Android Bootcamp in Building M

LECTURE: Android Overview

Overview of Android, it’s history, big picture of its stack, development tools, and security model: Android Overview.

LECTURE: Android UI

Explain how the UI is organized.

DEMO: Status Activity Layout

Create StatusActivity layout file, using Relative Layout. Add a button and an edit text.

LAB: Status Activity Layout

Add EditText to Status Activity layout, setup its height, width, id, and hint. Position it below the button, and have it take entire remaining screen space.

LAB: Status Activity Landscape Layout

Create a landscape version of status layout. Hint:

1. Use File→New→Android XML File tool.

2. Create new layout in /res/layout-land/activity_status.xml.

3. Qualify it for Orientation qualifier

4. Start by copying the content of default status layout.

HOMEWORK

• Review FastTrack to Java chapters on OOP and Packaging

• Watch Eclipse Video

LECTURE: Android UI

User Interface Events module UI_Events

DEMO: Implement onClickListener for the update button

Add the Java binding to handle the update button. Use LogCat to print out the output to the log and verify the button works.

LAB: Handling UI Events

1. Add a TextView with id text_count to status activity. (hint: don’t forget to update landscape layout as well!).

2. Add a TextWatcher listener to editStatus and update textCount as user types.

3. Tell user how many characters are left, assuming we have 140 total.

REVIEW: Android UI

Review questions for the User Interface module

DEMO: Adding the YambaClient jar to the project

Demonstrate how to download and use a third party JAR file into the app project.

DEMO: Async Task

Use YambaClient to post status update to the cloud. Show how it won’t work on UI thread, creating the motivation for AsyncTask.

DEMO: Adding Internet permissions

Explain the security model, and need for app to declare what permissions it wants to use.

LAB: Add a Dialog while posting

Hint: Use ProgressDialog Use AsyncTask’s callbacks to start/stop the progress dialog.

HOMEWORK

Read ahead on Fragments module Fragments.

LECTURE: Fragments Overview

What fragments are, why you’d care, and how to use them statically: Fragments.

DEMO: Using fragments statically

Convert the status activity to status activity + status fragment.

LECTURE: Preferences

Overview of preferences in Android: Preferences

DEMO: How to create a simple preference

Create preference screen for username and password.

DEMO: Use Preference Fragment

Switch from using PreferenceActivity to PreferenceFragment. Use dynamic loading.

LAB: Add server and refresh interval to preferences

Server is another text input (i.e. EditTextPreference), but refresh interval could be a ListPreference with human-readable values such as: Five minutes, Every hour, Once a day. The values would be in seconds. Hint: specify entities and entity values as string arrays values (new type of values resource).

DEMO: Using Preference Manager

Use Preference Manager to read the data in status fragment to get username and password data.

LECTURE: File System Overview

Overview of main partitions of the file system on the device. Discuss /system, /sdcard, and /data. Explain of /data/data/com.example app filesystem sandbox.

LAB: Create Main activity

Create activity that will be the main entry point into the app.

LECTURE: ActionBar

How Action Bar providers for app navigation: Action_Bar

DEMO: Adding menu for Prefs and Status Update

Add menu to jump to prefs activity and status activity.

LAB: Add Action Bar Item

Add a menu item for preferences. Hint: use icon ic_menu_preferences.

LECTURE: Intents

How intents work: Intents

DEMO: Adding action bar actions

Use intents to launch activities. Then, switch to using fragments dynamically instead.

LAB: Use static fragments

Create a main activity that would host both preference fragment as well as status fragment.

HOMEWORK: Read ahead on advanced fragments

Topics on how to communicate from fragment to activity, how to use back stack, and similar.

LECTURE: Services

Service overview, lifecycle: Services.

DEMO: Implement RefreshService

Add basic callbacks.

LAB: Add Refresh button to Acton Bar

Have this button start the Refresh service. Hint: use startService().

LAB: Read Shared Prefs

Use the default shared preferences to get username and password.

DEMO: Add YambaClient

Use shared prefs.

LECTURE: Intent Service

Overview of what it is. Change Refresh service to become an intent service: IntentService.

LECTURE: Content Providers

Using content providers and creating content providers: Content_Providers.

DEMO: Create StatusContract

Create status contract file with a bunch of constants we’ll need later.

DEMO: Create ContentProvider

Setup the shell for the status provider. Register it with the manifest.

DEMO: SQL Databases

Implement DbHelper class

DEMO: Implementing Status Provider’s insert()

Implement the insert() method so it properly inserts the data into the timeline databases.

HOMEWORK: Add Purge Data button

Add a button to the action bar that will call status provider’s delete() method, and will remove all the records in the database (won’t drop the table).

DEMO: Implement query() in status provider

Add support for querying the data.

LAB: Implement update()

Provide the implementation for update() in status provider, similar to insert() and delete().

LAB: Create a Timeline Fragment

Add a shell for a new timeline fragment. It’s be the main content of the main activity.

LECTURE: Lists and Adapters

Overview of lists and adapters: Lists_and_Adapters. Intro to List fragment.

DEMO: Create TimelineFragment

Create a fragment that will display the list of statuses from the status provider. Use SimpleCursorAdapter.

LAB: Create a Custom View

Create a custom view to represent a single row of data. Call it raw.xml and it should have text_user, text_message, and text_created_at as pieces of text.

DEMO: View Binder

Create a view binder to properly display the relative time.

LECTURE: Loaders

How to implement a cursor loader: Loaders.

LECTURE: Broadcast Receiver

Overview of broadcast receivers, when to use them, and common patterns: Broadcast_Receivers.

DEMO: Create a Broadcast Receiver Use a BOOT COMPLETED broadcast action to trigger a receiver that will setup an Alarm service with a pending intent to regularly start the refresh service.

DEMO: Setup the Alarm

Add an alarm in refresh receiver to kick start the refresh service at refresh interval.

HOMEWORK: Add Network Receiver

A receiver that turns on or off the refresh service alarm as network becomes available or unavailable.

HOMEWORK: Use Shared Prefs for Refresh Interval

We currently have the interval hard coded. We should be using values from the shared preferences instead.

For later:

• NDK

• Binder IPC

• NFC

• Custom components

• Styles and Themes

• Intel HAXM