering and Snapshots do not work together. Android devices do not have to have hardware button. If you want to create such an AVD, add the Hardware Back/Home keys property to the device configuration and set it to false.
Enter the values similar to the above screenshot. Ensure that the Use Host GPU option is selected. This makes the AVD use the graphical processing unit of your computer and this makes rendering on the AVD much faster. Afterwards press the OK button. This will create the AVD configuration and display it under the list of available virtual devices.
After some time your AVD starts. Do not interrupt this startup process, as this might corrupt the AVD.
After the AVD started, you can use the AVD via the mouse and via the virtual keyboard of the emulator.
development
Things are not always working as they should. You find a list of typical Android development problems and their solution under the following link:
http://www.vogella.com/articles/AndroidDevelopmentProblems/article.html
To create a new Android project select File New Other... Android Android Project from the menu. Enter the fitting data from the table above in the first wizard page.
Press the Next button and ensure that you have selected to create a launcher icon and an activity. On the wizard page for the launcher icon, create a nice looking icon. The following screenshot shows an example.
Press the Next button and select on the next page the BlankActivity template. Press the Next button
Enter the
Press the Finish button. The wizard may prompt you to install the support library. If you are prompted, select to install it.
Note
You typically don't stop the emulator during development. The emulator is similar to a real Android device and re-starting the emulator is similar to rebooting your Android phone.
This starts your application on the AVD. The started application is a simple Hello, world. application.
The LogCat view allows you also to define a filter for the log messages, e.g. for your category.
19. Views
19.1. Available widgets in Android
Android provides lots of simple views (widgets), e.g. the Button, TextView, EditText classes and well as more complex widgets, for example ListView or GridView to show structured data.
After the wizard ends, a project structure similar to the following picture is created.
Select the Color entry in the following dialog and press the OK button. Enter myColor as the name and #F5F5F5 as the value. Add more attributes, this time of the String type. String attributes allow the developer to translate the application at a later point. Table 4. String Attributes Name celsius calc Value to Celsius Calculate
fahrenheit to Fahrenheit
Switch to the XML representation and validate that the values are correct.
<resources> <string name="app_name">Temparature Convertor</string> <string name="hello_world">Hello world!</string> <string name="menu_settings">Settings</string> <string name="title_activity_main">Temparature Convertor</string> <color name="myColor">#3399CC</color> <string name="celsius" >to Celsius</string> <string name="fahrenheit">to Fahrenheit</string> <string name="calc">Calculate</string> </resources>
You will now create the layout for your Android application. Right-click on the existing Hello World! text object in the layout. Select Delete from the popup menu to remove the text object. Afterwards select the Text Fields section in the Palette and locate the Plain Text (via the tooltip).
All entries in the Text Fields section define text fields. The different entries define additional attribute for them, e.g. if a text field should only contain numbers. Drag this onto the layout to create a text input field. Afterwards select the Form Widgets section in the Palette and drag a RadioGroup entry into the layout. The number of radio buttons added to the radio button group depends on your version of Eclipse. Make sure there are two radio buttons by deleting or adding radio buttons to the group. Drag a Button from the Form Widgets section into the layout. The result should look like the following screenshot.
Switch to the XML tab of your layout file and verify that the file looks similar to the following listing. ADT changes the templates very fast, so your XML might look slighty different.
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.androi d.com/apk/res/android" xmlns:tools="http://schemas.andr oid.com/tools" android:layout_width="match_pare nt" android:layout_height="match_par ent" > <EditText android:id="@+id/editText1" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:layout_alignParentLeft="true" android:layout_alignParentTop="true" android:ems="10" > <requestFocus /> </EditText> <RadioGroup android:id="@+id/radioGroup1" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:layout_alignParentLeft="true" android:layout_below="@+id/editText1" > <RadioButton android:id="@+id/radio0" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:checked="true" android:text="RadioButton" /> <RadioButton android:id="@+id/radio1" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:text="RadioButton" /> </RadioGroup> <Button android:id="@+id/button1" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:layout_alignParentLeft="true" android:layout_below="@+id/radioGroup1" android:text="Button" /> </RelativeLayout>
From now on, I assume you are able to use the properties menu on user interface components. You can always either edit the XML file or modify the properties via right-click.
Set the Checked property to true for the first RadioButton. Assign calc to the text property of your button and assign the value onClick to the onClick property. Set the Input type property to numberSigned and numberDecimal on the EditText. All your user interface components are contained in a layout. Assign a background color to this Layout. Right-click on an empty space in Graphical Layout mode, then select Other Properties All by Name Background. Select Color and then select myColor in the dialog.
Afterwards the background should change to the whitesmoke color. It might difficult to see the difference.
Switch to the activity_main.xml tab and verify that the XML is correct.
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools" android:layout_width="match_parent" android:layout_height="match_parent" android:background="@color/myColor" > <EditText android:id="@+id/editText1"
android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:layout_alignParentLeft="true" android:layout_alignParentTop="true" android:ems="10" android:inputType="numberSigned|numberDecimal" > <requestFocus /> </EditText> <RadioGroup android:id="@+id/radioGroup1" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:layout_alignParentLeft="true" android:layout_below="@+id/editText1" > <RadioButton android:id="@+id/radio0" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:checked="true" android:text="@string/celsius" /> <RadioButton android:id="@+id/radio1" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:text="@string/fahrenheit" /> </RadioGroup> <Button android:id="@+id/button1" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:layout_alignParentLeft="true" android:layout_below="@+id/radioGroup1" android:onClick="onClick" android:text="@string/calc" /> </RelativeLayout>
import android.widget.Toast; public class MainActivity extends Activity { private EditText text; @Override public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); setContentView(R.layout.activity_main); text = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.editText1); } // This method is called at button click because we assigned the name to the // "OnClick property" of the button public void onClick(View view) { switch (view.getId()) { case R.id.button1: RadioButton celsiusButton = (RadioButton) findViewById(R.id.radio0); RadioButton fahrenheitButton = (RadioButton) findViewById(R.id.radio1); if (text.getText().length() == 0) { Toast.makeText(this, "Please enter a valid number", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show(); return; } float inputValue = Float.parseFloat(text.getText().toString()); if (celsiusButton.isChecked()) { text.setText(String .valueOf(convertFahrenheitToCelsius(inputValue))); celsiusButton.setChecked(false); fahrenheitButton.setChecked(true); } else { text.setText(String .valueOf(convertCelsiusToFahrenheit(inputValue))); fahrenheitButton.setChecked(false); celsiusButton.setChecked(true); } break; } }
// Converts to celsius private float convertFahrenheitToCelsius(float fahrenheit) { return ((fahrenheit - 32) * 5 / 9); } // Converts to fahrenheit private float convertCelsiusToFahrenheit(float celsius) { return ((celsius * 9) / 5) + 32; } }
Children can specify there desired width and height via the following attributes. Table 5. Width and height definition Attribute Description
android:layout_width defines the width of the widget android:layout_height defines the height of the widget
Widgets can uses fixed sizes, e.g. with the dp definition, for example 100dp. While dp is a fixed size it will scale with different device configurations. The match_parent value tells the to maximize the widget in its parent. The wrap_content value tells the layout to allocate the minimum amount so that widget is rendered correctly.
22.2. FrameLayout
is a layout manager which draws all child elements on top of each other. Which allows to create nice visual effects.
FrameLayout
The following screenshot shows the Gmail application which uses FrameLayout to display several button on top of another layout.
22.3. LinearLayout
LinearLayout puts all its child elements into a single column or row the android:orientation attribute. Possible values for this horizontal and vertical, horizontal is the default value.
If horizontal is used the child elements are layouted as indicated by the following picture.
LinearLayout
assigning a weight to individual children via the layout parameter. This value specifies how much of the extra space in the layout is allocated to the View. If for example you have two widgets and the first one defines a layout_weight of 1 and the second of 2, the first will get 1/3 of the available space and the other one 2/3. You can also set the layout_width to zero to have always a certain ratio.
22.4. RelativeLayout
RelativeLayout
allow to position the widget relative to each other. This allows for
complex layouts.
A simple usage for RelativeLayout is if you want to center a single component. Just add one component to the RelativeLayout and set the android:layout_centerInParent attribute to true.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" android:layout_width="match_parent" android:layout_height="match_parent" android:orientation="vertical" > <ProgressBar android:id="@+id/progressBar1" style="?android:attr/progressBarStyleLarge" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:layout_centerInParent="true" /> </RelativeLayout>
22.5. GridLayout
was introduced with Android 4.0. This layout allows you to organize a view into a Grid. GridLayout separates its drawing area into: rows, columns, and cells.You can specify how many columns you want for define for each View in which row and column it should be placed and how many columns and rows it should use. If not specified GridLayout uses defaults, e.g. one column, one row and the position of a View depends on the order of the declaration of the Views.
GridLayout
android:layout_column="1" android:layout_columnSpan="2" android:layout_row="1" android:ems="10" /> <TextView android:layout_column="0" android:layout_gravity="right" android:layout_row="2" android:text="Password: " > </TextView> <EditText android:id="@+id/input1" android:layout_column="1" android:layout_columnSpan="2" android:layout_row="2" android:ems="8" /> <Button android:id="@+id/button1" android:layout_column="2" android:layout_row="3" android:text="Login" /> </GridLayout>
22.6. ScrollView
The ScrollView class can be used to contain one View that might be to big too fit on one screen. ScrollView will is this case display a scroll bar to scroll the context. Of course this View can be a layout which can then contain other elements. The following code shows an example layout file which uses a ScrollView.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ScrollView xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" android:layout_width="match_parent" android:layout_height="match_parent" android:fillViewport="true"
android:orientation="vertical" > <TextView android:id="@+id/TextView01" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:paddingLeft="8dip" android:paddingRight="8dip" android:paddingTop="8dip" android:text="This is a header" android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceLarge" > </TextView> </ScrollView>
The android:fillViewport="true" attribute ensures that the scrollview is set to the full screen even if the elements are smaller then one screen.
android:layout_height="wrap_content" > <Button android:id="@+id/Button01" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:layout_weight="1.0" android:text="Submit" > </Button> <Button android:id="@+id/Button02" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:layout_weight="1.0" android:text="Cancel" > </Button> </LinearLayout> </LinearLayout> </ScrollView> package de.vogella.android.scrollview; import import import import android.app.Activity; android.os.Bundle; android.view.View; android.widget.TextView;
public class ScrollView extends Activity { /** Called when the activity is first created. */ @Override public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); setContentView(R.layout.main); TextView view = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.TextView02); String s=""; for (int i=0; i < 100; i++) { s += "vogella.com "; } view.setText(s); }
application to set the current geo position and allows you to perform a performance trace of your application.
25. Deployment
25.1. Overview
In general there are you restrictions how to deploy an Android application to your device. You can use USB, email yourself the application or use one of the many Android markets to install the application. The following describes the most common ones.