Application Development Tutorials

If you're an aspiring or beginning programmer interested in creating apps for the Android market—which grows in size and downloads every day—this is your comprehensive, one-stop guide. Android Application Development All-in-One For Dummies covers the information you absolutely need to get started developing apps for Android. Inside, you'll quickly get up to speed on Android programming concepts and put your new knowledge to use to manage data, program cool phone features, refine your applications, navigate confidently around the Android native development kit, and add important finishing touches to your apps.

Covering the latest features and enhancements to the Android Software Developer's Kit, this friendly, hands-on guide walks you through Android programming basics, shares techniques for developing great Android applications, reviews Android hardware, and much more.

• All programming examples, including the sample application, are available for download from the book's website
• Information is carefully organized and presented in an easy-to-follow format
• 800+ pages of content make this an invaluable resource at an unbeatable price
• Written by an expert Java educator, Barry Burd, who authors the bestselling Java For Dummies

Go from Android newbie to master programmer in no time with the help of Android Application Development All-in-One For Dummies!

The result of extensive scholarship and consultation with leading scholars, this text introduces students to twenty-four theorists and compares and contrasts their theories on how we develop as individuals. Emphasizing the theories that build upon the developmental tradition established by Rousseau, this text also covers theories in the environmental/learning tradition.

If you have ambitions to build an Android app, this hands-on guide gives you everything you need to dig into the development process and turn your great idea into a reality! In this new edition of Android App Development For Dummies, you'll find easy-to-follow access to the latest programming techniques that take advantage of the new features of the Android operating system. Plus, two programs are provided: a simple program to get you started and an intermediate program that uses more advanced aspects of the Android platform.

Android mobile devices currently account for nearly 80% of mobile phone market share worldwide, making it the best platform to reach the widest possible audience. With the help of this friendly guide, developers of all stripes will quickly find out how to install the tools they need, design a good user interface, grasp the design differences between phone and tablet applications, handle user input, avoid common pitfalls, and turn a "meh" app into one that garners applause.

• Create seriously cool apps for the latest Android smartphones and tablets
• Adapt your existing apps for use on an Android device
• Start working with programs and tools to create Android apps
• Publish your apps to the Google Play Store

Whether you're a new or veteran programmer, Android App Development For Dummies will have you up and running with the ins and outs of the Android platform in no time.

Over 100 recipes to help you solve the most common problems faced by Android Developers today

About This Book

• Find the answers to your common Android programming problems, from set up to security, to help you deliver better applications, faster
• Uncover the latest features of Android Marshmallow to make your applications stand out
• Get up to speed with Android Studio 1.4 - the first Android Studio based on the IntelliJ IDE from JetBrains

Who This Book Is For

If you are new to Android development and want to take a hands-on approach to learning the framework, or if you are an experienced developer in need of clear working code to solve the many challenges in Android development, you can benefit from this book. Either way, this is a resource you'll want to keep at your desk for a quick reference to solve new problems as you tackle more challenging projects.

What You Will Learn

• Along with Marshmallow, get hands-on working with Google's new Android Studio IDE
• Develop applications using the latest Android framework while maintaining backward-compatibility with the support library
• Master Android programming best practices from the recipes
• Create exciting and engaging applications using knowledge gained from recipes on graphics, animations, and multimedia
• Work through succinct steps on specifics that will help you complete your project faster
• Keep your app responsive (and prevent ANRs) with examples on the AsynchTask class
• Utilize Google Speech Recognition APIs for your app.
• Make use of Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) to create Push Notifications for your users
• Get a better understanding of the Android framework through detailed explanations

In Detail

The Android OS has the largest installation base of any operating system in the world; there has never been a better time to learn Android development to write your own applications, or to make your own contributions to the open source community!

This “cookbook” will make it easy for you to jump to a topic of interest and get what you need to implement the feature in your own application. If you are new to Android and learn best by “doing,” then this book will provide many topics of interest.

Starting with the basics of Android development, we move on to more advanced concepts, and we'll guide you through common tasks developers struggle to solve. The first few chapters cover the basics including Activities, Layouts, Widgets, and the Menu. From there, we cover fragments and data storage (including SQLite), device sensors, the camera, and GPS. Then we move on more advanced topics such as graphics and animation (including OpenGL), multi-threading with AsyncTask, and Internet functionality with Volley. We'll also demonstrate Google Maps and Google Cloud Messaging (also known as Push Notifications) using the Google API Library.

Finally, we'll take a look at several online services designed especially for Android development. Take your application big-time with full Internet web services without having to become a server admin by leveraging the power of Backend as a Service (BaaS) providers.

Style and approach

This book progresses from the fundamentals of Android Development to more advanced concepts, with recipes to solve the most common problems faced by developers. This cookbook makes it easy to jump to specific topics of interest, where you'll find simple steps to implement the solution and get a clear explanation of how it works.

The popularity of the Android market is soaring with no sign of slowing down. The open nature of the Android OS offers programmers the freedom to access the platform's capabilities and this straightforward guide walks you through the steps for creating amazing Android applications. Android programming expert Donn Felker explains how to download the SDK, get Eclipse up and running, code Android applications, and submit your finished products to the Android Market. Featuring two sample programs, this introductory book explores everything from the simple basics to more advanced aspects of the Android platform.

• Takes you soup through nuts of developing applications for the Android platform
• Begins with downloading the SDK, then explains how to code Android applications and submit projects to the Android Market
• Written by Android guru Donn Felker, who breaks every aspect of developing applications for the Android platform into easily digestible pieces

No matter your level of programming experience, Android Application Development For Dummies is an ideal guide for getting started with developing applications for the Android platform.

Learn how to do more with the Android SDK with this advanced Android Application guide which shows you how to make even better Android apps that users will love

About This Book

• Learn how to design and build better Android apps to reach new users
• Explore the latest features and tools in the Android SDK that will help you become a better developer
• From concurrency to testing – through to adding adverts and billing, this book ties together every element to help you deliver a high-quality Android application on Google Play

Who This Book Is For

Mastering Android Application Development is intended for Android developers that want insight on and guidance through the steps they need to take to give their creations the edge in a competitive market.

What You Will Learn

• Create an Android project with Android M features
• Design the basic navigation for our app using the UI components
• Set up a cloud-based platform and store data on it
• Implement programming patterns such as Singleton and Observer to maintain your project code for future use
• Display lists and grids using Android RecyclerView
• Implement user interface components and make your app look professional
• Handle, download, and store images along with memory management
• Create the database and content providers to perform read-write operations
• Add notifications to the app and analytics to track the user's usage
• Show a Google map view on your app
• Configure minify to obfuscate the code
• Add adverts and create products for purchase in your app

In Detail

There are millions of Android apps out there for people to download – how do you make sure yours has the edge? It's not always about innovation and ideas – the most successful apps are those that are able to satisfy customer demands – they're the ones that look the best, the fastest, and the easiest and most intuitive to use.

This book shows you how to create Android applications that do precisely that – it has been designed help you consider and answer those questions throughout the development process, so you can create applications that stand out against the crowd. Learn how to create exemplary UIs that contribute to a satisfying user experience through the lens of Material Design, and explore how to harness the range of features within the Android SDK to help you. Dive deeper into complex programming concepts and discover how to leverage concurrency and navigate memory management and image handling. You'll also find further guidance on testing and debugging so you can guarantee that your application is reliable and robust for users.

Beyond this you'll find out how to extend your app and add greater functionality, including notifications, location services, adverts and app billing (essential if you want to properly monetize your creation!). To make sure you have confidence at every stage in the process, the book also shows you how to release your app to the Play store – to make sure your maximising your efforts to create a popular Android application!

Style and approach

This is a step-by-step guide where theory and practice are merged in a way that helps you to put a new concept into practice with ease. By helping to focus on the end result, and showing all the technical steps you need to get there, you will be poised for development success!

Key Features

• Get to grips with Python techniques that address commonly encountered problems in general application development.
• Develop, package, and deploy efficient applications in a fun way.
• All-practical coverage of the major areas of application development, including best practices, exception handling, testing, refactoring, design patterns, performance, and GUI application development.

Book Description

Python is one of the most widely used dynamic programming languages, supported by a rich set of libraries and frameworks that enable rapid development. But fast paced development often comes with its own baggage that could bring down the quality, performance, and extensibility of an application. This book will show you ways to handle such problems and write better Python applications.

From the basics of simple command-line applications, develop your skills all the way to designing efficient and advanced Python apps. Guided by a light-hearted fantasy learning theme, overcome the real-world problems of complex Python development with practical solutions. Beginning with a focus on robustness, packaging, and releasing application code, you'll move on to focus on improving application lifetime by making code extensible, reusable, and readable. Get to grips with Python refactoring, design patterns and best practices. Techniques to identify the bottlenecks and improve performance are covered in a series of chapters devoted to performance, before closing with a look at developing Python GUIs.

What you will learn

• Build a robust application by handling exceptions.
• Modularize, package, and release the source distribution.
• Document the code and implement coding standards.
• Create automated tests to catch bugs in the early development stage.
• Identify and re-factor badly written code to improve application life.
• Detect recurring problems in the code and apply design patterns.
• Improve code efficiency by identifying performance bottlenecks and fixing them.
• Develop simple GUI applications using Python.

About the Author

Ninad Sathaye has spent several years of his professional career designing and developing performance-critical engineering applications written in a variety of languages, including Python and C++. He has worked as a software architect in the semiconductor industry, and more recently in the domain of Internet of Things. He holds a master's degree in mechanical engineering.

Table of Contents

1. Developing Simple Applications
2. Dealing with Exceptions
3. Modularize, Package, Deploy!
4. Documentation and Best Practices
5. Unit Testing and Refactoring
6. Design Patterns
7. Performance – Identifying Bottlenecks
8. Improving Performance – Part One
9. Improving Performance – Part Two, NumPy and Parallelization
10. Simple GUI Applications