Introduction to Android Development

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In this 5 day class, experienced developers who wish to learn how to develop applications for the Android operating system from Google. Students will build various small example app, service, and widget projects and also work up larger case-study applications involving various UI-design techniques. We work primarily with Android 2.3, but also look ahead to some features and development styles for Android 3.x and 4.0.

While this is an introductory course, we make a point of focusing on practical concerns faced by the corporate IT developer. The primary case-study application connects popular mobile features such as maps and multimedia with a RESTful web service and a JPA persistence tier that connects to a fully-worked enterprise database (15 tables, 998 rows). The mobile side of the application includes 47 Java classes and 8 distinct activities. Supporting applications provide overlapping exercise in key techniques such as using asynchronous tasks, communicating with external applications, and error-handling.

Goals

  • Describe the Android OS architecture.
  • Install and use appropriate tools for Android development, including IDE, device emulator, and profiling tools.
  • Understand the Android application architecture, including the roles of the task stack, activities, and services.
  • Build user interfaces with views, form widgets, text input, lists, tables, and more.
  • Use advanced UI widgets for scrolling, tabbing, and layout control.
  • Use options and context menus.
  • Store application data on the mobile device, in internal or external storage locations.
  • Support user-specific preferences using the Android Preferences API.

Outline

  1. The Android Operating System
    1. Mobile Form Factors
    2. Versions of Android
    3. Applications and APK Files
    4. Process Architecture
    5. The Role of Java
    6. Hello, Dalvik
    7. What’s In, What’s Out
    8. Services
    9. User Interface
    10. Memory and Storage
    11. Operating-System Services
    12. Inter-Process Communication
  2. Android Development
    1. The Android SDK
    2. The SDK and AVD Managers
    3. Configuring the Emulator
    4. Eclipse
    5. Resources
    6. APK Files
    7. Build Process
    8. The R Class
    9. Assets
    10. The Dalvik Debug Monitor Server
    11. The Android Debugger (adb)
    12. Command Shells
    13. The Android Log and LogCat
    14. Ant
  3. Applications
    1. Activities
    2. Activity Lifecycle
    3. The onCreate Method
    4. Layouts and Views
    5. The findViewById Method
    6. Tasks and the “Back Stack”
    7. Intents and Results
    8. startActivity and Related Methods
    9. Custom Application Classes
    10. Shared Application State
    11. Centralized Flow Control
  4. User Interface Design
    1. XML Layouts
    2. Layout Parameters
    3. The Box Model
    4. Gravity
    5. The LayoutInflater Service
    6. The <LinearLayout>
    7. The <RelativeLayout>
    8. Views and Adapters
    9. Form Widgets
  5. Views, Adapters, and Dialogs
    1. Styles and Themes
    2. <include> and <merge>
    3. View Orientation
    4. Adapters
    5. Dialogs
    6. onCreateDialog and Related Methods
    7. Using AlertDialog
    8. Fragments and Designing for Tablets
    9. Phone/Tablet Portability
  6. Working with Text
    1. The <TextView>
    2. The <EditText>
    3. Input Methods
    4. Input Types: Phone, E-mail, Date, Time …
    5. DatePicker and TimePicker
    6. Date- and Time-Picking Dialogs
    7. Providing Auto-Completion
    8. Using the Clipboard
    9. Linkification
  7. Working with Lists
    1. AdapterView and Subclasses
    2. Adapter and Subinterfaces
    3. ListView and ListAdapter
    4. Spinner and SpinnerAdapter
    5. Handling Item Selection
    6. Custom Adapters
    7. ExpandableListView and ExpandableListAdapter
  8. Working with Tables
    1. The <TableLayout> and <TableRow>
    2. Defining Table Cells
    3. Static Table Layouts
    4. Dynamic Tables
    5. Binding Data
    6. Using a Template Row
    7. Managing IDs
  9. Graphics and Low-Level Events
    1. Drawing on a Canvas
    2. The Paint Object
    3. Handling Size and Orientation Changes
    4. Handling Touch Events
    5. Working with Drawables
    6. Shape Drawables
    7. Bitmap Drawables
    8. 9-Patch Bitmaps
    9. Custom Drawables
    10. The Drawing Cache and Working with Bitmaps
  10. Menus
    1. Menus and Views
    2. Menu Resources
    3. The MenuInflater Service
    4. The Options Menu
    5. The Context Menu
    6. The <Menu>
    7. The Menu and MenuItem Classes
    8. The onOptionsItemSelected and onContextItemSelected Methods
    9. Handling Menu Selections
    10. The Escape from switch/case!
    11. Using a Dispatch Map
    12. Building Menus Dynamically
  11. Local Storage
    1. The Android File System
    2. Internal Storage
    3. File Formats
    4. Parsing JSON
    5. The openFileInput and openFileOutput Methods
    6. Storage and the Application Lifecycle
    7. External Storage
    8. Private Storage vs. Public Media
    9. Permissions
    10. Checking for Availability
    11. getExternalStorageDir and Related Methods
    12. API Level Differences
    13. Preferences
    14. Preferences Resources
    15. The PreferencesActivity
    16. The PreferencesManager
    17. Reading Preferences

To Hire an AMS Android Developer Subject Matter Expert and Instructor who also teaches this class, call us today at 800-798-3901!

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