Android Development Patterns: Best Practices for Professional Developers

About

Features

• Targets students who have been working in Android for a long time now, but still need some help with advanced topics
• Assumes the reader is already an accomplished Android developer, but still explains the topics rather than just handing out free code
• Accompanied by the code from the book, a bonus library of usable code, links to additional/useful tools used by pros

Description

“A must read for all developers that want to begin serious Android development.”
—Justin Anderson, Freelance Android Developer

“From start to finish, this book contains a variety of great tips and insight into the most important attributes of Android design. This book will definitely be required reading for any of our future Android engineers.”
—Cameron Banga, Cofounder, 9magnets, LLC

There’s a downside to Android’s amazing openness and versatility: it’s easy for developers to write code that’s inefficient, unreliable, insecure, or hard to maintain. In Android Development Patterns, enterprise Android developer Phil Dutson helps you leverage Android 5.0+’s amazing power without falling victim to those pitfalls. Dutson presents today’s most comprehensive set of patterns and procedures for building optimized, robust apps with Android 5.0+.

First, Dutson guides you through establishing a highly efficient development environment and workflow, and testing your app to ensure that your code works just as you expect. Then, he walks through the modern best practices for structuring apps, using widgets and components, and working with views.

You learn how to build apps that are easy to manage and update, deliver accurate and up-to-date information without wasting precious battery power, and take advantage of new hardware, such as Android Wear and Android TV. Dutson concludes by presenting powerful strategies for optimizing your apps and packaging them for distribution.

Coverage includes

• Using testing to build more trustworthy, dependable, maintainable apps
• Understanding subtle but critical differences between Android and traditional Java programming
• Building consistent, modern user interfaces with views and layouts
• Leveraging the proven MVC pattern to cleanly organize logic
• Creating rich visual experiences with 3D graphics, animation, and media
• Simplifying capture and use of location data with the new Locations API
• Integrating optional hardware, such as Bluetooth, NFC, or USB
• Building better apps with Google Play Services
• Creating Android Wear notifications and apps
• Tuning and improving apps with Google Analytics
• Designing Android TV apps for the “ten foot view”

informit.com/aw | https://github.com/dutsonpa/adp-files

Sample Content

Sample Pages

Download the sample pages (includes Chapter 5 and Index)

Table of Contents

Preface     xiv

Android Studio     1
     Installing Android Studio    2
     Using Android Studio    4
     Starting a New Project     6
Standalone SDK Tools    9
Android Device Emulation     10
     Android Virtual Device     11
     GenyMotion     12
     Xamarin Android Player     13
Version-Control Systems     14
     Subversion    14
     Git     14
     Mercurial     15
Summary     15

2     Testing and Debugging     17
Unit Testing     17
Integration Testing    20
Debugging     25
     Profiling    25
     Tracing    27
     Messaging    29
Summary    32

3     Application Structure    33
Manifests    34
Java     36
Res (Resources)     37
     Drawable     37
     Layout     39
     Menu     39
     Values     40
     Other Resources     41
Gradle     41
Summary     42

4    Components     45
Intents     45
     Intent Filters     46
     Broadcast Receivers     47
Activities     48
     Creating an Activity     48
     Activity Lifecycle    49
Fragments     52
     Creating a Fragment     52
     Communicating with Fragments     55
     Loaders    56
Summary     58

5    Views     59
The View Class     59
     The AnalogClock Subclass     60
     The ImageView Subclass     60
     The KeyboardView Subclass    60
     The MediaRouteButton Subclass    62
     The ProgressBar Subclass     62
     The Space Subclass     64
     The SurfaceView Subclass    64
     The TextView Subclass    65
     The TextureView Subclass     65
     The ViewGroup Subclass     66
     The ViewStub Subclass     68
Creating a Custom View     68
Summary    70

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