Mobile application development
- 2. Agenda • Mobile Application Development (MAD) • Intro to Android platform • Platform architecture • Application Framework & API • Application building blocks • Development tools • Hello Android • Porting application to Mobile
- 3. Few reasons to go MAD. . . • Smart Phones – Internet access anywhere – Social networking – GPS and Google Maps • Millions of mobile users • Open standards
- 4. Introduction to Android • Open software platform for mobile development • A complete stack – OS, Middleware, Applications • An Open Handset Alliance (OHA) project • Powered by Linux operating system • Fast application development in Java • Open source under the Apache 2 license
- 6. Android APIs ❑ android.util ❑ android.os ❑ android.graphics ❑ android.text ❑ android.database ❑ android.content ❑ android.view ❑ android.widget ❑ com.google.android.maps android.app ❑ android.telephony ❑ android.webkit
- 7. Application building blocks • Activity • IntentReceiver • Service • ContentProvider
- 8. Activities • Typically correspond to one UI screen • But, they can: – Be faceless – Be in a floating window – Return a value – Activity refers to (J)Frame in Swing
- 9. Intents • Think of Intents as a verb and object; a description of what you want done – E.g. VIEW, CALL, PLAY etc.. • System matches Intent with Activity that can best provide the service • Activities and IntentReceivers describe what Intents they can service
- 10. Intent Recievers • Components that respond to broadcast ‘Intents’ • Way to respond to external notification or alarms • Apps can invent and broadcast their own Intent
- 11. Services • Faceless components that run in the background – E.g. music player, network download etc…
- 12. ContentProviders • Enables sharing of data across applications – E.g. address book, photo gallery • Provides uniform APIs for: – querying – delete, update and insert. • Content is represented by URI and MIME type
- 13. Android User Interfaces Hierarchy of Screen ElementsDifferent Layouts ▪Linear Layout ▪Absolute Layout ▪Table Layout
- 14. Comparing Android UI Elements to Swing UI Elements Comparing Android UI Elements to Swing UI Elements ❑Activities in Android refers almost to a (J)Frame in Swing. ❑Views in Android refers to (J)Components in Swing. ❑TextViews in Android refers to a (J)Labels in Swing. ❑EditTexts in Android refers to a (J)TextFields in Swing. ❑Buttons in Android refers to a (J)Buttons in Swing.
- 15. AndroidManfest.xml <manifest> This is the root node of each AndroisManifest.xml. It contains the package- attribute, which points to any package in out Activity. Other Activities-path will base relative to its value.
- 16. <application> Root element containing declarations of the application-level components contained in the package. This element can also include global and/or default attributes for the application, such as a label, icon,theme, required permission, etc.Quantity: 0 or 1. <activity> An Activity is the primary thing for an application to interact with the user. The initial screen the user sees when launching an application is an activity, and most other screens they use will be implemented as separate activities declared with additional activity tags. <intent-filter> Declares what kind of Intents a component supports. In addition to the various kinds of values that can be specified under this element, attributes can be given here to supply a unique label, icon, and other information for the action being described.
- 17. <action> An action-type that the component supports. Example: . <category> A category-type that the component supports. Example: Some other Tags Available…… <meta-data> <receiver> <service> <provider>
- 18. Application Development Steps • Download and Install the Android SDK and Test the Emulator. • Installing JDK and JRE(1.5 or above) • Install Eclipse. • Install ADT plugin for Eclipse Creating HelloWorld Application
- 19. Application development contd., New > Project… ➢Select Android project in wizard menu
- 21. Application development contd., Main Activity>> Main.xml>>
- 23. Application development contd., >>Running Your First Application
- 24. Application development contd., Output in the emulator
- 25. Application development contd., Uis using Java way
- 26. Porting Applications to Mobile • Resource files are bundled to .apk file archive • Bundled by aapt tool • One .apk file archive is a Single application
- 27. Interesting things to do • Android is open source • Opportunities for researchers • Get the source, compile and update the device image