The art of organizing resources

Slides from my talk at Android Makers Paris 2017
video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjSgAHZT9a0

Do you remember the last time you had to dig into strings.xml to find the right String to use? Or that you manually had to go over all drawables to find the one you needed?

Whenever we start a new project, we take a lot of care in setting up our architecture, CI, build flavors,... But do you also have a strategy to name your resources?

You should! Because the lack of XML namespaces, makes managing Android resources tedious. And causes things to grow out of control easily, especially in large projects.

So let's introduce a simple scheme that will solve your pains:
- easy lookup of any resource (autocomplete)
- logical, predictable names
- clean ordering of resources
- strongly typed resources

This talk will explain the mechanism, its advantages, limitations and provide an easy to use cheat sheet.

Transcript

1. @MOLSJEROEN THE ART OF ORGANIZING RESOURCES
2. @MOLSJEROEN @MOLSJEROEN
3. DO YOU HAVE A STRATEGY TO ORGANISE RESOURCES? Jeroen Mols
4. @MOLSJEROEN SETTING UP A NEW PROJECT ▸ Architecture ▸ Unit tests ▸ Build flavours ▸ Code style ▸ Continuous integration & deployment ▸ …
5. @MOLSJEROEN SETTING UP A NEW PROJECT ▸ Architecture ▸ Unit tests ▸ Build flavours ▸ Code style ▸ Continuous integration & deployment ▸ … ▸ What about resources?
6. @MOLSJEROEN IMPORTANCE OF RESOURCES Facebook Twitter Hangouts Layouts 3167 1128 372 Strings 7995 3243 2982 Drawables 4907 2136 1703 Ids 7258 2276 1039 Dimensions 4842 1470 636
7. @MOLSJEROEN CHALLENGES ORGANISING RESOURCES ▸ No XML name spaces ▸ Huge amount of resources ▸ A lot of types: layouts, strings, drawables, ids,… ▸ Reuse across screens ▸ Tooling support
8. IF SOMETHING IS WORTH KEEPING, ITS WORTH KEEPING WHERE YOU CAN FIND IT. David Allen
9. @MOLSJEROEN GOALS ▸ Logical, predictable names ▸ Clean ordering, even in folders ▸ Leverage Android Studio autocomplete ▸ Strongly typed resources
10. @MOLSJEROEN • <WHAT> • <WHERE> • <DESCRIPTION> • <SIZE> GENERAL RULE fixed set of options per resource, often Android view class custom part Android view subclass or “all” differentiate multiple elements in one screen precise “xdpi" or bucket “small”, optional <WHAT>_<WHERE>_<DESCRIPTION>_<SIZE> <WHAT>_<WHERE>_<DESCRIPTION>_<SIZE>
11. @MOLSJEROEN • <WHAT> • <WHERE> • <DESCRIPTION> • <SIZE> GENERAL RULE fixed set of options per resource, often Android view class custom part Android view subclass or “all” differentiate multiple elements in one screen precise “xdpi" or bucket “small”, optional <WHAT>_<WHERE>_<DESCRIPTION>_<SIZE> <WHAT>_<WHERE>_<DESCRIPTION>_<SIZE>
12. @MOLSJEROEN • <WHAT> • <WHERE> • <DESCRIPTION> • <SIZE> GENERAL RULE fixed set of options per resource, often Android view class custom part Android view subclass or “all” differentiate multiple elements in one screen precise “xdpi" or bucket “small”, optional <WHAT>_<WHERE>_<DESCRIPTION>_<SIZE> <WHAT>_<WHERE>_<DESCRIPTION>_<SIZE>
13. @MOLSJEROEN • <WHAT> • <WHERE> • <DESCRIPTION> • <SIZE> GENERAL RULE fixed set of options per resource, often Android view class custom part Android view subclass or “all” differentiate multiple elements in one screen precise “xdpi" or bucket “small”, optional <WHAT>_<WHERE>_<DESCRIPTION>_<SIZE> <WHAT>_<WHERE>_<DESCRIPTION>_<SIZE>
14. @MOLSJEROEN • <WHAT> • <WHERE> • <DESCRIPTION> • <SIZE> GENERAL RULE fixed set of options per resource, often Android view class custom part Android view subclass or “all” differentiate multiple elements in one screen precise “xdpi" or bucket “small”, optional <WHAT>_<WHERE>_<DESCRIPTION>_<SIZE> <WHAT>_<WHERE>_<DESCRIPTION>_<SIZE>
15. @MOLSJEROEN ADVANTAGES 1. Easy to use
16. @MOLSJEROEN • Examples STRINGS - articledetail_title - feedback_explanation - feedback_namehint - all_done <WHERE>_<DESCRIPTION>
17. @MOLSJEROEN STRINGS <WHERE>_<DESCRIPTION> @MOLSJEROEN
18. @MOLSJEROEN ADVANTAGES 1. Easy to use 2. Ordering by screen
19. @MOLSJEROEN • Examples DRAWABLES - articledetail_placeholder - all_infoicon - all_infoicon_large - all_infoicon_24dp <WHERE>_<DESCRIPTION>_<SIZE>
20. @MOLSJEROEN DRAWABLES <WHERE>_<DESCRIPTION>_<SIZE> @MOLSJEROEN
21. @MOLSJEROEN ADVANTAGES 1. Easy to use 2. Ordering by screen 3. Folder organisation
22. @MOLSJEROEN • <WHAT> • Examples LAYOUTS activity, fragment, view, item or layout - activity_main.xml - fragment_articledetail.xml - view_menu.xml - layout_actionbar.xml <WHAT>_<WHERE>.XML
23. @MOLSJEROEN LAYOUTS <WHAT>_<WHERE>.XML @MOLSJEROEN
24. @MOLSJEROEN ADVANTAGES 1. Easy to use 2. Ordering by screen 3. Folder organisation 4. Autocomplete - based on where and what - camel casing
25. @MOLSJEROEN • <WHAT> • Examples IDS name of Android/Custom view class - tablayout_main - imageview_menu_profile - textview_articledetail_title <WHAT>_<WHERE>_<DESCRIPTION>
26. @MOLSJEROEN IDS <WHAT>_<WHERE>_<DESCRIPTION> @MOLSJEROEN
27. @MOLSJEROEN ADVANTAGES 1. Easy to use 2. Ordering by screen 3. Folder organisation 4. Autocomplete - based on where and what - camel casing 5. Strong typing
28. @MOLSJEROEN • <WHAT>
 • Examples DIMENSIONS width, height, size, margin, padding, elevation, keyline or textsize - height_all_toolbar - keyline_all_listtext - textsize_all_medium - size_menu_icon <WHAT>_<WHERE>_<DESCRIPTION>_<SIZE>
29. @MOLSJEROEN DIMENSIONS <WHAT>_<WHERE>_<DESCRIPTION>_<SIZE> @MOLSJEROEN
30. @MOLSJEROEN ADVANTAGES 1. Easy to use 2. Ordering by screen 3. Folder organisation 4. Autocomplete - based on where and what - camel casing 5. Strong typing 6. Can be supported by tools
31. @MOLSJEROEN CHEAT SHEET ANDROID RESOURCE NAMING CHEAT SHEET <WHAT>_<WHERE>_<DESCRIPTION>_<SIZE> LAYOUTS STRINGS DRAWABLES DIMENSIONS <WHAT>_<WHERE>.XML <WHAT> is activity, fragment, view, item or layout <WHERE>_<DESCRIPTION> <WHAT>_<WHERE>_<DESCRIPTION>_<SIZE> <WHERE>_<DESCRIPTION>_<SIZE> “all” if reused in ≠ screens <WHAT> is width, height, size, margin, padding, elevation, keyline or textsize IDS <WHAT>_<WHERE>_<DESCRIPTION> <WHAT> is name of Android/Custom view class custom part Android view subclass fixed set of options differentiate multiple elements in one screen always optional e.g. activity_main.xml all_done e.g. main_intro [xdp] or bucket [small] main_background e.g. all_infoicon_small e.g. linearlayout_main_fragmentcontainer e.g. keyline_all_text choose the right one below @MOLSJEROEN
32. @MOLSJEROEN 1. Easy to use 2. Ordering by screen 3. Folder organisation 4. Autocomplete 5. Strong typing 6. Can be supported by tools CONCLUSION <WHAT>_<WHERE>_<DESCRIPTION>_<SIZE>
33. @MOLSJEROEN REFERENCES AND IMAGE CREDITS • Blogpost http://jeroenmols.com/blog/2016/03/07/resourcenaming • Source code https://github.com/JeroenMols/ResourceNamingExample • Welcome image credit https://pixabay.com/p-642689/
34. @MOLSJEROEN MANY THANKS ▸ Jeroen Mols (Belgium) ▸ @MolsJeroen ▸ http://jeroenmols.com/blog