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You're reading from Android Studio 4.1 Development Essentials – Java Edition

Product type Book

Published in May 2021

Publisher Packt

ISBN-13 9781801815161

Pages 810 pages

Edition 1st Edition

Languages

Concepts

Android Development

Author (1):

Neil Smyth

Table of Contents (88) Chapters

1. Introduction

2. Setting up an Android Studio Development Environment

3. Creating an Example Android App in Android Studio

4. Creating an Android Virtual Device (AVD) in Android Studio

5. Using and Configuring the Android Studio AVD Emulator

6. A Tour of the Android Studio User Interface

7. Testing Android Studio Apps on a Physical Android Device

8. The Basics of the Android Studio Code Editor

9. An Overview of the Android Architecture

10. The Anatomy of an Android Application

11. An Overview of Android View Binding

12. Understanding Android Application and Activity Lifecycles

13. Handling Android Activity State Changes

14. Android Activity State Changes by Example

15. Saving and Restoring the State of an Android Activity

16. Understanding Android Views, View Groups and Layouts

17. A Guide to the Android Studio Layout Editor Tool

18. A Guide to the Android ConstraintLayout

19. A Guide to using ConstraintLayout in Android Studio

20. Working with ConstraintLayout Chains and Ratios in Android Studio

21. An Android Studio Layout Editor ConstraintLayout Tutorial

22. Manual XML Layout Design in Android Studio

23. Managing Constraints using Constraint Sets

24. An Android ConstraintSet Tutorial

25. A Guide to using Apply Changes in Android Studio

26. An Overview and Example of Android Event Handling

27. Android Touch and Multi-touch Event Handling

28. Detecting Common Gestures using the Android Gesture Detector Class

29. Implementing Custom Gesture and Pinch Recognition on Android

30. An Introduction to Android Fragments

31. Using Fragments in Android Studio - An Example

32. Modern Android App Architecture with Jetpack

33. An Android Jetpack ViewModel Tutorial

34. An Android Jetpack LiveData Tutorial

35. An Overview of Android Jetpack Data Binding

36. An Android Jetpack Data Binding Tutorial

37. An Android ViewModel Saved State Tutorial

38. Working with Android Lifecycle-Aware Components

39. An Android Jetpack Lifecycle Awareness Tutorial

40. An Overview of the Navigation Architecture Component

41. An Android Jetpack Navigation Component Tutorial

42. Creating and Managing Overflow Menus on Android

43. An Introduction to MotionLayout

44. An Android MotionLayout Editor Tutorial

45. A MotionLayout KeyCycle Tutorial

46. Working with the Floating Action Button and Snackbar

47. Creating a Tabbed Interface using the TabLayout Component

48. Working with the RecyclerView and CardView Widgets

49. An Android RecyclerView and CardView Tutorial

50. A Layout Editor Sample Data Tutorial

51. Working with the AppBar and Collapsing Toolbar Layouts

52. An Android Studio Master/Detail Flow Tutorial

53. An Overview of Android Intents

54. Android Explicit Intents – A Worked Example

55. Android Implicit Intents – A Worked Example

56. Android Broadcast Intents and Broadcast Receivers

57. A Basic Overview of Threads and AsyncTasks

58. An Overview of Android Started and Bound Services

59. Implementing an Android Started Service – A Worked Example

60. Android Local Bound Services – A Worked Example

61. Android Remote Bound Services – A Worked Example

62. An Android Notifications Tutorial

63. An Android Direct Reply Notification Tutorial

64. Foldable Devices and Multi-Window Support

65. An Overview of Android SQLite Databases

66. The Android Room Persistence Library

67. An Android TableLayout and TableRow Tutorial

68. An Android Room Database and Repository Tutorial

69. Accessing Cloud Storage using the Android Storage Access Framework

70. An Android Storage Access Framework Example

71. Video Playback on Android using the VideoView and MediaController Classes

72. Android Picture-in-Picture Mode

73. An Android Picture-in-Picture Tutorial

74. Making Runtime Permission Requests in Android

75. Android Audio Recording and Playback using MediaPlayer and MediaRecorder

76. Working with the Google Maps Android API in Android Studio

77. Printing with the Android Printing Framework

78. An Android HTML and Web Content Printing Example

79. A Guide to Android Custom Document Printing

80. An Introduction to Android App Links

81. An Android Studio App Links Tutorial

82. A Guide to the Android Studio Profiler

83. An Android Biometric Authentication Tutorial

84. Creating, Testing and Uploading an Android App Bundle

85. An Overview of Android Dynamic Feature Modules

86. An Android Studio Dynamic Feature Tutorial

87. An Overview of Gradle in Android Studio

Index

50. A Layout Editor Sample Data Tutorial

The CardDemo project created in the previous chapter has provided a good example of how it can be difficult to assess from within the layout editor exactly how a user interface is going to appear until the completed app is tested. This is a problem that frequently occurs when the content to be displayed in a user interface is only generated or acquired once the user has the app installed and running.

For some time now, the Android Studio layout editor has provided the ability to specify simple attributes that are active only when the layout is being designed. A design-time only string resource could, for example, be assigned to a TextView within the layout editor that would not appear when the app runs. This capability has been extended significantly with the introduction of sample data support within the Android Studio layout editor and will be used in this chapter to improve the layout editor experience in the CardDemo project.

50.1 Adding Sample Data to a Project

During the design phase of the user interface layout, the RecyclerView instance (Figure 50-1) bears little resemblance to the running app tested at the end of the previous chapter:

Figure 50-1

In the “Modern Android App Architecture with Jetpack” chapter earlier in the book the concept of sample data was introduced. To demonstrate sample data in use, the project will now be modified so that the fully populated cards appear within the RecyclerView from within the layout editor. Before doing that, however, it is worth noting that the layout editor has a collection of preconfigured sample data templates that can be used when designing user interfaces. To see some of these in action, load the content_main.xml layout file into the layout editor and select the RecyclerView instance. Right-click on the RecyclerView and select the Set Sample Data menu option to display the Design-time View Attributes panel:

Figure 50-2

...

50.2 Using Custom Sample Data

The final step in this chapter is to demonstrate the use of custom sample data and images within the layout editor. This requires the creation of a sample data directory and the addition of some text and image files. Within the Project tool window, right-click on the app entry and select the New -> Sample Data Directory menu option, at which point a new directory named sampledata will appear within the Project tool window. If the new folder is not visible, switch the Project tool window from Android to Project mode and find the find the folder under CardDemo -> app -> build as shown in Figure 50-9:

Figure 50-9

Right-click on the sampledata directory, create a subdirectory named images and copy and paste the Android images into the new folder using the same steps outlined in the previous chapter. Display the Design-time View Attributes panel for the ImageView once again, this time clicking the Browse link and selecting the newly added...

50.3 Summary

This chapter has demonstrated the use of sample data within the layout editor to provide a more realistic representation of how the user interface will appear at runtime. The steps covered in this tutorial included the use of both pre-existing sample data templates and the integration of custom sample data.