05 Prepare : Reading
Android Development
Objectives
Learn about Android Development.
Developing for Android
When Android development first became popular, developers had to use a collection of command-line tools to do Android development. One tool would let them configure an Android device for testing; another would compile their code; another would create the app package for testing, etc...
Over time, people wanted a real Android IDE, so Google teamed up with the people behind IntelliJ to create one. There are now two options. First, you can use the stand-alone Android Studio IDE, which is based on IntelliJ, but with some specific plugins added for Android Development. Second, you can continue to use IntelliJ with the Android development plugins turned on.
Since they are essentially the same software, there's no real difference between what you can accomplish. However, most tutorials and guides you will find online will assume you're using Android Studio, so that's what we'll use.
You are welcome to use IntelliJ, but if you do, you'll be mostly on your own.
Starting in 2019, Google announced that Kotlin was the preferred language for developing Android Apps. While there is still plenty of resources online for Java, you may notice that many examples are now provided in the Kotlin language. All the material in this course will be in Java.
Preparation Assignment
We've discussed before how the Java libraries and methods of doing things have evolved over the years. For example, the options available to you for reading from a file in Java 8 are much different than those that were available in Java 2.
This "progressive evolution" is even more remarkable in Android, because new versions of the framework come out almost every year. As with Java, there is a difference between the version number used for marketing, and the one used by internal frameworks (called the API Level). You'll need to be familiar with both.
Before Class, you should read some of the overview pages on the Android Developer website. The second link below will have you install Android Studio on your computer.
Read the Android Studio Overview to become aware of the features and structure of the tool.
Follow the instructions in this guide to install Android Studio.
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Read this introduction regarding Android activities.
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Read about how Android project code is structured.
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Look at this table showing how the version numbers and API Levels match up. (You don't need to memorize it, but keep it handy in case you're wondering when a specific feature was added.
As another option, you can find a free online book on Android Development at the BYU-Idaho library called Head First Android Development, 2nd Edition. You should use the 2nd Edition (2017) as it is written for Java.
Reading Quiz
Don't forget to take the Reading Quiz in I-Learn. This quiz can be taken as many times as you like, but you must score at least 90% to pass. If you fail the quiz, review the relevant parts of the reading and try again.
As before, one of the quiz questions is a "deep thought" question whose answer won't come directly from the reading.