17.1 Basic vs. Empty Activity Templates
As outlined in the chapter entitled “The Anatomy of an Android Application”, Android applications are made up of one or more activities. An activity is a standalone module of application functionality that usually correlates directly to a single user interface screen. As such, when working with the Android Studio Layout Editor we are invariably working on the layout for an activity.
When creating a new Android Studio project, a number of different templates are available to be used as the starting point for the user interface of the main activity. The most basic of these templates are the Basic Activity and Empty Activity templates. Although these seem similar at first glance, there are actually considerable differences between the two options. To see these differences within the layout editor, use the View Options menu to enable Show System UI as shown in Figure 17-1 below:
The Empty Activity template creates...
