E-Book Android - Pro Android

This book is for software developers interested in writing mobile applications with the Android SDK. Because Android is a fairly new technology, anyone interested in building mobile applications using the Java™ platform will also benefit from this book. In addition, software architects and business-development professionals can use this book to get an understanding of the Android Platform’s capabilities.











This book covers the Android SDK. It’s broken up into 13 chapters, as follows:

• Chapter 1, "Introducing the Android Computing Platform"
  This chapter introduces you to the Android Platform and its basic building blocks. It also gives you an overview of the Android subsystems by showing you the high-level packages within the Android SDK. Plus, we provide information on Android’s specialized virtual machine that addresses the limitations of handheld devices.
  
• Chapter 2, "Getting Your Feet Wet"
  In this chapter, we show you how to set up a development environment for Android programming. We then walk you through a basic application and introduce you to some of the Android components. We also cover the application lifecycle and familiarize you with some debugging tools.
  
• Chapter3, "Using Resources, Content Providers, and Intents"
  Here we cover several of the fundamental pillars of the Android Platform—resources, content providers, and intents. We explain what resources are and how they function in an Android application. We demonstrate how to use content providers as a mechanism for abstracting data into services. We define intents and show you how to use them as a generic way to request action.
  
• Chapter 4, "Building User Interfaces and Using Controls"
  This chapter is all about building user interfaces with the Android widget toolkit. We first cover building UIs programmatically, then cover Android’s preferred way of defining UIs-in XML layout files. We also discuss Android’s layout managers and view adapters. Plus, this chapter provides an introduction to the Hierarchy Viewer tool, which you use to optimize UIs.
  
• Chapter 5, "Working with Menus and Dialogs"
  Here we extend our discussion on UI programming in Android by talking about menus and dialogs. We show you Android’s philosophy on building menus, and then discuss the various types of menus available in the Android SDK. We also talk about dialog components.
  
• Chapter 6, "Unveiling 2D Animation"
  In this chapter, we discuss Android’s 2D animation capabilities. We show you how to animate views to make your applications more appealing. Specifically, we cover three categories of animation: frame-by-frame animation, layout animation, and view animation.
  
• Chapter 7, "Exploring Security and Location-Based Services"
  This chapter covers Android’s security model and location-based services. In the first part, we show you Android’s security requirements and then show you how to secure your applications. In the second part, we talk about location-based services, which is a fundamental aspect of a mobile device. We show you Android’s support for mapping and then show you how to customize a map with data specific to your application. We also cover geocoding in this chapter.
• Chapter 8, "Building and Consuming Services"
  This chapter is about building background services in Android. Here, we talk about building services that are local to your application, as well as remote services, services that can be consumed by other applications running on the device. Remote services are based on Android Interface Definition Language (AIDL), so we show you how to define AIDL types and files. We also describe how to pass types across process boundaries.
  
• Chapter 9, "Using the Media Framework and Telephony APIs"
  This chapter shows you how to build media-capable applications with the Android SDK. We talk about playing audio and video and then show you how to record audio. We cover text messaging in the telephony part of the chapter.
  
• Chapter 10, "Programming 3D Graphics with OpenGL"
  Here, you learn how to implement 3D graphics using OpenGL. We show you how to set up OpenGL with your applications and then cover the basics of OpenGL and OpenGL ES. We cover some of the essential OpenGL ES APIs and build a test harness that you can use to exercise those APIs.
  
• Chapter 11, "Managing and Organizing Preferences"
  In this chapter, we talk about Android’s preferences framework. We show you that Android has built-in support for displaying and persisting preferences. We discuss three types of UI elements: CheckBoxPreference, EditTextPreference, and Ringtone Preference. We also talk about organizing preferences within your applications.
  
• Chapter 12, "Coming to Grips with 1.5"
  Chapter 12 discusses some of the changes in the Android 1.5 SDK. Specifically, we talk about some of the SDK’s new tools and a few of the most exciting APIs. For example, you’ll learn about the new UI wizard that creates Android resources, the new speech-recognition intent, intents to record audio and video, video capture using the MediaRecorder, and more. You’ll also get a short introduction to Android’s input-method framework (IMF) implementation.
  
• Chapter 13, "Simplifying OpenGL and Exploring Live Folders"
  This chapter begins by covering the OpenGL-related changes in Android 1.5 and then discusses the new live-folder framework. As you’ll see, the Android 1.5 SDK offers some additional abstractions to the OpenGL APIs that make it easier for you to build applications that utilize 3D graphics. We also talk at length about a new concept called live folders, which allow you to expose content providers such as contacts, notes, and media on the device’s default opening screen.
  

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