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
   

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2. @MOLSJEROEN
   @MOLSJEROEN
   

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3. DO YOU HAVE A STRATEGY TO ORGANISE
   RESOURCES?
   Jeroen Mols
   

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4. @MOLSJEROEN
   SETTING UP A NEW PROJECT
   ▸ Architecture
   ▸ Unit tests
   ▸ Build flavours
   ▸ Code style
   ▸ Continuous integration & deployment
   ▸ …
   

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5. @MOLSJEROEN
   SETTING UP A NEW PROJECT
   ▸ Architecture
   ▸ Unit tests
   ▸ Build flavours
   ▸ Code style
   ▸ Continuous integration & deployment
   ▸ …
   ▸ What about resources?
   

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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
   

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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
   

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8. IF SOMETHING IS WORTH KEEPING, ITS
   WORTH KEEPING WHERE YOU CAN FIND IT.
   David Allen
   

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9. @MOLSJEROEN
   GOALS
   ▸ Logical, predictable names
   ▸ Clean ordering, even in folders
   ▸ Leverage Android Studio autocomplete
   ▸ Strongly typed resources
   

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10. @MOLSJEROEN
    •
    •
    •
    •
    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
    ___
    ___
    

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11. @MOLSJEROEN
    •
    •
    •
    •
    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
    ___
    ___
    

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12. @MOLSJEROEN
    •
    •
    •
    •
    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
    ___
    ___
    

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13. @MOLSJEROEN
    •
    •
    •
    •
    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
    ___
    ___
    

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14. @MOLSJEROEN
    •
    •
    •
    •
    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
    ___
    ___
    

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15. @MOLSJEROEN
    ADVANTAGES
    1. Easy to use
    

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16. @MOLSJEROEN
    • Examples
    STRINGS
    - articledetail_title
    - feedback_explanation
    - feedback_namehint
    - all_done
    _
    

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17. @MOLSJEROEN
    STRINGS
    _
    @MOLSJEROEN
    

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18. @MOLSJEROEN
    ADVANTAGES
    1. Easy to use
    2. Ordering by screen
    

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19. @MOLSJEROEN
    • Examples
    DRAWABLES
    - articledetail_placeholder
    - all_infoicon
    - all_infoicon_large
    - all_infoicon_24dp
    __
    

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20. @MOLSJEROEN
    DRAWABLES
    __
    @MOLSJEROEN
    

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21. @MOLSJEROEN
    ADVANTAGES
    1. Easy to use
    2. Ordering by screen
    3. Folder organisation
    

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22. @MOLSJEROEN
    •
    • Examples
    LAYOUTS
    activity, fragment, view, item or layout
    - activity_main.xml
    - fragment_articledetail.xml
    - view_menu.xml
    - layout_actionbar.xml
    _.XML
    

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23. @MOLSJEROEN
    LAYOUTS
    _.XML
    @MOLSJEROEN
    

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24. @MOLSJEROEN
    ADVANTAGES
    1. Easy to use
    2. Ordering by screen
    3. Folder organisation
    4. Autocomplete
    - based on where and what
    - camel casing
    

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25. @MOLSJEROEN
    •
    • Examples
    IDS
    name of Android/Custom view class
    - tablayout_main
    - imageview_menu_profile
    - textview_articledetail_title
    __
    

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26. @MOLSJEROEN
    IDS
    __
    @MOLSJEROEN
    

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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
    

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28. @MOLSJEROEN
    • 

    • Examples
    DIMENSIONS
    width, height, size, margin, padding, elevation, keyline or
    textsize
    - height_all_toolbar
    - keyline_all_listtext
    - textsize_all_medium
    - size_menu_icon
    ___
    

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29. @MOLSJEROEN
    DIMENSIONS
    ___
    @MOLSJEROEN
    

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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
    

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31. @MOLSJEROEN
    CHEAT SHEET
    ANDROID RESOURCE NAMING CHEAT SHEET
    ___
    LAYOUTS
    STRINGS
    DRAWABLES
    DIMENSIONS
    _.XML
    is activity, fragment, view, item or layout
    _
    ___
    __
    “all” if reused in ≠ screens
    is width, height, size, margin, padding, elevation, keyline or textsize
    IDS
    __
    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
    

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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
    ___
    

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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/
    

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34. @MOLSJEROEN
    MANY THANKS
    ▸ Jeroen Mols (Belgium)
    ▸ @MolsJeroen
    ▸ http://jeroenmols.com/blog
    

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