Android User Interface Development: Beginners Guide

304 Pages·2011·4.26 MB·English

by  Jason Morris

Android User Interface
Development
Beginner's Guide
Quickly design and develop compelling user interfaces for
your Android applications
Jason Morris
Android User Interface Development
Beginner's Guide
Copyright © 2011 Packt Publishing
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First published: February 2011
Production Reference: 1160211
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
32 Lincoln Road
Olton
Birmingham, B27 6PA, UK.
ISBN 978-1-849514-48-4
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Cover Image by Charwak A ([e-mail])
Credits
Author Editorial Team Leader
Jason Morris Akshara Aware
Reviewers Project Team Leader
David J. Groom Priya Mukherji
Martin Skans
Project Coordinator
Acquisition Editor Shubhanjan Chatterjee
Chaitanya Apte
Proofreader
Development Editor Joel T. Johnson
Reshma Sundaresan
Graphics
Technical Editor Nilesh R. Mohite
Harshit Shah
Production Coordinators
Copy Editor Kruthika Bangera
Neha Shetty Aparna Bhagat
Indexer Cover Work
Tejal Daruwale Kruthika Bangera
About the Author
Jason Morris has worked on software as diverse as fruit tracking systems, insurance
systems, and travel search and booking engines. He has been writing software for as long
as he can remember. He is currently working as a Software Architect for Travelstart in South
Africa. He works on multiple front-end and middleware systems, leveraging a variety of Java
based technologies.
The people I'd like to thank most for their direct, or indirect help in writing
this book are my wife Caron Morris, my father Mike Morris, my mom Jayne
Morris, and the rest of my family for their love and support. I'd also like
to thank Wayne, Stuart, Angela, and James, and everyone on my team at
Travelstart. Finally a very big thanks to Martin Skans for his invaluable input.
About the Reviewer
Martin Skans graduated from Lund University in Sweden, with a Master's degree in
Computer Science. After a couple of years in the online marketing industry, he moved on to
become a developer for Travelstart, an online travel agency. He relocated to Cape Town and
is currently working on Travelstart's African travel platform which has been recently launched
for the mobile market.
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Table of Contents
Preface 1
Chapter 1: Developing a Simple Activity 11
Developing our first example 11
Creating the project structure 12
Time for action – setting up the Android SDK 12
Time for action – starting a new project 13
Examining the Android project layout 14
Time for action – running the example project 14
The screen layout 15
The layout XML file 16
Resource selection qualifiers 16
Time for action – setting up the question activity 18
Populating a View and a ViewGroup 19
Time for action – asking a question 19
Time for action – adding a space for answers 21
Time for action – adding more buttons 23
Defining common dimensions 25
Limitations of the layout XML format 27
Populating the QuestionActivity 29
Time for action – writing more Java code 30
Dynamically creating widgets 32
Time for action – putting the questions on the screen 32
Handling events in Android 34
Summary 36
Chapter 2: Presenting Data for Views 37
Listing and selecting data 38
ListView choice modes 38
No selection mode – CHOICE_MODE_NONE 38
Single selection mode – CHOICE_MODE_SINGLE 39
Multiple selection mode – CHOICE_MODE_MULTIPLE 40
Table of Contents
Adding header and footer widgets 40
Creating a simple ListView 41
Time for action – creating a fast food menu 41
Styling the standard ListAdapters 43
Defining standard dimensions 43
Time for action – improving the restaurant list 44
Creating custom adapters 47
Creating a menu for The Burger Place 47
Time for action – creating a Burger item layout 48
Time for action – presenting Burger objects 50
Creating TheBurgerPlaceActivity class 52
Time for action – implementing TheBurgerPlaceActivity 53
Registering and starting TheBurgerPlaceActivity 54
Using the ExpandableListView class 56
Creating ExpandableListAdapter implementations 57
Using the GridView class 58
Time for action – creating the fruit icon 59
Displaying icons in a GridView 60
Time for action – building the fruit menu 61
Time for action – creating the FourBucketsActivity 62
Summary 64
Chapter 3: Developing with Specialized Android Widgets 67
Creating a restaurant review application 68
Time for action – creating the robotic review project structure 68
Building a TabActivity 70
Creating tab icons 70
Android tabs and icons 71
Implementing the ReviewActivity 72
Time for action – writing the ReviewActivity class 72
Time for action – creating the Review layout 74
Working with switcher classes 75
Time for action – turning on the TextSwitcher 76
Creating a simple photo gallery 78
Time for action – building the Photos tab 79
Creating a thumbnail widget 80
Implementing a GalleryAdapter 80
Time for action – the GalleryAdapter 81
Time for action – making the gallery work 83
Building the reservation tab 86
Time for action – implementing the reservation layout 86
Time for action – initializing the reservation tab 89
[ ii ]
Table of Contents
Time for action – listening to the SeekBar 92
Time for action – selecting date and time 93
Creating complex layouts with Include, Merge, and ViewStubs 96
Using Include tags 97
Merging layouts 97
Using the ViewStub class 99
Summary 100
Chapter 4: Leveraging Activities and Intents 103
Exploring the Activity class 104
Using Bundle objects 105
Time for action – building an example game: "guess my number" 106
Creating and consuming intents 110
Defining Intent actions 111
Passing data in an Intent 112
Adding extra data to an Intent 112
Using advanced Intent features 113
Getting data back from an Intent 113
Time for action – viewing phone book contacts 114
Summary 118
Chapter 5: Developing Non-linear Layouts 119
Time for action – creating a layouts example project 120
FrameLayout 121
Common uses 121
Time for action – developing a FrameLayout example 122
Table Layout 126
Common uses 127
Using TableLayout for a memory game 127
Time for action – developing a simple memory game 128
AbsoluteLayout/Custom Layouts 133
Developing your own Layouts 134
Time for action – creating a custom layout 134
Using the CircleLayout 137
Time for action – finishing the CircleLayout example 137
RelativeLayout 140
Common uses 140
Integrating the RelativeLayout 141
Time for action – creating a contact editor 141
Time for action – integration with the layout example 144
SlidingDrawer 146
Common uses 146
[ iii ]