Android – Activities

Android – Activities

An activity represents a single screen with a user interface just like window or frame of Java.Android activity is the subclass of ContextThemeWrapper class.

If you have worked with C, C++ or Java programming language then you must have seen that your program starts from main() function. Very similar way, Android system initiates its program with in an Activity starting with a call on onCreate() callback method. There is a sequence of callback methods that start up an activity and a sequence of callback methods that tear down an activity as shown in the below Activity life cycle diagram: (image courtesy : android.com )

The Activity class defines the following call backs i.e. events. You don’t need to implement all the callbacks methods. However, it’s important that you understand each one and implement those that ensure your app behaves the way users expect.

Sr.No	Callback & Description
1	onCreate() This is the first callback and called when the activity is first created.
2	onStart() This callback is called when the activity becomes visible to the user.
3	onResume() This is called when the user starts interacting with the application.
4	onPause() The paused activity does not receive user input and cannot execute any code and called when the current activity is being paused and the previous activity is being resumed.
5	onStop() This callback is called when the activity is no longer visible.
6	onDestroy() This callback is called before the activity is destroyed by the system.
7	onRestart() This callback is called when the activity restarts after stopping it.

Example

This example will take you through simple steps to show Android application activity life cycle. Follow the following steps to modify the Android application we created in Hello World Example chapter −

Step	Description
1	You will use Android studio to create an Android application and name it as HelloWorld under a package com.example.helloworld as explained in the Hello World Example chapter.
2	Modify main activity file MainActivity.java as explained below. Keep rest of the files unchanged.
3	Run the application to launch Android emulator and verify the result of the changes done in the application.

Following is the content of the modified main activity file src/com.example.helloworld/MainActivity.java. This file includes each of the fundamental life cycle methods. The Log.d() method has been used to generate log messages −

package com.example.helloworld;

import android.os.Bundle;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.util.Log;

public class MainActivity extends Activity {
   String msg = "Android : ";
   
   /** Called when the activity is first created. */
   @Override
   public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
      super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
      setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
      Log.d(msg, "The onCreate() event");
   }

   /** Called when the activity is about to become visible. */
   @Override
   protected void onStart() {
      super.onStart();
      Log.d(msg, "The onStart() event");
   }

   /** Called when the activity has become visible. */
   @Override
   protected void onResume() {
      super.onResume();
      Log.d(msg, "The onResume() event");
   }

   /** Called when another activity is taking focus. */
   @Override
   protected void onPause() {
      super.onPause();
      Log.d(msg, "The onPause() event");
   }

   /** Called when the activity is no longer visible. */
   @Override
   protected void onStop() {
      super.onStop();
      Log.d(msg, "The onStop() event");
   }

   /** Called just before the activity is destroyed. */
   @Override
   public void onDestroy() {
      super.onDestroy();
      Log.d(msg, "The onDestroy() event");
   }
}

An activity class loads all the UI component using the XML file available in res/layout folder of the project. Following statement loads UI components from res/layout/activity_main.xml file:

setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

An application can have one or more activities without any restrictions. Every activity you define for your application must be declared in your AndroidManifest.xml file and the main activity for your app must be declared in the manifest with an <intent-filter> that includes the MAIN action and LAUNCHER category as follows:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    package="com.example.tutorialspoint7.myapplication">

    <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" />
            </intent-filter>
        </activity>
    </application>

</manifest>

If either the MAIN action or LAUNCHER category are not declared for one of your activities, then your app icon will not appear in the Home screen’s list of apps.

Let’s try to run our modified Hello World! application we just modified. I assume you had created your AVD while doing environment setup. To run the app from Android studio, open one of your project’s activity files and click Run  icon from the toolbar. Android studio installs the app on your AVD and starts it and if everything is fine with your setup and application, it will display Emulator window and you should see following log messages in LogCat window in Android studio −

08-23 10:32:07.682 4480-4480/com.example.helloworld D/Android :: The onCreate() event
08-23 10:32:07.683 4480-4480/com.example.helloworld D/Android :: The onStart() event
08-23 10:32:07.685 4480-4480/com.example.helloworld D/Android :: The onResume() event

 

Let us try to click lock screen button on the Android emulator and it will generate following events messages in LogCat window in android studio:

08-23 10:32:53.230 4480-4480/com.example.helloworld D/Android :: The onPause() event
08-23 10:32:53.294 4480-4480/com.example.helloworld D/Android :: The onStop() event

Let us again try to unlock your screen on the Android emulator and it will generate following events messages in LogCat window in Android studio:

08-23 10:34:41.390 4480-4480/com.example.helloworld D/Android :: The onStart() event
08-23 10:34:41.392 4480-4480/com.example.helloworld D/Android :: The onResume() event

Next, let us again try to click Back button  on the Android emulator and it will generate following events messages in LogCat window in Android studio and this completes the Activity Life Cycle for an Android Application.

08-23 10:37:24.806 4480-4480/com.example.helloworld D/Android :: The onPause() event
08-23 10:37:25.668 4480-4480/com.example.helloworld D/Android :: The onStop() event
08-23 10:37:25.669 4480-4480/com.example.helloworld D/Android :: The on Destroy() event

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Android Resources Organizing & Accessing

 

Android Resources Organizing & Accessing

There are many more items which you use to build a good Android application. Apart from coding for the application, you take care of various other resources like static content that your code uses, such as bitmaps, colors, layout definitions, user interface strings, animation instructions, and more. These resources are always maintained separately in various sub-directories under res/ directory of the project.

This tutorial will explain you how you can organize your application resources, specify alternative resources and access them in your applications.

Organize resource in Android Studio

MyProject/
   app/
      manifest/
         AndroidManifest.xml
   java/
      MyActivity.java  
      res/
         drawable/  
            icon.png  
         layout/  
            activity_main.xml
            info.xml
         values/  
            strings.xml 
				 

 

Sr.No.	Directory & Resource Type
1	anim/ XML files that define property animations. They are saved in res/anim/ folder and accessed from the R.anim class.
2	color/ XML files that define a state list of colors. They are saved in res/color/ and accessed from the R.color class.
3	drawable/ Image files like .png, .jpg, .gif or XML files that are compiled into bitmaps, state lists, shapes, animation drawable. They are saved in res/drawable/ and accessed from the R.drawable class.
4	layout/ XML files that define a user interface layout. They are saved in res/layout/ and accessed from the R.layout class.
5	menu/ XML files that define application menus, such as an Options Menu, Context Menu, or Sub Menu. They are saved in res/menu/ and accessed from the R.menu class.
6	raw/ Arbitrary files to save in their raw form. You need to call Resources.openRawResource() with the resource ID, which is R.raw.filename to open such raw files.
7	values/ XML files that contain simple values, such as strings, integers, and colors. For example, here are some filename conventions for resources you can create in this directory − arrays.xml for resource arrays, and accessed from the R.array class. integers.xml for resource integers, and accessed from the R.integer class. bools.xml for resource boolean, and accessed from the R.bool class. colors.xml for color values, and accessed from the R.color class. dimens.xml for dimension values, and accessed from the R.dimen class. strings.xml for string values, and accessed from the R.string class. styles.xml for styles, and accessed from the R.style class.
8	xml/ Arbitrary XML files that can be read at runtime by calling Resources.getXML(). You can save various configuration files here which will be used at run time.

Alternative Resources

Your application should provide alternative resources to support specific device configurations. For example, you should include alternative drawable resources ( i.e.images ) for different screen resolution and alternative string resources for different languages. At runtime, Android detects the current device configuration and loads the appropriate resources for your application.

To specify configuration-specific alternatives for a set of resources, follow the following steps −

• Create a new directory in res/ named in the form <resources_name>-<config_qualifier>. Here resources_name will be any of the resources mentioned in the above table, like layout, drawable etc. The qualifier will specify an individual configuration for which these resources are to be used. You can check official documentation for a complete list of qualifiers for different type of resources.
• Save the respective alternative resources in this new directory. The resource files must be named exactly the same as the default resource files as shown in the below example, but these files will have content specific to the alternative. For example though image file name will be same but for high resolution screen, its resolution will be high.

Below is an example which specifies images for a default screen and alternative images for high resolution screen.

MyProject/
   app/
      manifest/
         AndroidManifest.xml
   java/
      MyActivity.java   
      res/
         drawable/  
            icon.png
            background.png
         drawable-hdpi/  
            icon.png
            background.png  
         layout/  
            activity_main.xml
            info.xml
         values/  
            strings.xml 

Below is another example which specifies layout for a default language and alternative layout for Arabic language.

MyProject/
   app/
      manifest/
         AndroidManifest.xml
   java/
      MyActivity.java   
      res/
         drawable/  
            icon.png
            background.png
         drawable-hdpi/  
            icon.png
            background.png  
         layout/  
            activity_main.xml
            info.xml
         layout-ar/
            main.xml
         values/  
            strings.xml 

Accessing Resources

During your application development you will need to access defined resources either in your code, or in your layout XML files. Following section explains how to access your resources in both the scenarios −

Accessing Resources in Code

When your Android application is compiled, a R class gets generated, which contains resource IDs for all the resources available in your res/ directory. You can use R class to access that resource using sub-directory and resource name or directly resource ID.

Example

To access res/drawable/myimage.png and set an ImageView you will use following code −

ImageView imageView = (ImageView) findViewById(R.id.myimageview);
imageView.setImageResource(R.drawable.myimage);

Here first line of the code make use of R.id.myimageview to get ImageView defined with id myimageview in a Layout file. Second line of code makes use of R.drawable.myimage to get an image with name myimage available in drawable sub-directory under /res.

Example

Consider next example where res/values/strings.xml has following definition −

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
   <string  name="hello">Hello, World!</string>
</resources>

Now you can set the text on a TextView object with ID msg using a resource ID as follows −

TextView msgTextView = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.msg);
msgTextView.setText(R.string.hello);

Example

Consider a layout res/layout/activity_main.xml with the following definition −

 

<?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" >
   
   <TextView android:id="@+id/text"
      android:layout_width="wrap_content"
      android:layout_height="wrap_content"
      android:text="Hello, I am a TextView" />

   <Button android:id="@+id/button"
      android:layout_width="wrap_content"
      android:layout_height="wrap_content"
      android:text="Hello, I am a Button" />
      
</LinearLayout>

This application code will load this layout for an Activity, in the onCreate() method as follows −

public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
   super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
   setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
}

Accessing Resources in XML

Consider the following resource XML res/values/strings.xml file that includes a color resource and a string resource −

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
   <color name="opaque_red">#f00</color>
   <string name="hello">Hello!</string>
</resources>

Now you can use these resources in the following layout file to set the text color and text string as follows −

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<EditText xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
   android:layout_width="fill_parent"
   android:layout_height="fill_parent"
   android:textColor="@color/opaque_red"
   android:text="@string/hello" />

Now if you will go through previous chapter once again where I have explained Hello World! example, and I’m sure you will have better understanding on all the concepts explained in this chapter. So I highly recommend to check previous chapter for working example and check how I have used various resources at very basic level.

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Android – Application Components

 Application components are the essential building blocks of an Android application. These components are loosely coupled by the application manifest file AndroidManifest.xml that describes each component of the application and how they interact.

There are following four main components that can be used within an Android application −

Sr.No	Components & Description
1	Activities They dictate the UI and handle the user interaction to the smart phone screen.
2	Services They handle background processing associated with an application.
3	Broadcast Receivers They handle communication between Android OS and applications.
4	Content Providers They handle data and database management issues.

Activities

An activity represents a single screen with a user interface,in-short Activity performs actions on the screen. For example, an email application might have one activity that shows a list of new emails, another activity to compose an email, and another activity for reading emails. If an application has more than one activity, then one of them should be marked as the activity that is presented when the application is launched.

An activity is implemented as a subclass of Activity class as follows −

public class MainActivity extends Activity {
}

Services

A service is a component that runs in the background to perform long-running operations. For example, a service might play music in the background while the user is in a different application, or it might fetch data over the network without blocking user interaction with an activity.

A service is implemented as a subclass of Service class as follows −

public class MyService extends Service {
}

Broadcast Receivers

Broadcast Receivers simply respond to broadcast messages from other applications or from the system. For example, applications can also initiate broadcasts to let other applications know that some data has been downloaded to the device and is available for them to use, so this is broadcast receiver who will intercept this communication and will initiate appropriate action.

A broadcast receiver is implemented as a subclass of BroadcastReceiver class and each message is broadcaster as an Intent object.

public class MyReceiver  extends  BroadcastReceiver {
   public void onReceive(context,intent){}
}

Content Providers

A content provider component supplies data from one application to others on request. Such requests are handled by the methods of the ContentResolver class. The data may be stored in the file system, the database or somewhere else entirely.

A content provider is implemented as a subclass of ContentProvider class and must implement a standard set of APIs that enable other applications to perform transactions.

public class MyContentProvider extends  ContentProvider {
   public void onCreate(){}
}

We will go through these tags in detail while covering application components in individual chapters.

Additional Components

There are additional components which will be used in the construction of above mentioned entities, their logic, and wiring between them. These components are −

S.No	Components & Description
1	Fragments Represents a portion of user interface in an Activity.
2	Views UI elements that are drawn on-screen including buttons, lists forms etc.
3	Layouts View hierarchies that control screen format and appearance of the views.
4	Intents Messages wiring components together.
5	Resources External elements, such as strings, constants and drawable pictures.
6	Manifest Configuration file for the application.

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Android – Architecture

 

Android – Architecture

Android operating system is a stack of software components which is roughly divided into five sections and four main layers as shown below in the architecture diagram.

Linux kernel

At the bottom of the layers is Linux – Linux 3.6 with approximately 115 patches. This provides a level of abstraction between the device hardware and it contains all the essential hardware drivers like camera, keypad, display etc. Also, the kernel handles all the things that Linux is really good at such as networking and a vast array of device drivers, which take the pain out of interfacing to peripheral hardware.

Libraries

On top of Linux kernel there is a set of libraries including open-source Web browser engine WebKit, well known library libc, SQLite database which is a useful repository for storage and sharing of application data, libraries to play and record audio and video, SSL libraries responsible for Internet security etc.

Android Libraries

This category encompasses those Java-based libraries that are specific to Android development. Examples of libraries in this category include the application framework libraries in addition to those that facilitate user interface building, graphics drawing and database access. A summary of some key core Android libraries available to the Android developer is as follows −

• android.app − Provides access to the application model and is the cornerstone of all Android applications.
• android.content − Facilitates content access, publishing and messaging between applications and application components.
• android.database − Used to access data published by content providers and includes SQLite database management classes.
• android.opengl − A Java interface to the OpenGL ES 3D graphics rendering API.
• android.os − Provides applications with access to standard operating system services including messages, system services and inter-process communication.
• android.text − Used to render and manipulate text on a device display.
• android.view − The fundamental building blocks of application user interfaces.
• android.widget − A rich collection of pre-built user interface components such as buttons, labels, list views, layout managers, radio buttons etc.
• android.webkit − A set of classes intended to allow web-browsing capabilities to be built into applications.

Having covered the Java-based core libraries in the Android runtime, it is now time to turn our attention to the C/C++ based libraries contained in this layer of the Android software stack.

Android Runtime

This is the third section of the architecture and available on the second layer from the bottom. This section provides a key component called Dalvik Virtual Machine which is a kind of Java Virtual Machine specially designed and optimized for Android.

The Dalvik VM makes use of Linux core features like memory management and multi-threading, which is intrinsic in the Java language. The Dalvik VM enables every Android application to run in its own process, with its own instance of the Dalvik virtual machine.

The Android runtime also provides a set of core libraries which enable Android application developers to write Android applications using standard Java programming language.

Application Framework

The Application Framework layer provides many higher-level services to applications in the form of Java classes. Application developers are allowed to make use of these services in their applications.

The Android framework includes the following key services −

• Activity Manager − Controls all aspects of the application lifecycle and activity stack.
• Content Providers − Allows applications to publish and share data with other applications.
• Resource Manager − Provides access to non-code embedded resources such as strings, color settings and user interface layouts.
• Notifications Manager − Allows applications to display alerts and notifications to the user.
• View System − An extensible set of views used to create application user interfaces.

Applications

You will find all the Android application at the top layer. You will write your application to be installed on this layer only. Examples of such applications are Contacts Books, Browser, Games etc.

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Android – Overview

What is Android?

Android is an open source and Linux-based Operating System for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. Android was developed by the Open Handset Alliance, led by Google, and other companies.

Android offers a unified approach to application development for mobile devices which means developers need only develop for Android, and their applications should be able to run on different devices powered by Android.

The first beta version of the Android Software Development Kit (SDK) was released by Google in 2007 where as the first commercial version, Android 1.0, was released in September 2008.

On June 27, 2012, at the Google I/O conference, Google announced the next Android version, 4.1 Jelly Bean. Jelly Bean is an incremental update, with the primary aim of improving the user interface, both in terms of functionality and performance.

The source code for Android is available under free and open source software licenses. Google publishes most of the code under the Apache License version 2.0 and the rest, Linux kernel changes, under the GNU General Public License version 2.

Why Android ?

Features of Android

Android is a powerful operating system competing with Apple 4GS and supports great features. Few of them are listed below −

Sr.No.	Feature & Description
1	Beautiful UI Android OS basic screen provides a beautiful and intuitive user interface.
2	Connectivity GSM/EDGE, IDEN, CDMA, EV-DO, UMTS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, LTE, NFC and WiMAX.
3	Storage SQLite, a lightweight relational database, is used for data storage purposes.
4	Media support H.263, H.264, MPEG-4 SP, AMR, AMR-WB, AAC, HE-AAC, AAC 5.1, MP3, MIDI, Ogg Vorbis, WAV, JPEG, PNG, GIF, and BMP.
5	Messaging SMS and MMS
6	Web browser Based on the open-source WebKit layout engine, coupled with Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine supporting HTML5 and CSS3.
7	Multi-touch Android has native support for multi-touch which was initially made available in handsets such as the HTC Hero.
8	Multi-tasking User can jump from one task to another and same time various application can run simultaneously.
9	Resizable widgets Widgets are resizable, so users can expand them to show more content or shrink them to save space.
10	Multi-Language Supports single direction and bi-directional text.
11	GCM Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) is a service that lets developers send short message data to their users on Android devices, without needing a proprietary sync solution.
12	Wi-Fi Direct A technology that lets apps discover and pair directly, over a high-bandwidth peer-to-peer connection.
13	Android Beam A popular NFC-based technology that lets users instantly share, just by touching two NFC-enabled phones together.

Android Applications

Android applications are usually developed in the Java language using the Android Software Development Kit.

Once developed, Android applications can be packaged easily and sold out either through a store such as Google Play, SlideME, Opera Mobile Store, Mobango, F-droid and the Amazon Appstore.

Android powers hundreds of millions of mobile devices in more than 190 countries around the world. It’s the largest installed base of any mobile platform and growing fast. Every day more than 1 million new Android devices are activated worldwide.

This tutorial has been written with an aim to teach you how to develop and package Android application. We will start from environment setup for Android application programming and then drill down to look into various aspects of Android applications.

Categories of Android applications

There are many android applications in the market. The top categories are −

History of Android

The code names of android ranges from A to N currently, such as Aestro, Blender, Cupcake, Donut, Eclair, Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Ice Cream Sandwitch, Jelly Bean, KitKat, Lollipop and Marshmallow. Let’s understand the android history in a sequence.

What is API level?

API Level is an integer value that uniquely identifies the framework API revision offered by a version of the Android platform.

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Reverse a String: Sachin Tendulkar to Tendulkar Sachin

Reverse a String: 

 

Problem Statement: Reverse a string like Sachin Tendulkar to Tendulkar Sachin.

Solution:

Input: String: Sachin Tendulkar

#Pseudo-Code:

        Here,

p1 = point to start of word

p2 = point to end of word or encounter of space after each word

n = length of string

 

// to reverse a single word > character by character

 

          reverse(str , 0 , n-1)   

 

/*     Sachin Tendulkar     >>    rakludneT nihcaS    */

p1=0 ,    p2=0;

while(p1<n)

{

 

    //    iterate on p2 till you reach a space or end

    while(p2<n && str[p2] != ' ')

    {

        p2++;  

    }

 

/*     

Here we again reversing our word which was obtained after first reverse to get required output

 i.e. rakludneT nihcaS    >>    Tendulkar Sachin     

*/ 

    reverse(str , p1 , p2-1)    

    p1 = p2+1;

    p2 = p1;

    // Now both the p1 and p2 are once again pointing to start of new word

}

 

#    if you have any doubt/query feel free to ask in comments or contact me.

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