Kick start your Android app development - Bristol Uni Appathon 2013

Talk for the Bristol Uni students doing the App-a-thon in March 2013.

Transcript

1. Kick start your Android App Bristol Uni Appathon 2013 by Scott Alexander-Bown Head of Android
2. Agenda: •  Android in ~60 seconds •  Getting started •  Design •  3rd party libraries •  Backend, Web services •  General tips •  Q&A
3. me •  Scott Alexander-Bown •  Head of Android at Mubaloo •  SWMobile meetup group •  Follow me @scottyab Favourite apps
4. Android in ~60 secs •  Builds on your existing Java knowledge o  Inner classes o  Threading o  Exceptions •  Open source based Linux and Java •  Background tasks/services are supported •  Permissions •  Resource •  All apps are equal
5. Differentiation and fragmentation •  Target latest v17 (but remember to test lower versions) •  Min SDK 7 / Android version 2.1. •  Target the most common (HDPI - 800x480)
6. developer.android.com
7. Where to go when you get stuck? •  Stackoverflow - ‘Android‘ tag •  Twitter #androiddev or #andev •  Anddev.org •  http://androiddevweekly.com •  https://developers.google.com/events/io/
8. Android Design •  developer.android.com/design •  Android design in action hangout
9. Remember!
10. Easy design WIN! •  Android asset studio by Roman Nurik o  Launcher icons o  Action bar and tab icons o  Notification icons o  Tab icons (pre-Android 3.0) o  Menu icons (pre-Android 3.0) https://android-ui-utils.googlecode.com/hg/asset-studio/dist/ •  Android Action Bar Style Generator by Jeff Gilfelt http://jgilfelt.github.com/android-actionbarstylegenerator/ •  Holo Colors by Jérôme Van Der Linden http://android-holo-colors.com/
11. Android Design Inspiration •  Playstore 'featured' •  http://androidniceties.tumblr.com/ •  http://www.android-app-patterns.com/
12. Android Bootstrap •  Help get new Android applications off the ground quickly with minimal effort •  http://androidbootstrap.com •  http://androidkickstartr.com/ •  Usage o  Enter app name and package - hit generate
13. Actionbar Sherlock (ABS) •  Provides backwards compatibility for Action bar o  Min Android 2.1 •  Get it - http://actionbarsherlock.com •  Library project o  Extension of the Android Compatibility Library(ACL) •  Usage o  Extend 'Sherlock' Activities o  use getSupportActionBar() o  inherit Theme.Sherlock •  Author: Jake Wharton •  Licence: Apache Licence 2.0
14. Android Query •  Lightweight library for doing asynchronous tasks and manipulating UI elements in Android •  Get it - https://github.com/androidquery/androidquery •  Highlights o  Async Image download (with cache) o  Ajax with GSON transformer o  In-app version check o  Quick way of manipulating views o  Simple authentication mechanism •  Author: Peter Liu •  Licence: Apache Licence 2.0
15. Android Query - before
16. Android Query - after
17. CommonsWare Android Components •  General extensions of system classes •  Get them - http://commonsware.com/cwac •  Highlights o  cwac-merge - Merge adapter o  cwac-endless - Endless list adapter o  cwac-wakeful - Intent service that keeps the device awake while processing task. o  cwac-touchlist - Drag and drop o  cwac-prefs - Secure Prefs (uses SQLCipher for Android) •  Author: Mark Murphy •  Licence: Apache Licence 2.0
18. Fly in/Sliding menu •  Seen in Google plus, Facebook, Evernote etc •  Get it - https://github.com/jfeinstein10/SlidingMenu •  Think about o  back stack o  notifications (See Crouton) •  Alternative: by Greg Billetdeaux •  Author: Jeremy Feinstein •  Licence: Apache Licence 2.0
19. Nine Old Androids •  Honeycomb animation API on all versions of the platform back to 1.0 •  Get it - http://nineoldandroids.com/ •  Integrate as library •  Author: Google / Jake Wharton •  Licence: Apache Licence 2.0
20. Little fluffy location library •  Location updates broadcasted to your app periodically o  Works best with 2.2 and up o  Great for widgets •  Get it - http://code.google.com/p/little-fluffy-location-library/ •  Usage: o  Include library o  Configure manifest o  Initialise in Application onCreate o  Setup broadcastreceiver to listen for updates •  Author: Kenton Price •  Licence: Apache Licence 2.0
21. And there's more... •  Tape (Queuing) - Square •  Dagger (fast DI framework) - Square •  Polaris (enhanced Map view) - Cyrill Mottier •  Ignition (AOP location library) - Matthias, Stefano, & Michael •  Android image loader - Novoda •  PhotoView (enhanced ImageView) - Chris Banes •  QuickSnap (camera app) - Lightbox •  Holo Everywhere - Christophe Versieux
22. Finding out more •  Android UI patterns o  app on play store •  T.U.A.L o  http://www.theultimateandroidlibrary.com •  Open Intents o  http://www.openintents.org/en/libraries •  Dev weekly Email o  http://androiddevweekly.com
23. Backend / API's •  Need data? o  8595 APIs!!! o  http://www.programmableweb.com/
24. OMFG!! 8595 APIs
25. Sweet sweet apis... Last.fm Qype Twitter 4Sq Facebook Google+ YouTube/Vimeo Website RSS feed Amazon Goodreads OpenMenu Skype Google Maps Twillio Flickr Ebay/Paypal
26. Parsing made easy •  Google GSON o  JSON in -> POJO out o  POJO in -> JSON out •  Get it - http://code.google.com/p/google-gson/ •  Simple XML o  XML in -> POJO out o  POJO in -> XML out •  Get it - http://simple.sourceforge.net/
27. Google GSON - sample
28. Mobile backend as a service (MBaaS) MBaaS?? WTF???
29. Mobile backend as a service (MBaaS) Serverless apps! o  Data storage o  User management o  Push notifications o  SDK §  Android §  HTML5
30. Lists, lists, lists... •  Efficient/smooth lists - see view holder •  Async loading of images - Aquery •  Endless list •  2 way list •  Parallax scroll •  Grid view •  View pager
31. Summary •  Android in ~60 seconds •  Getting started in dev and design •  3rd party libraries •  Backend, Web services •  General tips
32. Thanks for listening... Q&A @scottyab