Android Lad Ohm

WHAT IS ANDYBANDY APP FOR?

noreply@blogger.com (futorapps) — Wed, 7 Oct 2020 03:15:00 -0700

AndyBandy is a short video app that gives you the best camera and video editing features along with cool stickers, filters, face mask, lipsync, Viral audio, You use local audio files also, slideshow with cool video frames, etc.

Furthermore, AndyBandy is a social networking app, where anybody can showcase their talent to AndyBandy's reach community. AndyBandy is not new in India but working for several communities to spread joy and happiness and to cultivate it further, we decided to prepared this beautiful app for you. AndyBandy will help you reach likewise people or fans so that your fan following will increase as long as you publish intuitive and entertaining videos on the platform.

✈️Trending channels on Andy bandy:✈️

🙏🏻 Wishes & Quotes
🎬 Entertainment
🤪 Funny Videos
👻 WhatsApp Status & Instagram Story Videos
🎥 Short Videos
🎬 Cinema & TV Gossips
🔮 Astrology
🎥 Devotional Videos
💃 Fashion
🥊 Health & Fitness
🎤 Trending News
📲 Status and Stories

AndyBandy is Noida, India-based company and it cares for user personal data and there posted content. We will help your video to wings so that it can better reach a wider audience and it can get viral to other social media. You can download it from the google play store, hurry up millions of people already using the app.

Jai Hind Jai Bharat!!

'Made in India ' Best short video apps grabs the attention of TikTok influencers?

noreply@blogger.com (futorapps) — Tue, 6 Oct 2020 10:48:00 -0700

TikTok had become one of the largest video-sharing platforms in the world but after realization of the security thread, its rule was being challenged by several countries such as India where the app had been banned in June 2020. Then several small and big Indian companies started developing short video app to grab the opportunity which was eventually created by Tiktok, Likee, and other similar Chinese apps ban. Apart from this, the talent will win and users will find another alternative to this great music video app. Let’s take a look at the best apps that are some of the best ways to TikTok and easily accessible on the Android Play store.

1. Moj: Short Video App

The app was created by Sharechat and offering Videos, cartoons, funny videos. You can Watch all the entertaining videos here.

People from all over the world gather on Moj app to meet interesting people and watch interesting short videos. Get a chance to meet tens of millions of talented artists from around the world on Moj app, but also get to make friends with young people from your city or near you!

2. Andy Bandy: Short Video App

The app was created by AndyBandy itself one of the experienced organizations particularly in the video editing and mobile app development section.

AndyBandy is India's favorite video creation and sharing app. You can use AndyBandy available in multiple languages.

 Enjoy countless original entertainment including interesting stand-up comedy videos & photos with funny greetings & wishes & make them go viral among a huge audience in India. Download/Save & share your favorite comedy trending on videos & photos on Whatsapp, Whatsapp status, and other social media platforms.

3. Mx Takatak :

If you are a fan of android supported mobile devices then you must have heard of Mx Player, one of the best organizations in the VideoPlayer for mobile devices.

4. Josh - Made in India | Short Video App

Josh is ‘Made in India’ app for creators of the world! Josh has got amazing Camera with cool features like – Filters, Slow Motion, thousands of background sounds, and many more which lets you shoot cool and amazing Videos.

5. Chingari - Original Indian Short Video App

Your hot new stage to set the world on fire with your flaming talent, be creative with WhatsApp status, Videos, Audio clips, Gif stickers, and photos.

These are the best and quality apps right now but you guys can search more for the other options. However, Snack video, Instagram, Youtube Shorts also doing fine but I personally feel that we should only support Indian apps only.

That is all for the day. Jai Hind Jai Bharat 👏

Architecture Components in android with example

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 8 Nov 2017 09:24:00 -0800

Architecture Components( Part of Android Jetpack) at Google I/O to provide guidance on app architecture, with libraries for common tasks like lifecycle management and data persistence.

Architecture Components provide a simple, flexible and practical approach that frees developers from some common problems so they can focus on building great experiences. This is based on core building blocks tied together by guidance on app architecture.

Lifecycles:
Every Android developer has to deal with the operating system starting, stopping and destroying their Activities. That means managing the state of components - such as observables used to update UI - as you move through the lifecycle. Lifecycles enable the creation of lifecycle-aware components that manage their own lifecycles, reducing the possibility of leaks or crashes. The Lifecycle library is the foundation for other Architecture Components like LiveData.

LiveData:
LiveData is a lifecycle-aware observable that holds data and provides updates. Your UI code subscribes to changes and provides LiveData a reference to its Lifecycle. Because LiveData is lifecycle-aware, it provides updates when its Lifecycle is started or resumed but stops providing updates when the LifecycleOwner is destroyed. LiveData is a simple way to build reactive UIs that are safer and more performant.

ViewModel:
ViewModel separates ownership of view data and logic from lifecycle-bound entities like Activities and Fragments. A ViewModel is retained until its associated Activity or Fragment is disposed of forever - that means to view data survive events like a Fragment being recreated due to the rotation. ViewModels not only eliminate common lifecycle issues, but they also help build UIs that are more modular and easier to test.

Room:
Nearly all apps need to store data locally. While Android has bundled SQLite with the platform since version 1, using it directly can be painful. The room is a simple object-mapping layer that provides the full power of SQLite with less boilerplate. Features like compile-time query verification and built-in migration make it easier to build a robust persistence layer, while integration with LiveData lets Room provide database-backed, lifecycle-aware observables. Room blends of simplicity, power, and robustness for managing local storage, and we hope you give it a try.

What’s new with Room?
The room is not a new database it just provides an abstraction layer over the existing SQLite database which is available since from Android 1.0 but the new features that it provides are the way to store, retrieve and modify data to the database. It also offers to compile-time check for the table name, column name and live monitoring for database changes using LiveData.

Source Code

Please let me know your review on this.

WhatsApp delete for everyone feature roll out : How to activate this "delete for everyone" feature

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 1 Nov 2017 12:17:00 -0700

WhatsApp has officially rolled out ‘Delete for everyone’ feature globally for Android, iOS, and Windows users. It lets people delete sent messages, including media within seven minutes of sending them. For ‘Delete for everyone’ to work, both sender must be using the latest version of WhatsApp app only. The feature is quite useful when it comes to recalling messages that contain a mistake, have been accidentally sent, or were meant for someone else. It works for individual as well as group chats.

WhatsApp ‘Delete for Everyone’ is easy to use. Just keep in mind you can recall messages within seven minutes, and no longer than that. Both recipient and sender will replaced deleted message with this message has been deleted .

So how can one delete messages for everyone in the group? To get started, just tap and hold the message that you want to delete, in chat window. Next, choose Delete from the menu. You can select multiple messages to delete for everyone as well. Finally tap ‘Delete for Everyone’ and you’re done. Once message is deleted for everyone, you will get a message that reads, "You deleted this message." The recipient, on the other hand, will get a notification saying, "This message was deleted."

WhatsApp’s ‘Delete for everyone’ was anticipated for quite some time now. The Facebook-owned company was previously testing the feature, and it was said to remotely enable it for users. Deleting message for everyone should come as a relief to people who have a habit of mistakenly sending messages to wrong contacts when in a hurry.

What is AsycTask and How to use it - Chapter 7

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 27 Oct 2017 10:23:00 -0700

If you are new to android then please start learn HOW TO START ANDROID APP DEVELOPMENT

The AsyncTask class allows to run instructions in the background and to synchronize again with the main thread. It also reporting progress of the running tasks. AsyncTasks should be used for short background operations which need to update the user interface.

To use AsyncTask you must subclass it. The parameters are the following AsyncTask <TypeOfVarArgParams, ProgressValue, ResultValue>.

An AsyncTask is started via the execute() method. This execute() method calls the doInBackground() and the onPostExecute() method.

TypeOfVarArgParams is passed into the doInBackground() method as input. ProgressValue is used for progress information and ResultValue must be returned from doInBackground() method. This parameter is passed to onPostExecute() as a parameter.

The doInBackground() method contains the coding instruction which should be performed in a background thread. This method runs automatically in a separate Thread.

The onPostExecute() method synchronizes itself again with the user interface thread and allows it to be updated. This method is called by the framework once the doInBackground() method finishes.

AsyncTask flow

****AsyncTaskActivity.java ****

import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.AsyncTask;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.provider.Settings.System;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.Button;
import android.widget.TextView;
import android.view.View.OnClickListener;

public class AsyncTaskActivity extends Activity implements OnClickListener {

    Button btn;

    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.main);
        btn = (Button) findViewById(R.id.button1);
        // because we implement OnClickListener we only have to pass "this"
        // (much easier)
        btn.setOnClickListener(this);
    }

    public void onClick(View view) {
        // detect the view that was "clicked"
        switch (view.getId()) {
        case R.id.button1:
            new LongOperation().execute("");
            break;
        }
    }

    private class LongOperation extends AsyncTask<String, Void, String> {

        @Override
        protected String doInBackground(String... params) {
            for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
                try {
                    Thread.sleep(1000);
                } catch (InterruptedException e) {
                    Thread.interrupted();
                }
            }
            return "Executed";
        }

        @Override
        protected void onPostExecute(String result) {
            TextView txt = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.output);
            txt.setText("Executed"); // txt.setText(result);
            // might want to change "executed" for the returned string passed
            // into onPostExecute() but that is upto you
        }

        @Override
        protected void onPreExecute() {}

        @Override
        protected void onProgressUpdate(Void... values) {}
    }
}

****main.xml****

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
              android:layout_width="fill_parent"
              android:layout_height="fill_parent"
              android:orientation="vertical" >
    <ProgressBar
        android:id="@+id/progressBar"
        style="?android:attr/progressBarStyleHorizontal"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:indeterminate="false"
        android:max="10"
        android:padding="10dip">
    </ProgressBar>
    <Button
        android:id="@+id/button1"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="Start Progress" >
    </Button>
    <TextView android:id="@+id/output"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="Replace"/>
</LinearLayout>

If you find it useful then comment below.

Android activity life cycle - Chapter 6

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 27 Oct 2017 10:23:00 -0700

If you are new to android then please start learn HOW TO START ANDROID APP DEVELOPMENT

What is activity:
An activity is a single, focused thing that the user can do. Almost all activities interact with the user, so the Activity class takes care of creating a window for you in which you can place your UI with setContentView(View). While activities are often presented to the user as full-screen windows, they can also be used in other ways: as floating windows (via a theme with windowIsFloating set) or embedded inside of another activity (using ActivityGroup).

Activity LifeCycle Diagram

onCreate():

Called when the activity is first created. This is where you should do all of your normal static set up: create views, bind data to lists, etc. This method also provides you with a Bundle containing the activity's previously frozen state, if there was one. Always followed by onStart().

onRestart():

Called after your activity has been stopped, prior to it being started again. Always followed by onStart()
onStart():

Called when the activity is becoming visible to the user. Followed by onResume() if the activity comes to the foreground, or onStop() if it becomes hidden.

onResume():

Called when the activity will start interacting with the user. At this point your activity is at the top of the activity stack, with user input going to it. Always followed by onPause().

onPause ():

Called as part of the activity lifecycle when an activity is going into the background, but has not (yet) been killed. The counterpart to onResume(). When activity B is launched in front of activity A, this callback will be invoked on A. B will not be created until A's onPause() returns, so be sure to not do anything lengthy here.
onStop():

Called when you are no longer visible to the user. You will next receive either onRestart(), onDestroy(), or nothing, depending on later user activity.

Note that this method may never be called, in low memory situations where the system does not have enough memory to keep your activity's process running after its onPause() method is called.

onDestroy():

The final call you receive before your activity is destroyed. This can happen either because the activity is finishing (someone called finish() on it, or because the system is temporarily destroying this instance of the activity to save space. You can distinguish between these two scenarios with the isFinishing() method.

When the Activity first time loads the events are called as below:
onCreate()
|
|
v
onStart()
|
|
v
onResume()

When you click on Phone button the Activity goes to the background and the below events are called:
onPause()
|
|
v
onStop()

Exit the phone dialer and the below events will be called:
onRestart()
|
|
v
onStart()
|
|
v
onResume()

When you click the back button OR try to finish() the activity the events are called as below:
onPause()
|
|
v
onStop()
|
|
v
onDestroy()

Activity States

The Android OS uses a priority queue to assist in managing activities running on the device. Based on the state a particular Android activity is in, it will be assigned a certain priority within the OS. This priority system helps Android identify activities that are no longer in use, allowing the OS to reclaim memory and resources. The following diagram illustrates the states an activity can go through, during its lifetime:

These states can be broken into three main groups as follows:

Active or Running - Activities are considered active or running if they are in the foreground, also known as the top of the activity stack. This is considered the highest priority activity in the Android Activity stack, and as such will only be killed by the OS in extreme situations, such as if the activity tries to use more memory than is available on the device as this could cause the UI to become unresponsive.

Paused - When the device goes to sleep, or an activity is still visible but partially hidden by a new, non-full-sized or transparent activity, the activity is considered paused. Paused activities are still alive, that is, they maintain all state and member information, and remain attached to the window manager. This is considered to be the second highest priority activity in the Android Activity stack and, as such, will only be killed by the OS if killing this activity will satisfy the resource requirements needed to keep the Active/Running Activity stable and responsive.

Stopped - Activities that are completely obscured by another activity are considered stopped or in the background. Stopped activities still try to retain their state and member information for as long as possible, but stopped activities are considered to be the lowest priority of the three states and, as such, the OS will kill activities in this state first to satisfy the resource requirements of higher priority activities.

*Sample activity to understand the life cycle**

import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.util.Log;
public class MainActivity extends Activity {
    String tag = "LifeCycleEvents";
    /** Called when the activity is first created. */
    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
       super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
       setContentView(R.layout.main);
       Log.d(tag, "In the onCreate() event");
    }
    public void onStart()
    {
       super.onStart();
       Log.d(tag, "In the onStart() event");
    }
    public void onRestart()
    {
       super.onRestart();
       Log.d(tag, "In the onRestart() event");
    }
    public void onResume()
    {
       super.onResume();
       Log.d(tag, "In the onResume() event");
    }
    public void onPause()
    {
       super.onPause();
       Log.d(tag, "In the onPause() event");
    }
    public void onStop()
    {
       super.onStop();
       Log.d(tag, "In the onStop() event");
    }
    public void onDestroy()
    {
       super.onDestroy();
       Log.d(tag, "In the onDestroy() event");
    }
}

Source

How to Use Selfiestan : The Photo Editor

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 21 Sep 2017 04:45:00 -0700

Photo Editor by Selfiestan is a photo-editing app with all the tools you need to make your photos look beautiful. Here’s a guide on how to use Photo Editor by Selfiestan and all its features.

1. Download the Photo Editor by Selfiestan

Head on over to the Play Store or App Store and download the Photo Editor by Selfiestan app. Once the app has been downloaded, open up the app and take a picture or select a photo from your image gallery that you want to edit.

Availability: Free on Google Play

2. Start Editing Your Photos

To start editing your photos, simply tap on the photo you want to edit, and you will see a variety of editing tools at the bottom of the screen. By scrolling to the right, you will see editing tools that will let you enhance your photos, add Effects, Frames, Stickers, Crop, Focus, change Orientation and Brightness. You can also find options to change the Contrast, Saturation, Warmth, Sharpness, Splash, Draw, Text, Fix redeye, Blur, etc.

3. Add Frames

photo-editor-by-selfiestan-frames

When you first tap on ‘Frames,’ you will have pre installed a free pack of stickers. By scrolling to the right, you will see a variety of black and white frames you can apply to your photos. Once the frames have installed, just scroll through and pick the frame you think looks best.

4. Add Stickers

photo-editor-by-selfiestan-stickers

You can get creative with your photos by adding stickers. When you first tap on ‘Stickers,’ you will have pre installed a free pack of stickers. The free pack of stickers includes hats, eyewear, neckwear, speech bubbles, shapes, accessories and more.

5. Add Text

photo-editor-by-selfiestan-text

If you like to add text to your images, Photo Editor by Selfiestan lets you add text in different color such as black, white, red , orange, yellow, green, blue purple, pink and more. Tap on ‘Text’ icon and select the color you prefer and start typing on the image where it says ‘Enter text here.’ You can resize the text by tapping on the ‘Arrow’ icon in the bottom right-hand corner of the text box. When you’re done typing the text, just tap the image itself and tap ‘Apply,’ in the top right-hand corner.

6. Draw on Images

To draw on images, just tap on ‘Draw.’ Choose the color you want to draw and select the size of drawing tool you want to use. If you mess up, dont worry. Just tap the eraser icon and you can start erasing.

7. Create Memes

If you want to create a meme, simply select the image you want to use, scroll to ‘Meme’ and add text in the boxes that are labeled, ‘Enter Top Text’ and ‘Enter Bottom Text.’ Wnen you’re all done adding text, tap ‘Apply’ in the top right-hand corner.

8. Share Your Photos

Sharing photos with your friends and family is easy. After you’re done applying all of the necessary edits to your photo, tap ‘Apply,’ and tap ‘Done.’ You can share your photos via email and on Twitter, Google+, Google Drive, Google Hangouts and Google Keep.

Best Photo Editing Apps For Android : The Top 10

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 21 Sep 2017 03:45:00 -0700

One of the most widely used feature in smartphones is snapping photos and sharing them with your friends and family members. But you can make your pics even more interesting and eye-catching with some effects, filters and frames. Editing your photos from your smartphones has never been so easy, but these photo editing apps turn photo editing in to enjoyable and fun experience. Just a few touches and enhance the picture with effects or even change the tone and theme of your photos with tons of editing options and share them instantly over social networking sites.

Here are 10 best photo editor apps for Android

1. Selfiestan: The Photo Editor

One of the most popular photo editing app on android platform, the app can help you edit your photos the way you want. The app allows you to take photos from the gallery and add effects and overlays with plenty of editing options to set the contrast, exposure, lightning effects ,Filters, Frames, Emojis, Stickers, Photo Collage .

Availability: Free on Google Play

2. Snapseed

With average rating of 4.6 Snapseed is one of the most popular Android photo editing app. The free version of the app comes preloaded with tons of features to edit your pictures and share them with your friends and family members. Crop any photo, tune it, enhance the quality and colors and lot more. The app supports many enhancement features you can apply on your photos.

Availability: Free on Google Play

3. Instagram

The app doesn’t need any introduction, it’s just more than photo editing app, the app allows you to connect to a whole new world of social network with sharing photos with friends and family members. The app supports many effects, ability to share photos and videos with friends, like or comment their photos.

Availability: Free on Google Play

4. Pixlr Express- photo editing

From the developers of Pixlr-o-matic , this app comes with over 2 million combinations of free effects, overlays and borders. The app comes with plenty of options to fix your photos, lighting effects, and share them with your friends instantly.

Availability: Free on Google Play

5. PicsArt- Photo Studio

This free app comes with in-built camera feature and feature loaded photo editing features. The app features plenty of photo effects like text effect, collage, frame, border, overlays etc. The app also has a collection of artistic photo effects. The app is also optimized for tablets.

Availability: Free on Google Play

6. PicSay- Photo Editor

This app comes with basic photo editing features like color correction, text effects, distortion effects or graphics. The app allows you to add effects in easy simple steps without getting confused by different options.

Availability: Free on Google Play

7. Instamasti memes generator

Create your own fun memes in seconds with this simple to use app. Simply pick the meme image from the app or take a photo yourself. Then enter the text and you're done! Share it with friends or save it in your collection.

Availability: Free on Google Play

8. Photo Editor by Aviary

This free app comes pre loaded with quick and easy photo editing options. One touch auto enhance, plenty of photo effects and frames, adjust color and contrast, text effects and cosmetic tools like red-eye removal are some of its features.

Availability: Free on Google Play

9. Photoshop Touch for phone

Photoshop touch comes with tons of photo editing options on mobile and tablet. You can edit photos with painting effects, filter brushes. The app does comes with free cloud storage by Adobe, and plenty of photoshop options by Adobe. You can share the photos you edit with your friends and family.

Availability: Paid on Google Play

10. Adobe Photoshop Express

This free app by Adobe is a simple way to snap and edit photos with your mobile with a few simple touch on-screen. The app features one touch filters, colors, auto fix and basic image editing options. Moreover you can share the photos on Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites.

Availability: Free on Google Play

How to Trust All Certificates or ByPass Certificates for HttpURLConnection in Android

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 18 Aug 2017 05:01:00 -0700

For security reason some time we as android developer get rest api with 'https' which work fine without hack if server has CA certificate successfully installed. if any problem with CA certificate the we get SSLHandshakeExcetion when we try to get data from 'https' API. This is road blocker for developer to complete app development on time. So friend don't worry for this, We can bypass SSL certificate while writing application code and in debug mode.

The following code snippet will help you to disables the SSL certificate checking for new instances of HttpsURLConnection in Android.

public void trustAllCertificates() {
    try {
        TrustManager[] trustAllCerts = new TrustManager[]{
                new X509TrustManager() {
                    public X509Certificate[] getAcceptedIssuers() {
                        X509Certificate[] myTrustedAnchors = new X509Certificate[0];
                        return myTrustedAnchors;
                    }

                    @Override
                    public void checkClientTrusted(X509Certificate[] certs, String authType) {
                    }

                    @Override
                    public void checkServerTrusted(X509Certificate[] certs, String authType) {
                    }
                }
        };

        SSLContext sc = SSLContext.getInstance("SSL");
        sc.init(null, trustAllCerts, new SecureRandom());
        HttpsURLConnection.setDefaultSSLSocketFactory(sc.getSocketFactory());
        HttpsURLConnection.setDefaultHostnameVerifier(new HostnameVerifier() {
            @Override
            public boolean verify(String arg0, SSLSession arg1) {
                return true;
            }
        });
    } catch (Exception e) {
    }
}

You should call this method before every "https" rest api call . After this code you need call your "https" API without any break but one thing you need to take care that you need to remove this code while you prepare to upload build to play store .
Hope this will help you. Comment below for any query.

Cheer!!

Book Your Jio Phone for free.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 22 Jul 2017 18:14:00 -0700

JioPhone

Just a day after the launch of "effective price zero" JioPhone, Reliance Jio has come up with a Keep me posted link on its website for the bookings of the new 4G feature phone. Users need to fill their details (name, email and phone number) on the website to initiate the process. Once the process is done, an email notification will be followed to the given email address by "Team Jio" stating, "As we are in the process of fulfilling existing demand, we will contact you at the earliest for booking your slot."

Jio keep me posted option

The slot timings are divided in two categories - weekday and weekend. For weekdays (Monday to Friday), the timings will be 5:30 pm to 9:00 pm. And for weekends (Saturday and Sunday), 1:00 pm to 4:30 pm and 5:30 pm to 9:00 pm.

JioPhone will come with lifetime free voice calls and 4G data streaming at a price of Rs. 1,500, which will be refunded to the users while returning the phone after the completion of 36 months.

JioPhone will be made available for user testing in beta mode from August 15 and for pre-booking from August 24. And, it will be available to those who have pre-booked on a first-come-first-served basis from September onwards.

Reliance Jio, the fourth-generation telecom arm of Reliance Industries, will provide unlimited data on the phone for Rs. 153 per month. Those who don't want to pay Rs. 153, the company also introduced two sachets - a weekly plan for Rs. 53 and a 2-day plan for Rs. 23 - that will provide similar value.

BookNow

Android O Developer Preview released, developers only

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 21 Mar 2017 22:40:00 -0700

Oreo or not, Google has officially rolled out the latest Developer Preview 1 for the upcoming Android O. We mentioned it a couple of days ago and the timing is just perfect. For those wishing to check out the new Android OS, you can’t easily because this one is made for the developers ONLY. Take note of that: developers only. Unlike in the previous years where anyone can download, this one isn’t. The tech giant warned that this isn’t part of the Android Beta Program so don’t even think about getting it if you are NOT a developer.

As much as Google wants more people trying out the OS and giving helpful feedback, the Android team is being more specific this time. This is a real developer preview–again, only for devs( Android Lads). The team shared they’ve been working on engineering process improvements so more partners can check out their work earlier.

This first preview isn’t perfect yet, obviously. Google is still doing plenty of work on the features, performance, and stabilization but Android O is working. More developer previews will be released in the coming months so it will be ready for a wider audience before the public launch later this year.

Here is a rundown of the new APIs and features of the Android O as listed by the Android developers:

• Background limits. These are additional automatic limits to what can be done by the apps in the background. This is one way to improve battery life and interactive performance of the device. Specifically, Android O will limit three areas: (1) implicit broadcasts, (2) background services, and (3) location updates. Developers are encouraged to make apps that have small impact on device and battery. Using the developer preview will show the devs how automatic background limits will affect the OS.
• Notification channels. Notification contents now have app-defined categories, visuals, and grouping. They allow developers to give mobile users “fine-grained control” over their notifications and more specifically for every channel.

• Autofill APIs. Action for Autofill login details has been made to work more easily. Autofill support allows autofill apps to work the same way a keyboard app does. New APIs are free for devs to use if they are planning to add autofill.

• PIP for handsets and new windowing features. Picture in Picture (PIP) display allows users to watch a video while doing another task like email or chat. The feature is now ready for smartphones and tablets. Feel free to use the PIP mode and set custom interactions or aspect ratio.

• Font resources in XML. Fonts in XML layouts can be used and defined in Android O.

• Adaptive icons. Adaptive icons can be shown in different shapes. Android O can also animate interactions of the icons with the launcher, sharing dialogs, overview screen, and Settings.

• Wide-gamut color for apps. Imaging apps can now be optimized for devices that boast of a wide-gamut color capable display. Developers will need to load bitmaps with an embedded wide color profile like Pro Photo RGB or AdobeRGB among others.

• Connectivity. High-quality Bluetooth audio codecs like LDAC codec are now supported. Wi-Fi Aware technology has been added as well while ConnectionService APIs have been extended. The latter allows third party calling apps to work with the System UI.

• Keyboard navigation. “Arrow” and “tab” navigations are improved as Google Play apps should start working on Chrome OS.

• Audio API for Pro Audio. This is made for apps that require high-performance and low-latency audio. The new API allows audio apps to read and write data via streams.

• WebView enhancements. For enhanced security and improved app stability, multiprocess mode by default is enabled. A new API will handle errors and crashes usually experienced by an app. Google Safe Browsing will be more useful in verifying URLs for WebView objects.

• Java 8 Language APIs and runtime optimizations. More Java Language APIs are added and Android Runtime is made faster.

• Partner platform contributions. Several fixes and enhancements to Android by silicon partners and hardware manufacturers are very noticeable.

Developers are encouraged to make their apps compatible for Android O. Using the Android O

Developer Preview will give you an idea what to do. Test the app by getting a device system image or emulator system image. You will see what needs to be changed and then update your app. It is highly recommended that you publish to Google Play the app.

The Android team has listed Android O’s preview timeline, behavior changes, new APIs, and support resources on the O Developer Preview site. Note that this preview already includes the SDK for testing on the latest Google devices like the Nexus Player, Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Pixel, Pixel XL, and Pixel C, as well as, the official Android Emulator.

Download Android O Developer Preview from HERE.

Developer Preview 1
Date: March 2017
Build: OPP1.170223.012 (Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Nexus Player, Pixel, Pixel XL),
OPP1.170223.013 (Pixel C)
Emulator support: x86 & ARM (32/64-bit)
Google Play services: 10
API diff: DP1/25

SOURCE: Android Developers Blog

Android Studio 2.3 has a bunch of improvements for app developers

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 5 Mar 2017 08:22:00 -0800

Android app developers now have a new version of Google’s Android Studio tools to check out. The company released the new 2.3 version earlier this week, and Google says that it concentrates on offering improvements to the tools, although there are a few small new features thrown in as well.

In case you didn’t know, Android Studio is Google’s official Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for making Android apps, including tools for coding the app and design software for creating its user interface.

Android Studio 2.3 includes some improvements and changes to Instant Run. Developers who use the “Run” action will now always cause an application restart, so they can see any changes in the app’s code that may require a restart. Also, there’s a new “Apply Changes” action that will make changes to that code while the app itself continues to run.

Build Cache has now been turned on by default in Android Studio 2.3, after first being introduced in the previous 2.2 version. This new feature is designed to give developers a way to cache exploded AARs and pre-dexed external libraries, which in turn should lead to faster clean builds of their apps.

The UI design tools in Android Studio 2.3 include support for Constraint Layout, which will allow developers to chain two or more Android views bi-directionally together to form a group on one dimension. Constraint Layout also support ratios for developers who want to maintain the aspect ratio of a widget.

There’s lots of other improvements and small additions in this Android Studio 2.3 release, including an updated widget palette in the Layout Editor, the addition of search and filtering in the vector asset wizard, and a new App Links Assistant that lets developers create new intent filters for their URLs. You can get a quick overview of what’s new and improved in the video above.

Nokia Is Back 🔙 with Snake 🐍 Nokia 3310.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 26 Feb 2017 11:56:00 -0800

Nokia New Series

There is good news for the most awaited tech announcement of the year - the Nokia 3310 is back and you’re going to love it! The new Nokia parent, HMD Global announced the device at MWC 2017, held in Barcelona, earlier this evening along with their new smartphones Nokia 6, 5 and 3.

The contemporary 3310 is going to be powered by the brand’s home grown Nokia Series 30 OS and is going to let you talk for up to 22 hours straight. The basic phone comes with a 2-mega pixel camera and is available in four peppy color variants— dark blue, yellow, grey and red.

Nokia 3310

But wait, there’s more - if playing Snake and Red Ball was your pastime of choice, you’re going to have to get your hands on this handset because it also features a modern version of the very addictive game.

Here's a video introduction to the new 3310:

New #Nokia 3310 - It looks Awesome!#Nokia3310 #NokiaMobile @nokia pic.twitter.com/btX2sNgOX3
— 🇸 🇭 🇦 🇮 🇰 🇭 (@ThisIsShaikh) February 26, 2017

Whether the considerably thinner phone will live up to the sturdiness of its predecessor is yet to be ascertained, but the classic design is bound to be a hit with many.

Enthusiasts won’t have to wait long as the 3310 is expected to hit global markets in the second quarter of 2017. Fingers crossed!
Source

WHATSAPP’S NEW "SNAPCHAT" LIKE ‘STATUS’ FEATURE: TIPS TO USE IT

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 26 Feb 2017 07:26:00 -0800

Popular mobile messaging service WhatsApp’s new “Status” feature is now available to all users across the globe on iPhone, Android and Windows devices.

The “Status” feature lets users share photos, GIFs or videos overlaid with drawings, emojis and a caption that will be visible to selected friends for 24 hours, before disappearing.

SNAPCHAT LIKE STATUS

According to a WhatsApp blog, status updates are now end-to-end encrypted.

Tips to use WhatsApp’s ‘Status’ feature:

Once the app is updated, WhatsApp status update tab can be seen near the Calls and Chats tab.Tap on the Status tab.
Here status posted by all the contacts can be seen.
To reply to the person who posted the status, tap on that particular status.
The replies are sent to regular chats along with the snapshot of that person’s Status.
To post status, click on the dotted circle with plus sign or you can just tap on “My Status”.

The Status feature has three privacy options.

My contacts: Status will be shared with all contacts.

My contacts except: Status will be shared with all contacts excluding the contacts you don’t want to share.

Only share with: Status will be shared only to the contacts you want to share.

Users can also see who has viewed their Status update by tapping the eye icon at the bottom of any Status update.
Source

WhatsApp has been rolling out updates and features to make the app more secure for its users. The social networking app recently rolled out a two-step verification process for all devices to enhance the security of users’ accounts.

What you think guys ? Is that end of snapchat craze after this wonderful whatsapp feature.

How to turn on 4K video capture on the Google Pixel

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 26 Oct 2016 01:00:00 -0700

Google is confident that their new Pixel phones have a better camera than any other smartphone currently on the market. With its 12.3 MP sensor, you’re capable of taking breathtaking 4K videos, but only if you have the settings actually turned on…

and What comes out of the camera (4k enabled) has been stunning. With the built-in EIS, video not only looks great but is also hardly shaky if you’re recording while moving around.

Follow the instructions below to turn on 4K video capture:

Launch the camera application
Tap the menu icon in the top left corner
Select Settings
Find the Video section and tap on Back camera video resolution
Select UHD 4k and now you will be shooting 4K video

Please let me know your review on it.

How to add a Static Shortcut in Android 7.1

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 03:17:00 -0700

Here is a quick example on how to add a static shortcut to an app. In Android nougat 7.1 new api to create app shortcut but it is static means you can not change after.

source

App Shortcuts is a means of exposing common actions or tasks of your application to the launcher. Your users can reveal the shortcuts by long-pressing the app's launcher icon.

They are of two types:

static: defined statically in a resource file; cannot be changed unless you modify the file and redeploy the app

dynamic: published at runtime; shortcuts can be updated without the need of redeploying the app

Moving forward we will create a xml file because static shortcut only work on resource xml.
Static shortcuts are defined in xml. So whack your xml in /res/xml/shortcuts.xml

<shortcuts xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"> <shortcut android:shortcutId="quickStart" android:enabled="true" android:icon="@drawable/ic_vector_shortcut" android:shortcutShortLabel="@string/quickstart" android:shortcutLongLabel="@string/quickstart_long" android:shortcutDisabledMessage="@string/quickstart_disabled"> <intent android:action="com.androidlad.QUICKSTART" android:targetPackage="com.your.app" android:targetClass="com.androidlad.activities.MainActivity" /> </shortcut>  </shortcuts>

You can see that the root tag of this file is <shortcuts>, which can hold multiple <shortcut> blocks. Each of them, as you may have guessed, represents a static shortcut. Here, the following properties can be set on one shortcut:

enabled: as the name states, whether the shortcut is enabled or not. If you decide to disable your static shortcut you could either set this to false, or simply remove it from the <shortcuts> set

icon: the icon shown on the left hand side of the shortcut. In my case, I created a simple Vector Drawable from within Android Studio and assigned it as an icon

shortcutDisabledMessage: when you disable your shortcut, it will disappear from the ones that the user can reveal by long pressing your application icon, but one can pin a shortcut to the launcher (by long pressing and dragging it on the desired launcher page), so when disabled the pinned shortcut will appear greyed out and upon tapping it a Toast with this message will appear

shortcutLongLabel: longer text of the shortcut shown when the launcher has enough space

shortcutShortLabel: a concise description of the shortcut. The field is mandatory. Most probably this will be the one which will appear on your launcher

intent: here you define your intent (or more intents) that your shortcut will open upon being tapped

Next up we need to add a reference to this new xml file in the AndroidManifest. Add this just after your intent-filter in your main activity, before the closing </activity>

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" package="com.catinean.appshortcutsdemo"> <application android:allowBackup="true" android:icon="@mipmap/ic_launcher" android:label="@string/app_name" android:supportsRtl="true" android:theme="@style/AppTheme"> <activity android:name=".MainActivity"> <intent-filter> <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" /> <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" /> <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" /> </intent-filter> <meta-data android:name="android.app.shortcuts" android:resource="@xml/shortcuts" /> </activity> </application> </manifest>
Final screen after executing above code.

Isn't it awesome ?

Please let me know your review on this.

Most Awaited Feature Of WhatsApp Launched! You’ll Go Crazy On Knowing It…

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 22 Oct 2016 21:03:00 -0700

fig 1: whatsapp new feature out

WhatsApp is our lifeline, don’t you agree? Currently, it is the most popular and the biggest IM provider all across the globe and every other person you know has subscribed to this messaging app. Every now and then we see WhatsApp introducing new and attractive features. However, the latest feature is irresistible and you will go crazy hearing it; in fact it has been the most awaited thing! Any guesses?

Fig 2: Whatsapp video calling

Well, finally WhatsApp has launched its video calling feature and has made its users super-happy. Don’t be so excited because this feature is restricted only to Windows Phone and not Android or iOS
This feature came in with the latest v2.16.260 WhatsApp Beta update that was rolled out.

How to make a video call?

For making a video call, all you need to do is click on the ‘Call’ option’, after which you will get 2 options ‘Video’ and ‘Voice’. Moreover, with this option users can even switch between front and rear cameras and mute the call. Also, users will get notifications in case there is a missed call. Just by tapping, they will be able to recall; this is same like the voice call.
However, you don’t need to update your phone or the app for getting the feature, but in case it is not happening in spite of repeated attempts, they you can re-install WhatsApp on your device and then check out.

fig 3: whatsapp

We really hope that it soon comes to Android and iOS too, aren’t you waiting for it? So who all of you have already tried it on your Windows phone? Do share in our comments section below.
News Source

Technorati Tags: whatsapp video calling,How to to do video calling in whatsapp,Features of whats,new feature of whatsapp

Why Should buy new Google Pixel ?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 18 Oct 2016 12:36:00 -0700

In October Google unveiled new Google Pixel smartphone after stopping support for Nexus series. Yes you read it right Google will no longer carry legacy of Nexus series . Now It launch new series Pixel which is already talking point in industry. SO question what is the specialty about this phone. Lets discussed it one by one.

Google Pixel XL

The best camera, the Google Assistant & unlimited storage for photos & videos. #Pixel. Pre-order now https://t.co/J4qZ1CE1RF #madebygoogle pic.twitter.com/G2jCBALkm8
— Google India (@GoogleIndia) October 13, 2016

1. New Operating System | Android OS, v7.1 (Nougat):

We had discussed about android nougat in our previous blog please visit here see.

2. Google Assistance :

Android 6.0 Marshmallow introduces a new way for users to engage with apps through the assistant. The assistant is a top-level window that users can view to obtain contextually relevant actions for the current activity. These actions might include deep links to other apps on the device.
More detail about google Assistance please visit Here.
3. Google Allo:

Google Allo is a chating app just like whatsapp but it has additional features like google assistance fearure. If ask about Cricket scrore just Ask Cricket Score within second it gives you scrore cards. In Chating use no need to write maximum line of text. Google will suggest letters for you. Actually Google allo comes with AI so that this app will learn from your past typing eprince and contacts etc and then suggest you letter in between chat.
4: Memory :
32/128 GB is Internal Hard disk and like nexus you can not expande further with memory card. Also it has 4GB Ram so that it will process fast.
5: MultiWIndow:
Google Pixel comes with multiwindow feature so that you can open one or more app at a time in screen . Isnt it awesome. Now you can see map navigation while chating with friends.
6: CAMERA: sourcePrimary
12 MP, f/2.0, phase detection & laser autofocus, dual-LED (dual tone) flash
Features
1/2.3" sensor size, 1.55µm pixel size, geo-tagging, touch focus, face detection, HDR, panorama
Video
2160p@30fps, 1080p@30/60/120fps, 720p@240fps
Secondary
8 MP, f/2.4, 1/3.2" sensor size, 1.4 µm pixel size, 1080p
7: Price : 57,000 Rs Only in India .
Now Pre Order from Flipkart

Please give me your reviews on this . Also let me know me what you think about phone.

Technorati Tags: Android News,Android Mobile 2016,Google Pixel XL.

INSTALL_FAILED_NO_MATCHING_ABIS when install apk ?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 16 Oct 2016 00:00:00 -0700

Sometime when we install apk in Genymotion or Android Emulator this error comes and apk fail to install in vertual device. Also we get following error in trace

$ adb shell pm install -r "/data/local/tmp/com.instamasti"
Failure [INSTALL_FAILED_NO_MATCHING_ABIS: Failed to extract native libraries, res=-113]
$ adb shell pm uninstall com.instamasti
DELETE_FAILED_INTERNAL_ERROR
Error while Installing APK

Error Dialog

Cause of this issue
This problem also come with when working with unity also. The problem is your app uses ARM architecture and the device or emulator that you are trying to install the app support otherwise such as x86. Try installing it on ARM emulator. Hope that solves the problem.
Solution For this issue
There could be 2 solutionn for this problem.

Technorati Tags: Apk Installation issue in Android Emulator,Android Development issues,Android Lad,Android for beginner

Solution 1:
If you are working on NDK and you creating binary file then
In your application.mk, try to add x86 at

APP_ABI := armeabi-v7a

and it should be look like this

APP_ABI := armeabi-v7a x86

Solution 2:
When you are using third party library or you have binary file then you need to add extra line in you build.gradle
I was able to use the x86 Accelerated (HAXM) emulator by simply adding this to my Module's build.gradle script Inside android{} block:
android { compileSdkVersion 23 buildToolsVersion "23.0.2" defaultConfig { applicationId "com.appname" minSdkVersion 16 targetSdkVersion 23 versionCode 1 versionName "1.0" } buildTypes { release { minifyEnabled false proguardFiles getDefaultProguardFile('proguard-android.txt'), 'proguard-rules.pro' } } splits { abi { enable true reset() include 'x86', 'armeabi-v7a' universalApk true } }
Please comment below for any query and also please appreciate if you feel helpful.

Source

Find Best selfie editor app 'Selfiestan' https://t.co/msc7Ct7kwy
— AndroidLad (@MrAndroidLad) September 19, 2017

Android for Beginner chapter 4: EditText

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 15 Oct 2016 08:05:00 -0700

Before starting chapter 3. I hope you have read basic set up ANDROID FOR BEGINNER CHAPTER 2 : INTRODUCTION OF BASIC UI COMPONENTS . Here we will just focus on basic about EditText only. Android system supports EditText, which is a subclass of TextView supplied with text editing operations. We often use EditText in our Android applications in order to provide an input or text field, especially in forms.

In this example we are going to show you some commonly used EditText xml attributes and how to embody and handle an EditText in our Android apps.
Step 1 : Make New project with the name EditTextExample( You can name it anything):
Before using EditText please how to create android application and how to edit activity_main.xml
ANDROID FOR BEGINNER CHAPTER 3: TEXTVIEW

Step 2: Now Edit activity_main.xml :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools" android:layout_width="match_parent" android:layout_height="match_parent" android:paddingLeft="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin" android:paddingRight="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin" android:paddingTop="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin" android:paddingBottom="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin" tools:context="app.androidlad.iamandroidbeginner.MainActivity">
</RelativeLayout>

Now add <EditText>

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools" android:layout_width="match_parent" android:layout_height="match_parent" android:paddingLeft="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin" android:paddingRight="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin" android:paddingTop="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin" android:paddingBottom="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin" tools:context="app.androidlad.iamandroidbeginner.MainActivity">

</RelativeLayout>

Step 3 Try other attributes and see the result
Now lets explain the code above and the specific attributes that we defined in the XML file. It is worth to mention that there are the respective functions too, where we can call in the activity source code in order to change the characteristics of the view. Also all the attributes and methods of TextView can be used, due to subclass inheritance.

`hint`	defines the hint text that would be displayed in the edit text. The text can be defined directly or as a reference to`values/strings.xml` resource.
`singleLine`	sets whether the text is appeared in one line (true) or if it is wrapped into multiple ones (false).
`maxLength`	specifies the maximum number of characters that the user could put into the text field.
`digits`	specifies the specific numbers that are accepted to be used.
`inputType`	declares the type of data that the user can fill in the text field. Some of the possible choices are textCapWords, email, phone etc, so the input in the text field is adjusted respectively. For multiple than one choices we should use `\|` character for separation.
`password`	indicates that the input is going to be a password, so the text is hidden to the user. Another way to do this, is to set the attribute `inputType` into
`textPassword`	As we mentioned we can use the components of `TextView`, where some of them are defined to our example:
`background`	sets the background color of the edit text. Again the color should be defined in hex encoding or as a reference to another resource.
`clickable`	indicates if the view reacts to click events.

What you you think about this topic please let me know. You can comment below and reach me at facebook and twitter.

Technorati Tags: Android Tutorial For Beginner,Android Widget EditText,Android Studio,IamAndroidBeginner,AndroidLad.

LiveJournal Tags: IamAndroidBeginner,AndroidLad. Android Tutorial For Beginner,Android EditText

Android for Beginner chapter 3: TextView

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 9 Oct 2016 20:28:00 -0700

Before starting chapter 3. I hope you have read basic set up ANDROID FOR BEGINNER CHAPTER 2 : INTRODUCTION OF BASIC UI COMPONENTS . Here we will just focus on basic about TextView only. Android system provides us TextView, from where we can display text into the screen. Although it contains text editing operations, the basic class does not allow editing, so EditText class is provided for this reason.

Step 1 : Edit activity_main.xml

Before adding textview in xml



<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:paddingLeft="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
    android:paddingRight="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
    android:paddingTop="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
    android:paddingBottom="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
    tools:context="app.androidlad.iamandroidbeginner.MainActivity">

</RelativeLayout>

After adding textview in xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:paddingLeft="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
    android:paddingRight="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
    android:paddingTop="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
    android:paddingBottom="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
    tools:context="app.androidlad.iamandroidbeginner.MainActivity">

    <TextView
        android:text="Hello World!"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content" />
</RelativeLayout>

Step 2 : add activity_main.xml to MainActivity.java
Now add activity_main.xml to MainActivity.java so that you can see that in you device.

Now run your code from upper tools there would be a button called Run select device and see the result.

Hello Word

Step 3: Now try other attributes of TextView
text: defines the text that would be displayed on the screen.
textStyle: sets the style of the text. The possible choices are bold, italic and normal.
fontFamily: specifies the font family for the text.
typeFace: as you can imagine it defines the typeface for the text. The possible values are normal, sans, serif and monospace.
textSize: defines the size of the text. It is recommended to use sp for the size.
textColor: sets the color of the text. The color has to be defined in hex encoding or as a reference to another resource.
background: sets the background color of the text. Again the color should be defined in hex encoding or as a reference to another resource.
textColorHighlight: defines the color when the text is marked as highlighted.
textIsSelectable: indicates whether the text can be selected (true) or not (false). This attribute can be used in order to allow copy-paste controls.
lines: defines the exact height of the TextView in lines.
clickable: indicates if the view reacts to click events.
autoLink: identifies the links into the text and converts them into clickable ones. The available choices are web, email, phone, map or all of them.
Please give me your feedback in comment box so that I can do more hard work for making his more easier to understand.

Android For Beginner Chapter 2 : Introduction of Basic UI Components

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 9 Oct 2016 11:32:00 -0700

Before starting chapter 2. I hope you have read basic set up How to start Android app development for complete beginners . Now we can move forward to learn new in android.
Now you are started thinking that we have already created a project in previous blog so what we will do in this chapter. In this chapter we will see basic widgets.

Layouts:

View Layouts help widget to adjust in UI according to given constraints.
1: Linearlayout
2: Relativelayout
3: FrameLayout

Widgets:

View widgets are basic component in android UI. By the help of this we can create beautiful UI in ease.

1: TextView
2: EditText
3: Button
4: ImageView
5: ImageButton
6: Contact Badge

Will discuss it further one by one.

How to start Android app development

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 9 Oct 2016 10:54:00 -0700

So you have a killer app idea and you’re ready to turn it into a reality and take it to market. No doubt you’re itching to start getting your first downloads, reviews and profits… But there’s just one problem: you don’t have a clue where to start!

Learning to code is difficult enough on its own but with Android development it can be more complicated. Not only do you need to understand Java, you also need to install all the Android-specific software and learn all of the unique quirks of Android app development.

In general, creating an Android app requires the SDK (Software Development Kit), an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) like Android Studio or Eclipse( Android no longer supporting), the Java Software Development Kit (JDK) and a virtual device to test on. All this takes work to set up, and that’s before you’ve even started looking into things like Google Play Services, screen sizes, API levels…

Step 1: Download Android Studio

To program in most languages, you need a piece of software called an IDE or ‘Integrated Development Environment’. The most common IDE for Android development is Android Studio, which comes direct from Google itself. You can get it here.

An IDE is what gives you the main UI where you’ll enter your code (you can’t just start typing into notepad). It also highlights things you get wrong, offers suggestions and lets you run and test your creations conveniently. It creates the files you need, it provides basic layouts and generally it saves you a lot of time and effort.

Img 1: MainActivity

What’s great about Android Studio is that it is designed specifically for Android development (unlike the second most popular option, Eclipse). This means that when you download the software, you’ll also get a lot of the other bits you need including the Android SDK (a selection of tools including the Android platform itself) and the Android Virtual Device, which is an emulator you can test your apps on. When you go through the installation, make sure you leave the boxes ticked to confirm that you want these additional components. You could manually add them later, but this will just complicate matters.

Okay, just to recap: we now have Android Studio downloaded and installed. But, don’t run it until you read step two! So far so good… What could possibly go wrong?

Step 2: Setting Up Android Studio

Before you can get started, you also need to install Java on your machine to use Android Studio. Specifically, you’re going to need install the Java Development Kit (JDK). Java is the programming language you’re going to be using to build your apps in this instance and you need to install the JDK in order for Android Studio to be able to interpret and compile your code (compiling means turning the source into something that is understood by the CPU – machine code). You’ll find the Java Development Kit here. Just download and follow the instructions to install.

Now you can click on Android Studio to launch it. Once it opens up, you’ll be presented with a menu where you’ll be able to get started or configure some options. The great thing is that everything is handled for you at this point, though you may want to familiarize yourself with the SDK Manager (Configure > SDK Manager) which is where you’ll update your Android SDK to support newer versions, as well as download things like code samples or support for Google Glass. But don’t worry about that now but if Android Studio says you’re missing something, this is where you’ll probably need to go to find it.

So really there are three main things interacting when you use Android Studio to create your apps.

Android Studio itself, which is an IDE that provides you with a nice interface for coding.
The code you write in Java, which you installed a moment ago…
And the Android SDK which you’ll access through your Java code in order to do Android-type things

If you find this all a bit complicated and daunting then… well, you don’t know you’re born. This used to be way worse.

Maybe that offers some consolation…

Step 3: Starting a New Project

Once you’ve installed your samples, you can go back to the first page you saw when you loaded up Android Studio. Now you want to choose Start a new Android Studio Project – it’s finally happening!

Enter the name you want for your application and your ‘company domain’. Together these elements will be used to create your package name with the following format:

app.companyname.appname

Company Name: Should be unique name. Dont use example, youtube, google etc

The package will be the compiled file or APK (‘Android Package File’) that you’ll eventually upload to the Google Play Store. There are ways that people can see this, so if you’re planning on making something you’ll eventually release, try to stay away from using ‘funny words’.

Img 2: Development Screen

Next you need to decide what type of device you’re going to be developing for and in this case we’ll start with the Phone and Tablet option. Other options are TV, Wear and Glass. It’s fine if you want to develop for a myriad of platforms in the future – that’s one of the wonders of Android – but let’s start with something a bit more straightforward to begin with, okay?

The other choice you have to make at this stage is the ‘Minimum SDK’. This is the lowest version of Android you want to support. Why not just enter the latest version of Android in here? Well, because relatively few people actually have the latest version of Android installed on their device at any given time. You want to support phones that are still running older versions in order to reach the largest possible audience – especially overseas.

Why not just go with Android 1.1? Well, apart from this not being an option (Froyo is as low as you can go), that would also prevent you from using any of the fancy new features from the latest updates.

The best bet at this stage is to go with the default option, so just leave this field as it is. On the next page, you’ll be given the option to pick the way you want your app to look at the start. This will be the look of your main ‘Activity Module’ which is basically the main page of your app. Think of these like templates; do you want to have the title of your app along the top of the screen, or do you want your UI to fill the whole display? Do you want to start off with some elements ready-designed for you? Is your app primarily going to use Google Maps (don’t go here for a bit, things get more complicated with Google Play Services).

Img 3: Add an activity to module

Bear in mind that an app can have multiple activities that act like separate pages on a website. You might have a ‘settings’ activity for instance and a ‘main’ activity. So the activity isn’t the appper say but rather one stand-alone page of your app.

For your first creation though, you’ll probably do best to make something really simple that just displays a single, basic activity. Select ‘Basic Activity’ to keep things as simple as possible and for all intents and purposes, this will now be your app. Click Next again you get the last few options.

Now you get to pick the name for your activity and the layout name (if you chose ‘Basic Activity’ you’ll also have the title option and the ‘menu_resource’ name). The activity name is how you’ll refer to your activities in your code, so call it something logical (good advice for coding generally) like ‘MainActivity’. Creative, I know.

The layout name meanwhile describes a file that determines the layout of an activity. This is a separate piece of code that runs in concert with the main activity code to define where elements like images and menus go and what fonts you’ll use. This is actually not Java but XML – or Extensible Markup Language if you want to impress your friends.

For anyone with a background in web development, your XML is going to work a little like HTML or a CSS style sheet. The Java code for the activity meanwhile says what the elements on the screen do when pressed etc. It’s fine to leave the default name here as ‘activity_main’. Lastly, choose a name for the menu and for the title. Pick something nice for the title, as your users will be able to see this at some points. Click next… and now you get to see your app!

Your blank, useless app… All that just to get started! You see why people give up? But really we can break it down into the following very basic steps:

Download and install Android Studio, making sure to include the Android SDK
Install Java SDK
Start a new project and select the basic details

So it’s really not that bad… And remember: once you’ve done all this once, you can forget about it forever and focus on the fun stuff: creating apps! Your tea is probably cold at this point, so the next very important step, is to get more.

Step 4: Making an Actual Thing

Once your app opens, you should see a directory tree on the left with all the different files and folders that make up your app and a picture of a phone displaying ‘Hello World!’ in the center. Well, hello to you as well!

(A basic app that displays ‘Hello World’ is what most new developers make first when they learn to program in a new language. Android Studio cheats though, because it does it for you!)

You might notice that the open tab (along the top) is ‘activity_main.xml’, which is what the big phone is showing on its display. You may recall that activity_main.xml is the XML code that defines the layout instructions for your main activity.

If you selected ‘Basic Activity’ when you started your project, then you’ll see a second XML file too called ‘content_main.xml’. For the most part, these two do the same thing but the ‘acitvity_main.xml’ contains the basic layout that Android Studio created for you when you selected ‘Basic Activity’. The stuff you want to edit is in content_main.xml, so open that up and don’t worry about it for now.

(If this isn’t what is open to start, then use the directory on the left to open it by choosing: app > res > content_main.xml.)

The Layout

Android Studio is not showing the XML code itself here but rather a rendering of how the layout will appear on the screen. This is a visual editor a bit like Dreamweaver for web design and it makes life a little easier for us developers.

You also have a bunch of options called ‘widgets’ down the left that you can add to your app. This is your basic app stuff; so for instance, if you want to add a button saying ‘OK’ to your activity, you can simply drag it over to the screen and drop it anywhere you like. Go ahead and dump an ‘OK’ button right underneath the ‘Hello World’.

Something else you’ll find is that you can click on either of these elements in order to change the text and the ‘ID’. The ID is how you’re refer to each element (called a ‘view’) in your Java code, while the text is of course what you display to the user.

Delete the ‘Hello World’ widget (or view) and change the text on the button to ‘Hello?’. Likewise, change the ‘id’ on the button to ‘button1’.

I am now stealthily getting you to write a little program… Notice as well that when you select a view, you get options in the bottom right to change the text color and size etc. You can play around with these variables if you like to change the look of your button. We’re coming back here in a minute though so make a mental note!

Now open up your MainActivity.java. The tab will be along the top but in case it isn’t, find it under: App > Java.

This is the code that defines the behavior of your app. At this stage, you’re going to add in a little passage of code:

public void buttonOnClick(View v) {
Button button1 = (Button) v;
((Button) v).setText("Hello!");
}

This is going to go right underneath the first lone closed bracket ‘}’, just before the “@Override, Public Boolean”. It should look like this:

Img 4: Code Snippet

What does it all mean? Well basically, anything following “void buttonOnClick” will be carried out when someone clicks on the button. We’re then finding the button with the “Button button1 = (Button) v;” code and then changing the text.

Yes, there are other ways you could achieve the same thing but I feel like this keeps it nice and simple and thus easy to understand. Spend some time reading it and try to get your head around what is doing what…

At the top of the page is the word ‘import…’. Click on that to expand it and make sure that somewhere there is the line: “import android.widget.Button;”. It should have appeared on its own when you typed out the last bit (Android Studio is smart like that) but you can add it yourself if it didn’t.

Img 5: Importing java classes

(Notice as we type that lines end in “;”. This is basic Java formatting and if you forget one, it will throw up an error. Get used to searching around for them!)

Now go back to your content_main.xml and click on the button. In the right corner, where you have your parameters for the button, you should be able to find an option called ‘onClick’. Click on this and then select the ‘onClick’ line of code you just wrote from the drop down menu. What you’ve just done, is told Android Studio that you want to associate the section of code with the button you created (because you’ll have lots of buttons in future).

Img 6 : Creating layout from design editor

Now all that’s left to do is run the app you just made. Simple go to ‘run’ along the top and then select ‘run app’ from the drop down menu. You should already have your AVD (Android Virtual Device) installed but if not, you can go to: tools > Android > AVD Manager > + Create Virtual Device. Don’t forget you also need to install an Android version onto the device.

Follow the steps to launch the emulator running your app. Be patient, it can sometimes take an age to load up… If it never loads up, you can consider ‘packaging’ the app in order to create an APK. Drag this onto your Android device and double click on it to install and run it.

Once it’s finally up and running you can have a go with this fun, fun app. What you should find is that when you click the button, the text from ‘Hello?’ to ‘Hello!’. We’re going to be rich…

(If it doesn’t work… something has gone wrong. It wasn’t me, my one works! Look for red text in your code and hover your mouse over it to get suggestions from Android Studio.)

Step 5: How to Get Better At App Development

Okay, so that was a lie. We’re probably not going to be rich. At the moment the app we’ve made is pretty lame. You can try and sell it sure but you probably won’t get that many good reviews.

The reason I talked you through this basic app creation though is because it teaches you the very fundamentals of programming. You have an action and a reaction – pressing on a button does something. Throw in some variables and some math, add some pretty images and a useful function and that’s genuinely enough to make a very basic app.

So where do we go from here? There’s so much more to learn: we haven’t looked at the Android Manifest yet, we haven’t talked about your private keysign (or how fun it is when you lose that) and we haven’t even studied the Android app ‘lifecycle’ (nothing to do with The Lion King). There’s issues with supporting different screen sizes and there’s just so much more to learn.

Unfortunately, it would take an entire book to teach you the entirety of Android app development. So that’s a good place to start: buy a book!

But more important is just to play around and try things. Don’t set out to make your world-changing app on day one. Instead, focus on making something simple and straightforward and then build on that. Try changing the layout of the text and try adding in more buttons and more rules to make your app actually useful.

Eventually, you’ll find there’s something you want to do that you can’t figure out on your own. Maybe you want a sound to play when someone clicks on your button, for example. This is where the real learning starts. Now all you need to do is search in Google: “How to play sound onClick Android”

You’ll find a bunch of complicated answers but eventually someone, probably on Stack Overflow, will break down the answer simply for you. Then what you do is you copy that code and you paste it into your app, making a few changes as you go.

Likewise, try out some of the code samples available through Android studio. See how they work, try changing things and just experiment. Things will go wrong and error messages will come up but for the most part, if you just follow the instructions, it’s easy enough to handle. Don’t panic! And that’s pretty much how you learn to make apps. A lot of it boils down to reverse engineering and copying and pasting. Once you have the main program in place, the rest you pick up as you go.

If you want the absolute easiest way to start, then just find some sample code that’s close to what you make and change it. No one is going to be able to explain all this to you in a way that makes any sense and if you worry about not grasping everything to begin with, you’ll never get anywhere.

So instead, dive in, get your hands dirty and learn on the job. It’s complicated and it’s frustrating but ultimately it’s highly rewarding and more than worth the initial effort.

Please give me your feedback in comment box so that I can do more hard work for making his more easier to understand.

Android Studio 2.2 - New UI Designer & Constraint Layout

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 9 Oct 2016 02:00:00 -0700

Android Studio Logo

This October at Google I/O 2016 Android launched Android Studio 2.2. This release is a large update that builds upon our focus to create a fast and productive integrated development environment (IDE) for Android. Developed in sync with the Android platform, Android Studio allows you to develop with the latest Android APIs and features.

Android Studio 2.2 includes a portfolio of new features along the spectrum of developments, ranging from designing user interfaces to building and debugging your app in new ways. This includes the following new categories of features:
Design
Layout Editor : A new user interface designer that helps you visually design the layouts in your app. Features like blueprint mode and the new properties panel allow you to quickly edit layouts and widgets faster.

Constraint Layout : A new powerful and flexible Android layout that allows you to express complex UIs without nesting multiple layouts.

Layout Inspector : Debug a snapshot of your app layout running on the Android Emulator or device. Inspect the view hierarchy and corresponding attributes.

Develop
Firebase Plugin : Explore and integrate the suite of services offered by Firebase inside of Android Studio. Adding services like Analytics, Authentication, Notifications, and AdMob are just a few clicks away.

Enhanced Code Analysis : Android Studio checks the quality of your Android app code. In addition to 260 Android lint and code inspections, this release includes new code quality checks for Java 8 language usage and a new inspection infrastructure for more cross-file analysis.

Samples Browser : Referencing Android sample code is now even easier. Within the code editor window, find occurrences of your app code snippets in Google Android sample code to help jump start your app development.

Improved C++ Support : Android Studio 2.2 improves C++ development with the ability to edit, build, and debug pre-existing Android projects that use ndk-build or CMake rather than Gradle. Additionally, the existing lldb C++ debugger is now even better with project type auto-detection and a Java language aware C++ mode that lets you use a single debugger process to inspect both Java language and C++ runtimes.

IntelliJ 2016.1: Android Studio 2.2 includes all the latest updates from the underlying JetBrains product platforms IntelliJ.

Build
Jack Compiler Improvements: For those using the new Jack compiler, Android Studio 2.2 adds support for annotation processing, as well as incremental builds for reduced build times.

Merged Manifest Viewer: Diagnose how your AndroidManifest.xml merges with your app dependences across your project build variants.

Test
Espresso Test Recorder: Record Espresso UI tests simply by using your app as a normal user. As you click through your app UI, reusable and editable test code is then generated for you. You can run the generated tests locally, in your Continuous Integration environment, or in Firebase Test lab .

APK Analyzer: Drill into your APK to help you reduce your APK size, debug 64K method limit issues, view contents of Dex files and more.

Google I/O ‘16: What’s New in Android Development Tools

Deeper Dive into the New Features

Design
Layout Editor: Android Studio 2.2 features a new user interface designer. There are many enhancements but some of the highlights include:

Drag-and-drop widgets from the palette to the design surface or the component tree view of your app.
Design surface has a blueprint mode to inspect the spacing and arrangement of your layout.
Properties panel now shows a curated set of properties for quick widget edits with a full sheet of advanced properties one click away.
UI builder can edit menu and system preference files.

The new Layout Editor in Android Studio 2.2

Edit Menus in the new Layout Editor

Constraint Layout: This new layout is a flexible layout manager for your app that allows you to create dynamic user interfaces without nesting multiple layouts. It is distributed as a support library that is tightly coupled with Android Studio and backwards compatible to API Level 9.

At first glance, Constraint Layout is similar to RelativeLayout. However, the Constraint Layout was designed to be used in Studio and it can efficiently express your app design so that you rely on fewer layouts like LinearLayout, FrameLayout, TableLayout, or GridLayout. Lastly, with the built-in automatic constraints inference engine. You can freely design your UI to your liking and let Android Studio do the hard work.

To help you get started, the built-in templates in the New Project Wizard in Android Studio 2.2 now generate a Constraint Layout. Alternately, you can right click on any layout in the new Layout Editor and select the Convert to ConstraintLayout option.

Constraint Layout

Layout Inspector: For new and existing layouts, many times you may want to debug your app UI to determine if your layout is rendering as expected. With the new Layout Inspector, you can drill into the view hierarchy of your app and analyze the attributes of each component of UI on the screen.

To use the tool, just click on Layout Inspector Icon in the Android Monitor Window, and then Android Studio creates a snapshot of the current view hierarchy of your app for you to inspect.

Layout Inspector

Develop

Firebase Plugin: Firebase is the new suite of developers services that can help you develop high-quality apps, grow your user base, and earn more money. Inside of Android Studio, you can add Firebase to a new or existing Android app with the new Assistant window. To access the Firebase features click on the Tools menu and then selectFirebase. You will want to first setup the brand new Firebase Analytics as the foundation as you explore other Firebase services like Firebase Cloud Messaging or Firease Crash Reporting to add your application. Learn more about the Firebase integration inside Android Studio here.

Firebase Plugin for Android Studio

Code Sample Browser: In addition to importing Android Samples, the Code Sample Browser is a menu option inside Android Studio 2.2 that allows you to find high-quality, Google-provided Android code samples based on the currently highlighted symbol in your project. To use the feature, highlight a Variables, Types and Methods in your code then Right Click to show a context menu for Find Sample Code. The results are displayed in a bottom output box.

Code Sample Browser

Build

CMake and NDK-Build: For those of you using the Android NDK, Android Studio now supports building CMake and NDK-Build Android app projects by pointing Gradle at your existing build files. Once you’ve added your cmake or ndk-build project to Gradle, Android Studio will automatically open your relevant Android code files for editing and debugging in Studio.

For CMake users, just add the path to your CMList.txt file in the externalNativeBuild section of your Gradle file:

CMake Build in Android Studio

For NDK-Build Users, just add the path to your *.mk file in the section of your Gradle file:

NDK-Build in Android Studio

Improved Jack Tools: The new Jack Toolchain compiles your Java language source into Android dex bytecode. The Jack compiler allows some Java 8 language features, like lambdas, to be used on all versions of Android. This release adds incremental build and full support for annotation processing, so you can explore using Java 8 language features in your existing projects.

To use incremental build with Jack add the following to your build.gradle file:

Enable Jack Incremental Compile Option

Jack will automatically apply annotations processors in your classpath. To use an annotation processor at compile-time without bundling it in your apk, use the new annotationProcessor dependency scope:

Enable Jack Annotation Processing

Merged Manifest Viewer: Figuring out how your AndroidManifest merges with your project dependencies based on build types, flavors and variants is now easier with Android Studio. Navigate to your AndroidManifest.xml and click on the new Merged Manifest bottom tab. Explore how each node of your AndroidManifest resolves with various project dependencies.

Merged Manifest Viewer

Test

Espresso Test Recorder: Sometimes writing UI tests can be tedious. With the Record Espresso UI tests feature, creating tests is now as easy as just using your app. Android Studio will capture all your UI interactions and convert them into a fully reusable Espresso Test that you can run locally or even on Firebase Test lab. To use the recorder, go to the Runmenu and select Record Espresso Test.

Espresso Test Recorder

APK Analyzer: The new APK Analyzer helps you understand the contents and the sizes of different components in your APK. You can also use it to avoid 64K referenced method limit issues with your Dex files, diagnose ProGuard configuration issues, view merged AndroidManifest.xml file, and inspect the compiled resources file (resources.arsc). This can help you reduce your APK size and ensure your APK contains exactly the things you expect.

The APK Analyzer shows you both the raw file size as well as the download size of various components in your APK. The download size is the estimated size users need to download when the APK is served from Google Play. This information should help you prioritize where to focus in your size reduction efforts.

To use this new feature, click on the Build menu and select Analyze APK… Then, select any APK that you want to analyze.

APK Analyzer

Java-aware C++ Debugger: When debugging C++ code on targets running N and above, you can now use a single, Java language aware lldb instance. This debugger continues to support great lldb features like fast steps and memory watchpoints while also allowing you to stop on Java language breakpoints and view your Java language memory contents.

Enable Auto Debugger for C++

Auto Debugger Selection: Android Studio apps can now use debugger type “Auto.” This will automatically enable the appropriate debugger -- the Java language aware C++ debugger if enabled and otherwise the hybrid debugger for C++ projects. Projects exclusively using the Java language will continue to use the Java language debugger.

What you think about this version of android studio let us know? if you find any isssue using it please comment below we will happy to help. You download new Android Studio from Stable Android Studio .

Android Studio 2.2 - New UI Designer & Constraint Layout Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 8 Oct 2016 21:47:00 -0700

In October at Google I/O 2016 google released stable Android Studio 2.2. This release is a large update that builds upon our focus to create a fast and productive integrated development environment (IDE) for Android. Developed in sync with the Android platform, Android Studio allows you to develop with the latest Android APIs and features.

Android Studio 2.2 includes a portfolio of new features along the spectrum of developments, ranging from designing user interfaces to building and debugging your app in new ways. This release includes the following new categories of features:

Design

Layout Editor: A new user interface designer that helps you visually design the layouts in your app. Features like blueprint mode and the new properties panel allow you to quickly edit layouts and widgets faster.

Constraint Layout: A new powerful and flexible Android layout that allows you to express complex UIs without nesting multiple layouts.

Layout Inspector: Debug a snapshot of your app layout running on the Android Emulator or device. Inspect the view hierarchy and corresponding attributes.

Develop

Firebase Plugin: Explore and integrate the suite of services offered by Firebase inside of Android Studio. Adding services like Analytics, Authentication, Notifications, and AdMob are just a few clicks away.

Enhanced Code Analysis: Android Studio checks the quality of your Android app code. In addition to 260 Android lint and code inspections, this release includes new code quality checks for Java 8 language usage and a new inspection infrastructure for more cross-file analysis.

Samples Browser: Referencing Android sample code is now even easier. Within the code editor window, find occurrences of your app code snippets in Google Android sample code to help jump start your app development.

Improved C++ Support: Android Studio 2.2 improves C++ development with the ability to edit, build, and debug pre-existing Android projects that use ndk-build or CMake rather than Gradle. Additionally, the existing lldb C++ debugger is now even better with project type auto-detection and a Java language aware C++ mode that lets you use a single debugger process to inspect both Java language and C++ runtimes.

IntelliJ 2016.1: Android Studio 2.2 includes all the latest updates from the underlying JetBrains product platforms IntelliJ.

Build

Jack Compiler Improvements: For those using the new Jack compiler, Android Studio 2.2 adds support for annotation processing, as well as incremental builds for reduced build times.

Merged Manifest Viewer: Diagnose how your AndroidManifest.xml merges with your app dependences across your project build variants.

Test

Espresso Test Recorder: Record Espresso UI tests simply by using your app as a normal user. As you click through your app UI, reusable and editable test code is then generated for you. You can run the generated tests locally, in your Continuous Integration environment, or in Firebase Test lab.

APK Analyzer: Drill into your APK to help you reduce your APK size, debug 64K method limit issues, view contents of Dex files and more.

Google I/O ‘16: What’s New in Android Development Tools

Deeper Dive into the New Features

Design

Layout Editor: Android Studio 2.2 features a new user interface designer. There are many enhancements but some of the highlights include:

Drag-and-drop widgets from the palette to the design surface or the component tree view of your app.

Design surface has a blueprint mode to inspect the spacing and arrangement of your layout.

Properties panel now shows a curated set of properties for quick widget edits with a full sheet of advanced properties one click away.

UI builder can edit menu and system preference files.

The new Layout Editor in Android Studio 2.2

Edit Menus in the new Layout Editor

Constraint Layout: This new layout is a flexible layout manager for your app that allows you to create dynamic user interfaces without nesting multiple layouts. It is distributed as a support library that is tightly coupled with Android Studio and backwards compatible to API Level 9.

To help you get started, the built-in templates in the New Project Wizard in Android Studio 2.2 now generate a Constraint Layout. Alternately, you can right click on any layout in the new Layout Editor and select the Convert to ConstraintLayout option.

This is an early preview of the UI designer and Constraint Layout, and we will rapidly add enchantments in upcoming releases. Learn more on the Android Studio tools site.

Constraint Layout

Layout Inspector: For new and existing layouts, many times you may want to debug your app UI to determine if your layout is rendering as expected. With the new Layout Inspector, you can drill into the view hierarchy of your app and analyze the attributes of each component of UI on the screen.

To use the tool, just click on Layout Inspector Icon in the Android Monitor Window, and then Android Studio creates a snapshot of the current view hierarchy of your app for you to inspect.

Layout Inspector

Develop

Firebase Plugin: Firebase is the new suite of developers services that can help you develop high-quality apps, grow your user base, and earn more money. Inside of Android Studio, you can add Firebase to a new or existing Android app with the new Assistant window. To access the Firebase features click on the Toolsmenu and then select Firebase. You will want to first setup the brand new Firebase Analytics as the foundation as you explore other Firebase services like Firebase Cloud Messaging or Firease Crash Reporting to add your application. Learn more about the Firebase integration inside Android Studio here.

Firebase Plugin for Android Studio

Code Sample Browser: In addition to importing Android Samples, the Code Sample Browser is a menu option inside Android Studio 2.2 that allows you to find high-quality, Google-provided Android code samples based on the currently highlighted symbol in your project. To use the feature, highlight a Variables, Types and Methods in your code then Right Click to show a context menu for Find Sample Code. The results are displayed in a bottom output box.

Code Sample Browser

Build

CMake and NDK-Build: For those of you using the Android NDK, Android Studio now supports building CMake and NDK-Build Android app projects by pointing Gradle at your existing build files. Once you’ve added your cmake or ndk-build project to Gradle, Android Studio will automatically open your relevant Android code files for editing and debugging in Studio.

For CMake users, just add the path to your CMList.txt file in the externalNativeBuild section of your Gradle file:

CMake Build in Android Studio

For NDK-Build Users, just add the path to your *.mk file in the section of your Gradle file:

NDK-Build in Android Studio

Improved Jack Tools: The new Jack Toolchain compiles your Java language source into Android dex bytecode. The Jack compiler allows some Java 8 language features, like lambdas, to be used on all versions of Android. This release adds incremental build and full support for annotation processing, so you can explore using Java 8 language features in your existing projects.

To use incremental build with Jack add the following to your build.gradle file:

Enable Jack Incremental Compile Option

Enable Jack Annotation Processing

- Merged Manifest Viewer: Figuring out how your AndroidManifest merges with your project dependencies based on build types, flavors and variants is now easier with Android Studio. Navigate to your AndroidManifest.xml and click on the new Merged Manifest bottom tab. Explore how each node of your AndroidManifest resolves with various project dependencies.

Merged Manifest Viewer

Test

Espresso Test Recorder: Sometimes writing UI tests can be tedious. With the Record Espresso UI tests feature, creating tests is now as easy as just using your app. Android Studio will capture all your UI interactions and convert them into a fully reusable Espresso Test that you can run locally or even on Firebase Test lab. To use the recorder, go to the Run menu and select Record Espresso Test.

Espresso Test Recorder

- APK Analyzer: The new APK Analyzer helps you understand the contents and the sizes of different components in your APK. You can also use it to avoid 64K referenced method limit issues with your Dex files, diagnose ProGuard configuration issues, view merged AndroidManifest.xml file, and inspect the compiled resources file (resources.arsc). This can help you reduce your APK size and ensure your APK contains exactly the things you expect.
The APK Analyzer shows you both the raw file size as well as the download size of various components in your APK. The download size is the estimated size users need to download when the APK is served from Google Play. This information should help you prioritize where to focus in your size reduction efforts.

To use this new feature, click on the Build menu and select Analyze APK… Then, select any APK that you want to analyze.

APK Analyzer

- Java-aware C++ Debugger: When debugging C++ code on targets running N and above, you can now use a single, Java language aware lldb instance. This debugger continues to support great lldb features like fast steps and memory watchpoints while also allowing you to stop on Java language breakpoints and view your Java language memory contents.
- Auto Debugger Selection: Android Studio apps can now use debugger type “Auto.” This will automatically enable the appropriate debugger -- the Java language aware C++ debugger if enabled and otherwise the hybrid debugger for C++ projects. Projects exclusively using the Java language will continue to use the Java language debugger.

Enable Auto Debugger for C++

What's Next

Download

If you are using a previous version of Android Studio, you can check for updates on the Canary channel from the navigation menu (Help → Check for Update [Windows/Linux] , Android Studio → Check for Updates [OS X]). This update will download a new version, and not patch your existing copy of Android Studio. You can also download Android Studio 2.2 from stable release site.

For the Android Studio 2.2, we recommend you run a stable version alongside the new canary. Check out the tools site on how to run two versions at the same time.

We appreciate any feedback on things you like, issues or features you would like to see.