Mar 7 2012

Creating Your First Android App

Now, we are going to create our first Android app in the Android development tutorial series. I assume that you’ve already setup a complete Android development environment and has a basic knowledge on Android application components and activity lifecycle.

Its a longstanding tradition that when learning a new programming language or a framework, the first program written is to display a ‘Hello World’ on screen. Its pretty easy with Android. We can create a Hello World program in Android with practically no coding at all. Here we will make our first Android app with some interesting functionality, rather than just a simple ‘Hello World’ app. Continue reading →

Mar 4 2012

Android Project Structure in Eclipse

In this article, we will examine the Android project structure and file organization in detail, by creating a new Android project in Eclipse. Before that, it will be better to read my earlier post on how to setup a complete Android development environment in the Android development tutorial series.

When we start a new Android project in Eclipse, it will automatically creates a lot of files and folders for us. We will look at the meaning and functions of each of these folders in the Android project structure one by one.

You have to create a new Android project in Eclipse to see the project structure. Continue reading →

Mar 1 2012

Android Activity Lifecycle – Android Key Concepts

This is my third and final post in the Android key concepts series and the most important one, I think.  In this article, we will explore the Android activity lifecycle and various event handlers associated with each stage changes. If you don’t know what an Activity in Android is, go to Android application components first.

We know how an application behaves in desktop platforms like Windows, Linux or Mac. After starting a program, we can minimize or restore it whenever we want and the software will preserve its state (unless the system crashes). The situation is entirely different in Android and we have lesser control on the lifetime of an application in Android. Therefore as a developer, we should make a thorough knowledge on Android activity life cycle before start developing. Continue reading →

Feb 26 2012

Android Application Components

In this second article on Android key concepts in the Android development tutorial series, we will analyze the various components by which an Android Application is made of. That is, the Android Application Components. 

There are mainly five types of components that are used to build an application. Actually these are some objects defined in the Android SDK and provides different methods by which an application can behave.  As a developer we need only to call and extend these already defined classes to use in our application.

These are the main Android Application Components:

  • Activities
  • Services
  • Content Providers
  • Broadcast Receivers
  • Intents

I’m not going to give a full explanation on each of these components. You will learn how to use these Android application components to build applications later, when we start actual development. Now I’m giving you brief descriptions of each terms to make you familiar with the basic concepts. Continue reading →

Feb 17 2012

Android Architecture – The Key Concepts of Android OS

In the earlier post on Android Development, we’ve learned how to install and setup a complete Android development environment. Now, before we start development, you should know the Android architecture in detail.

Being an Android user you may know how the basic functions such as making a call, sending a text message, changing the system settings, install or uninstall apps etc. Well! All Android users know these, but not enough for a developer. Then what else details are a developer required to know about Android, I’ll explain. To be a developer, you should know all the key concepts of Android. That is, you should know all the nuts and bolts of Android OS. Continue reading →