Android Programming Tutorial
Rong Zheng
Outline
¤ What is Android OS
¤ Setup your development environment
¤ GUI
¤ Layouts
¤ Activity life cycle
¤ Event handling
¤ Tasks
¤ Intent and broadcast receiver
¤ Resource
What is Android
¤ Linux-based OS
¤ Dalvik virtual
machine running
dex-code translated
from Java
Setup
What you need
¤ JDK 6
¤ IDE
¤ ADT (Android Development Tool) bundle ✔
or
¤ Eclipse + ADT plug-in + Android SDK
or
¤ Android studio
¤ Download earlier SDK versions using SDK manager if
needed
Android Virtual Device (AVD)
¤ Android emulator allows
development w/o physical
device
¤ Tend to be slow when launched
the first time
¤ Can emulate network, camera
and storage
¤ No support for WiFi, Bluetooth,
most hardware sensors
¤ Possible alternatives:
¤ Genymotion (previously
AndroVM), Manymo, …
Demo: create a new AVD
Android App Essentials
¤ Layout
¤ View objects: UI widgets such as buttons, text box etc.
¤ Positioning view objects on the screen
¤ View group: invisible view containers that defines how the
child views are laid out
¤ Activity
¤ Implements the real logic behind the application
¤ There could be multiple activities
Activity life cycle
¤ Screen rotation
¤ Application paused,
stopped and restarted
¤ onCreate() called
¤ Press home button
¤ Activity paused, onPause
(), onStop() called;
onRestart() called when
restarted
¤ Press back button
¤ Activity destroyed,
onPause(), onStop,
onDestroy()
Example: Network tester
¤ Display the network configuration
¤ Ping [Link]
¤ Download a file from a fixed URL and determine the downloading speed
Step 1: Create an Android Project
¤ New New Android Application
Step 2: Lay out UI
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="[Link]
xmlns:tools="[Link]
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:paddingBottom="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
android:paddingLeft="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
android:paddingRight="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
android:paddingTop="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
tools:context=".MainActivity" >
<LinearLayout
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:orientation="vertical" >
<Button
android:id="@+id/netinfo_button"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="Show Network Configuration" />
<Button
android:id="@+id/ping_button"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="Ping" />
<Button
android:id="@+id/fd_button"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="File Download" />
<TextView
android:id="@+id/text_display"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:maxLines="100"
android:padding="24dp"
android:scrollbars="vertical" />
</LinearLayout>
<ProgressBar
android:id="@+id/test_progressBar"
style="?android:attr/progressBarStyleHorizontal"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentBottom="true"
android:layout_margin="10dp"
android:visibility="invisible"/>
</RelativeLayout>
Step 3: From Layout to View Objects
¤ setContentView([Link].activity_main) inflates a layout
and put on screen
¤ [Link].activity_main is a resource id
¤ @+id/resource_id automatically creates the resource id
¤ Wire up widgets
¤ Get the references
¤ public View findViewById( int id)
¤ Set listeners
AsyncTask
¤ Network operations typically take time to complete
¤ AsyncTask allows operations running in the background and
publishing the results on the UI thread
¤ Do not block the UI thread!
¤ Do not access the Android UI toolkits from outside the UI thread
¤ Implement a class that extends AsyncTask<Param, Progress,
Result>
¤ Params, the type of the parameters sent to the task upon
execution.
¤ Progress, the type of the progress units published during the
background computation.
¤ Result, the type of the result of the background computation
AsyncTask (cont)
¤ doInBackground(Void... params)
¤ What to do in the background
¤ protected void onProgressUpdate(Void... progress)
¤ Run in the UI thread
¤ Invoked by publishProgress in the doInBackground
¤ protected void onPostExecute(Void result)
¤ Run in the UI thread
¤ protected void onPreExecute()
¤ Set up the task
Example code
Little tricks
¤ Can execute shell commands from Android app
¤ [Link]().exec(Cmd)
¤ Disable screen rotation
<activity android:name="[Link]"
android:label="@string/app_name"
android:screenOrientation="portrait">
Little tricks (cont’d)
¤ User handler to cancel an AsyncTask after some time
¤ public final boolean postDelayed (Runnable r, long
delayMillis)
Handler handler = new Handler();
[Link](new Runnable() {
@Override public void run() {
if ([Link]() == [Link])
[Link](true);}}, 60000);
¤ Use toast for notification
[Link]([Link], "Opps...", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT)
.show();
Intent and broadcast receiver
¤ Intent is a mechanism in Android to allow late binding of
components within and across applications
¤ Message passing
Intent Broadcast intent
Your application
Intent(DO_SOMETHING) Intent(DO_SOMETHING)
Android OS
(any app)
Broadcast receiver
¤ Allows to register for system wide or application events
¤ ACTION_BATTERY_LOW, ACTION_HEADSET_PLUG,
ACTION_SCREEN_ON, ACTION_TIMEZONE_CHANGED,
WifiManager.SCAN_RESULTS_AVAILABLE_ACTION, etc
1. Step1: extend a broadcast receiver class and override
onReceive(Context c, Intent intent) method
2. Step 2: register the receiver(BroadcastReceiver receiver,
IntentFilter filter)
3. Step 3: change [Link] to add the
permission
Example
if (mReceiverWifi == null)
mReceiverWifi = new WifiReceiver();
registerReceiver(mReceiverWifi, new IntentFilter(
WifiManager.NETWORK_STATE_CHANGED_ACTION));
description of Intent values to
be matched
private class WifiReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver {
public void onReceive(Context c, Intent intent) {
NetworkInfo info = (NetworkInfo)[Link]().getParcelable("networkInfo");
[Link]([Link]().toString());
};
}
Resource
¤ ADT bundle
[Link]
¤ ADT Eclipse Plug-in
[Link]
¤ Android API
[Link]