In 2018 Google introduced Android Jetpack to the developer community. Designed to make it quicker and easier to develop modern and reliable Android apps, Jetpack consists of a set of tools, libraries and architectural guidelines. The main elements of Android Jetpack consist of the Android Studio Integrated Development Environment (IDE), the Android Architecture Components and the Modern App Architecture Guidelines, all of which are covered in this latest edition of Android Studio Development Essentials.
Fully updated for Android Studio 3.5 and Android 10 (Q), the goal of this book is to teach the skills necessary to develop Android based applications using the Kotlin programming language.
Beginning with the basics, this book provides an outline of the steps necessary to set up an Android development and testing environment followed by an introduction to programming in Kotlin including data types, flow control, functions, lambdas and object-oriented programming.
An overview of Android Studio is included covering areas such as tool windows, the code editor and the Layout Editor tool. An introduction to the architecture of Android is followed by an in-depth look at the design of Android applications and user interfaces using the Android Studio environment.
Chapters are also included covering the Android Architecture Components including view models, lifecycle management, Room database access, app navigation, live data and data binding.
More advanced topics such as intents are also covered, as are touch screen handling, gesture recognition, and the recording and playback of audio. This edition of the book also covers printing, transitions, cloud-based file storage and foldable device support.
The concepts of material design are also covered in detail, including the use of floating action buttons, Snackbars, tabbed interfaces, card views, navigation drawers and collapsing toolbars.
In addition to covering general Android development techniques, the book also includes Google Play specific topics such as implementing maps using the Google Maps Android API, and submitting apps to the Google Play Developer Console.
Other key features of Android Studio 3.5 and Android 10 are also covered in detail including the Layout Editor, the ConstraintLayout and ConstraintSet classes, constraint chains and barriers, direct reply notifications and foldable device support.
Chapters also cover advanced features of Android Studio such as App Links, Dynamic Delivery, the Android Studio Profiler and Gradle build configuration.
Assuming you already have some programming experience, are ready to download Android Studio and the Android SDK, have access to a Windows, Mac or Linux system and ideas for some apps to develop, you are ready to get started.
1.1 Downloading the Code Samples
The source code and Android Studio project files for the examples contained in this book are available for download at:
https://www.ebookfrenzy.com/retail/as35kotlin/index.php
The steps to load a project from the code samples into Android Studio are as follows:
1. From the Welcome to Android Studio dialog, select the Open an existing Android Studio project option.
2. In the project selection dialog, navigate to and select the folder containing the project to be imported and click on OK.
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