INTRODUCTION TO

ANDROID
 Application Components
 An Android application is made of up
one or more of the following
components
 Activities

We will only discuss activities in this
chapter
 Services
 Broadcast Receivers
 Content Providers

Slide 2
 Application
Components (Activities)
(1)
 An Activity has a single screen with a
UI
 Program logic is wired to a screen in a
structured way (MVC)
 A program is initiated by running the default
activity
 An activity is executed via predefined
callbacks
 These are just procedures called by the
Android infrastructure

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 Most programs will have several
 Application
Components (Activities)
(2)
 An activity is a class that drives from
Activity

 Then we must override a couple of base

Slide 4
 Application Components
(Activities) (onCreate)
 @Override indicates that we are
overriding a base class method
 It’s an informative annotation
 Annotations are used to control compiler
behavior

Similar to .NET attributes

Slide 5
 Application Components
(Activities) (onCreate)
 super.onCreate calls the base class
method
 Super is roughly equivalent MyBase in VB
 It typically appears as the first statement
in the method

Slide 6
 Application Components
(Activities) (onCreate)
 setContentView takes one argument – the
resource id corresponding to the activity
 It associates a particular view with the
activity
 The resource is always named R
 Layout is the layout that you want to use
 Followed by the resource id of the layout

Slide 7
 Application
Components (Layout) (1)
 A layout describes the visual structure
for a UI, such as the UI for an activity
 It’s an XML document, so you need
some familiarity with XML
 Android provides an XML vocabulary
that corresponds to the View classes
and subclasses, such as those for
widgets and layouts

Slide 8
 Application
Components (Layout)
 There are different types of layouts for a
screen
 LinearLayout
 RelativeLayout
 Lists and Grids
 Web

Slide 9
 Application Components
(LinearLayout)
 LinearLayout aligns child objects
vertically or horizontally
 Use the android:orientation attribute to
specify the layout direction (vertical /
horizontal)
 Scrollbars appear if the window length
exceeds the screen length

Slide 10
 Application Components
(RelativeLayout)
 RelativeLayout aligns objects relative
to an each other (siblings)
 Such as:
 Child A to the left of child B
 Or align to the parent

Slide 11
 Application Components
(Buttons and Events)
 Like a VB button
 Text or an icon can appear in the visible
region
 They respond to click events (although the
syntax differs)

http://
developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/controls/but
ton.html

Slide 12
 Application Components
(Declaring a Button)
 A button has a width and height
 The button’s text appears in strings.xml

Slide 13
 Application Components
(Handling a Click – Method
1)
 When the user clicks a button, the
object receives an onClick event which
you can handle

Slide 14
 Application Components
(Handling a Click – Method
2)
 The event handler can also be declared
programmatically using an anonymous
class
 The book uses this technique

Slide 15
 Application
Components (Toast)
 A toast is a form of Android popup
 The size of the popup is just large enough
to render the message
 If you want the user to respond, use a
Notification instead of a toast
 To create, use the makeText method of
the Toast class
http://
developer.android.com/guide/topic
s/ui/notifiers/toasts.html
Slide 16
 Application Components
(Toast Example)

Slide 17
 Introduction to Input
Controls
 Button operates like a VB button
 TextView operates like a VB TextBox
 CheckBox operates like a VB check box
 Etc..
 All are configured as XML

Slide 18
 Strings.xml
 Strings literals are stored in the file
strings.xml

Slide 19
 Strings.xml
 And we reference those strings from the
layout.xml

Slide 20
 Resource Files
 Android R.java is an auto-generated
file by AAPT (Android Asset Packaging
Tool) that contains resource IDs for all
the resources of res/ directory
 If you create any component in the
activity_main.xml file, the id for the
corresponding component is
automatically created in this file
 The id can be used in the activity source
file to perform any action on the
Slide 21
component
 Resource File (Example)

Slide 22
 Creating a First Project
 Click File, New, Project. Select
Android Application Project

Slide 23
 Define Application
Parameters (1)
 Don’t use an
old Minimum
Required SDK

Slide 24
 Define Application
Parameters (1)
 The Application Name appears in the
store when deployed
 The Project Name is only relevant to
Eclipse
 The Package Name contains a reverse
domain name
 It must be unique and must not be
changed – this is how versioning is
performed

Slide 25
 Define Application
Parameters (2)
 Minimum Required SDK contains the
minimum SDK version on which the
application will run
 Target SDK contains the desired SDK
version on which the application will run
 Compile with contains the SDK version
that will be used to compile the
application
 Theme defines basic UI characteristics

Slide 26
 Configure Project

Create activity

Slide 27
 Configure Icons
 Configuring
the icons
 Just use the
defaults

Slide 28
 Create Blank Activity
 Create the
default activity
 This gives you
a blank screen
(form)
 (Blank Activity)

Slide 29
 Name the Activity and
Layout

Choose the
default values

Slide 30
 Application Anatomy (1)
 The file MainActivity.java contains the
java code for the application’s activity
(screen)
 Default methods are created too
(onCreate, …)

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 Application Anatomy (2)
 The purpose of AndroidManifest.xml is
similar to web.config or app.config
 Simply put, it describes the application

Slide 32
 Application Anatomy (3)
 The folder values\strings.xml contains
the application’s textual content

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 Application Anatomy (4)
 The file activity_main.xml contains the
XML code that describes the user
interface layout

Slide 34
 Setting up the Emulator
(1)
 We can run programs via an emulator or
directly attached to a physical device
 Using windows, you might need the driver
from the device manufacturer

Slide 35
 Setting up the Emulator
(2)
 Click Window, Android Device
Manager
 Click Create to create the new device
 I suggest the following settings

Slide 36
 Setting up the Emulator
(3)
 Under Windows set the memory to no
more than 512MB

Slide 37
 Setting up the Emulator
(3)

Slide 38
 Starting the Emulator
 Set the display
characteristics
 Note that it takes a while
to start the emulator

Slide 39
 Running Hello
World
 The emulator
should start and
be rendered
 Again, it takes a while to
start

Slide 40
 Running Hello World (5)
 Now run the
application

Slide 41
 Guidelines for
Running on a Native Host
(1)
 First, plug the device in
 If running Windows, you will likely need
a device driver

Slide 42
 References
 http://
developer.android.com/tools/extras/oem
-usb.html

Slide 43