Learn Android Studio 3 : Efficient Android App Development

Build Android apps using the popular and efficient Android Studio 3 suite of tools, an integrated development environment (IDE) for Android developers using Java APIs. With this book, you’ll learn the latest and most productive tools in the Android tools ecosystem, ensuring quick Android app development and minimal effort on your part. Along the way, you’ll use Android Studio to develop Java-based Android apps, tier by tier through practical examples. These examples cover core Android topics such as notifications and toast; intents and broadcast receivers; and services. Then, you’ll learn how to publish your apps and sell them online and in the Google Play store. What You'll Learn Use Android Studio 3 to quickly and confidently build your first Android apps Build an Android user interface using activities and layouts, event handling, images, menus and the action bar Incorporate new elements including fragments Integrate data with data persistence Access the cloud Who This Book Is For Those who may be new to Android Studio 3 or Android Studio in general. You may or may not be new to Android development in general. Some prior experience with Java is also recommended. Table of Contents 5 About the Author 10 About the Technical Reviewer 11 Acknowledgments 12 Introduction 13 Chapter 1: Introduction 15 History 15 Statistics 16 Operating System 17 Chapter 2: Android Studio 19 Android Studio Setup 20 macOS 20 Windows 20 Linux 21 Configuring Android Studio 22 Hardware Acceleration 28 The Android Studio IDE 29 Chapter 3: Application Fundamentals 32 Creating a Project 32 Using Android Studio 37 Compilation and Runtime 47 Android Components 48 Components 49 Activities 51 Services 51 Content Providers 52 Broadcast Receivers 52 Chapter 4: Activities and Layouts 53 Building the Hello Screen 53 The Layout File 54 Main Java Program 57 Views and Layout 60 Chapter 5: Handling Events 67 Overview of Event Handling 67 Declarative Event Handling 69 Programmatic Event Handling 71 Working with Text and Buttons 76 More Event Handling Code 82 Using an Inner Class as a Listener 84 Using MainActivity as the Listener 88 Chapter 6: Working with Multiple Activities 95 Component Activation 95 Launching a Specific Activity 97 Demo Project 97 Pass Data to Another Activity 107 About the GCF Algorithm 107 Returning Results from Other Activities 119 Project Setup 120 Program Files 123 Implicit Intents 126 Demo Project 127 Opening an http Request 129 Activity Life Cycle 132 Chapter 7: UI Elements 136 UI Elements 136 Themes and Colors 136 Colors 137 Themes 141 AppBar 143 Demo App 145 Fragments 153 Project Setup 155 Adding Fragments Programmatically 162 Chapter 8: Running in the Background 167 Long Running Tasks 167 Demo Project 168 AsyncTask 172 Chapter 9: Debugging 178 Syntax Errors 179 Runtime Exceptions 180 Logic Errors 182 Chapter 10: Data Persistence 185 SharedPreferences 187 Demo Project 187 Verifying the File 193 Application Level SharedPreferences 195 Internal Storage 203 How to Work with Internal Storage 203 Demo Project 204 Chapter 11: App Distribution 210 Preparing the App for Release 211 Prepare Materials and Assets for Release 211 Configure the App for Release 211 Build a Release-Ready Application 212 Releasing the App 217 Appendix A: Introduction to Java 220 The Java Language 220 Virtual Machine 221 Editions 221 Setup 222 Hello World 223 Program Structure 225 Other Considerations 229 Variables and Data Types 230 Primitive Types 231 Reference Types 231 Operators 232 Program Flow 235 Decisions 235 if then else 235 switch Statement 237 Loops 239 Simple Application of Control Structures 241 The FizzBuzz Problem 241 How to Print a 5×5 Multiplication Table 242 Methods 243 Object Oriented Programming 246 More Details on Classes 249 Constructors 250 Overloading 251 Packages 252 Multiple Types in a Package 253 When We Don’t Need “import” 253 Inheritance 254 Object as the Root Class 255 Single Rooted Class Inheritance 256 Polymorphism 256 Interfaces 257 Multiple Inheritance 258 Exceptions 259 Index 262 Build Android apps using the popular and efficient Android Studio 3 suite of tools, an integrated development environment (IDE) for Android developers using Java APIs. With this book, you'll learn the latest and most productive tools in the Android tools ecosystem, ensuring quick Android app development and minimal effort on your part. Along the way, you'll use Android Studio to develop Java-based Android apps, tier by tier through practical examples. These examples cover core Android topics such as notifications and toast; intents and broadcast receivers; and services. Then, you'll learn how to publish your apps and sell them online and in the Google Play store. You will: Use Android Studio 3 to quickly and confidently build your first Android apps Build an Android user interface using activities and layouts, event handling, images, menus and the action bar Incorporate new elements including fragments Integrate data with data persistence Access the cloud