Android Application Development A Beginner’s Tutorial Budi Kurniawan Android Application Development: A Beginner’s Tutorial First Edition: February 2015 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. ISBN: 9780992133016 Indexer: Chris Mayle Trademarks Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or it’s affiliates UNIX is a registered trademark of the Open Group Apache is a trademark of The Apache Software Foundation. Firefox is a registered trademark of the Mozilla Foundation. Google is a trademark of Google, Inc. Throughout this book the printing of trademarked names without the trademark symbol is for editorial purpose only. We have no intention of infringement of the trademark. Warning and Disclaimer Every effort has been made to make this book as accurate as possible. The author and the publisher shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damages arising from the information in this book. About the Author Budi Kurniawan is known for his clear writing style. A consultant at Brainy Software Corp., he has written software licensed by Fortune 100 companies and architected and developed large scale applications for various organizations around the world. He has also published more than 100 articles in prestigious publications. His other books include the popular “How Tomcat Works” and “Servlet and JSP: A Tutorial.” Table of Contents Introduction Overview Application Development in Brief Android Versions Online Reference Which Java Versions Can I Use? About This Book Code Download Chapter 1: Getting Started Downloading and Installing Android Studio Creating An Application Running the Application on the Emulator The Application Structure Debuging Your Application The Android SDK Manager Creating An Android Virtual Device Running An Application on A Physical Device Opening A Project in Android Studio Using Java 8 Getting Rid of the Support Library Summary Chapter 2: Activities The Activity Lifecycle ActivityDemo Example Changing the Application Icon Using Android Resources Starting Another Activity Activity-Related Intents Summary Chapter 3: UI Components Overview Using the Android Studio UI Tool Using Basic Components Toast AlertDialog Notifications Summary Chapter 4: Layouts Overview LinearLayout RelativeLayout FrameLayout TableLayout Grid Layout Creating A Layout Programmatically Summary Chapter 5: Listeners Overview Using the onClick Attribute Implementing A Listener Summary Chapter 6: The Action Bar Overview Adding Action Items Adding Dropdown Navigation Going Back Up Summary Chapter 7: Menus Overview The Menu File The Options Menu The Context Menu The Popup Menu Summary Chapter 8: ListView Overview Creating A ListAdapter Using A ListView Extending ListActivity and Writing A Custom Adapter Styling the Selected Item Summary Chapter 9: GridView Overview Using the GridView Summary Chapter 10: Styles and Themes Overview Using Styles Using Themes Summary Chapter 11: Bitmap Processing Overview Bitmap Processing Summary Chapter 12: Graphics and Custom Views Overview Hardware Acceleration Creating A Custom View Drawing Basic Shapes Drawing Text Transparency Shaders Clipping Using Paths The CanvasDemo Application Summary Chapter 13: Fragments The Fragment Lifecycle Fragment Management Using A Fragment Extending ListFragment and Using FragmentManager Summary Chapter 14: Multi-Pane Layouts Overview A Multi-Pane Example Summary Chapter 15: Animation Overview Property Animation An Animation Project Summary Chapter 16: Preferences SharedPreferences The Preference API Using Preferences Summary Chapter 17: Working with Files Overview Creating a Notes Application Accessing the Public Storage Summary Chapter 18: Working with the Database Overview The Database API Example Summary Chapter 19: Taking Pictures Overview Using Camera The Camera API Using the Camera API Summary Chapter 20: Making Videos Using the Built-in Intent MediaRecorder Using MediaRecorder Summary Chapter 21: The Sound Recorder The MediaRecorder Class Example Summary Chapter 22: Handling the Handler Overview Example Summary Chapter 23: Asynchronous Tasks Overview Example Summary Chapter 24: Services Overview The Service API Declaring A Service A Service Example Summary Chapter 25: Broadcast Receivers Overview BroadcastReceiver-based Clock Canceling A Notification Summary Chapter 26: The Alarm Service Overview Example Summary Chapter 27: Content Providers Overview The ContentProvider Class Creating A Content Provider Consuming A Content Provider Summary Appendix A: Installing the JDK Downloading and Installing the JDK Appendix B: Using the ADT Bundle Installing the ADT Creating An Application Running An Application on An Emulator Logging Debugging An Application Introduction This book is for you if you want to learn Android application development for smart phones and tablets. Android is the most popular mobile platform today and it comes with a comprehensive set of APIs that make it easy for developers to write, test and deploy apps. With these APIs you can easily show user interface (UI) components, play and record audio and video, create games and animation, store and retrieve data, search the Internet, and so on. The software development kit (SDK) for Android application development is free and includes an emulator, a computer program that can be configured to mimic a hardware device. This means, you can develop, debug and test your applications without physical devices. This introduction provides an overview of the Android platform and the contents of the book. Overview The Android operating system is a multi-user Linux system. Each application runs as a different user in a separate Linux process. As such, an application runs in isolation from other apps. One of the reasons for Android’s rapid ascent to the top is the fact that it uses Java as its programming language. But, is Android really Java? The answer is yes and no. Yes, Java is the default programming language for Android application development. No, Android applications do not run on a Java Virtual Machine as all Java applications do. Instead, up to Android version 4.4 all Android applications run on a virtual machine called Dalvik. In version 5.0 and later, Android sources are ultimately compiled to machine code and applications run with a new runtime called ART (Android Runtime). Android 4.4 was the turning point and shipped with both Dalvik and ART. As for the development process, initially code written in Java is compiled to Java bytecode. The bytecode is then cross-compiled to a dex (Dalvik executable) file that contains one or multiple Java classes. The dex file, resource files and other files are then packaged using the apkbuilder tool into an apk file, which is basically a zip file that can be extracted using unzip or Winzip. APK, by the way, stands for application package. The apk file is how you deploy your app. Anyone who gets a copy of it can install and run it on his or her Android device. In pre-5.0 versions of Android, the apk file run on Dalvik. In version 5.0 and later, the dex file in the apk is converted into machine code when the application is installed. The machine code is executed when the user runs the application. All of this is transparent to the developer and you do not have to understand intimately the dex format or the internal working of the runtime. An apk file can run on a physical device or the emulator. Deploying an Android application is easy. You can make the apk file available for download and download it with an Android device to install it. You can also email the apk file to yourself and open