Android Trainings

Introduction to Android

In this Module you will learn the unterlying basics of the Android Platform, starting by the Operating System to the fragmentation of the platform.

• Blocks
• Basic structure of the IDE
• Various tools embedded in Android Studio
• Shortcuts for faster development

Creating and understanding Activities

The basic building blocks of any Android app are its Activities. Therefore it is crucial to know their lifecycle and behavior.

• Blocks
• Activity lifecycle
• Applying layouts and using views

Gradle for Android

Gradle is the standard build system for any Android app. Its capabilities like dependency management and product flavors help to build apps more easily.

• Blocks
• Building your app with Gradle
• Handling multiple flavors and states
• Adding dependencies

Layout Manangers

To keep your UI elements together your layout has to structured with layout managers. The Android SDK provides different layout managers to be used in your app.

• Blocks
• Overview if the layout managers
• Usage if the layout managers
• Custom layout managers

Resources

Manage your apps resources, like strings, images or even dimensions. These resources allow you to adapt your app to multiple languages or resolutions.

• Blocks
• Manage string and dimension resources
• Use drawables as resources
• 9-patch drawables

ActionBar/Toolbar

The ActionBar is one of the central UI elements in most Android apps. Therefore you have to know how to add actions to it and customize its appearance.

• Blocks
• Adding actions to the ActionBar
• Customize the ActionBar
• ActionMode
• More flexibility with the Toolbar

Storing data

Most apps need to store data at some point. Android has multiple ways to store them, depending on the kind of data you want to store.

• Blocks
• Access the file system
• Creating and using a SQLite database
• Using SharedPreferences

Broadcasts

Broadcasting data is a good way to allow communication between multiple components, especially if more than one component is interested in the data.

• Blocks
• Sending broadcasts internal and external
• Receiving broadcasts internal and external

Material Design

The current design language for Android since Lollipop is Material Design. To ensure a consistent experience for the user apps need to follow certain design rules.

• Blocks
• Design principles of Material Design
• Getting the design to work
• Animations

Account Framework

Many apps have some kind of authentication e.g. users or account. The Android SDK provides us with an Account Framework to manage multiple users within an app.

• Blocks
• Managing accounts
• Synchronizing data for different accounts

Android Studio

Android Studio is the standard IDE for developing Android apps. It's based on IntelliJ by JetBrains and provides useful features like an layout editor and many more things.

• Blocks
• Underling Operating System
• Dalvik vs ART
• Fragmentation of Android

Creating and understanding Fragments

It is good pratice to use fragments within your Activities to structure your UI and make it reusable. Also fragments are more flexible for responsive UI on phones and tables.

• Blocks
• Fragment lifecycle
• Using the FragmentManager
• Responsive UI for phones and tables

UI elements

To build your apps UI a set of UI elements is needed. The Android SDK provides us with a tone of predefined UI elements, so we can build our own UI from them.

• Blocks
• Overview of commonly used UI elements
• Usage of the UI elements
• Custom UI elements

Intent

Intents are the fundamental communication tool between Android components such as Activities, Services and BroadcastReceivers. You need to learn how to send and receive intents.

• Blocks
• Using intents in various ways
• React to incoming intents

Lists

Most apps have some sort of list to be displayed. RecyclerView and ListView allow you to show such kind of data to the user.

• Blocks
• Using ListView and its adapter
• Using RecyclerView and its adapter
• ViewHolder Pattern

Google™ support libraries

In addition to the Android SDK Google is proving Android developers with support libraries to backport certain new APIs or introduce complete new once.

• Blocks
• Support v4
• Support v7
• Leanback API

Services

Services are components that can process long running tasks independent of the UI, like playing music or communicating with a server.

• Blocks
• Different kind of services
• Service lifecycle
• Asynchronous work

Accessing the web

In general apps need additional data from the web. This means you need to know how to access this data and get it to the app or send data from the app to the web.

• Blocks
• Requesting data
• Sending data
• Converting data

Google Play Services

In addition to the Android SDK, Google is providing the developers with Play Services. This services allow access to addition products independent of the core API, like Cloud Messaging, Chromecast or Drive.

• Blocks
• Using Play Services in the app
• Overview of the available APIs