Book Image

Android Programming for Beginners - Third Edition

By : John Horton
Book Image

Android Programming for Beginners - Third Edition

By: John Horton

Overview of this book

Do you want to make a career in programming but don’t know where to start? Do you have a great idea for an app but don't know how to make it a reality? Or are you worried that you’ll have to learn Java programming to become an Android developer? Look no further! This new and expanded third edition of Android Programming for Beginners will be your guide to creating Android applications from scratch. The book starts by introducing you to all the fundamental concepts of programming in an Android context, from the basics of Java to working with the Android API. You’ll learn with the help of examples that use up-to-date API classes and are created within Android Studio, the official Android development environment that helps supercharge your mobile application development process. After a crash course on the key programming concepts, you’ll explore Android programming and get to grips with creating applications with a professional-standard UI using fragments and storing user data with SQLite. This Android Java book also shows you how you can make your apps multilingual, draw on the screen with a finger, and work with graphics, sound, and animations. By the end of this Android programming book, you'll be ready to start building your own custom applications in Android and Java.
Table of Contents (30 chapters)

Adding a settings page to Note to Self

Now that we are armed with all this knowledge about the Android Intent class, we can add another screen (Activity) to our Note to Self app. We will add a settings screen.

We will first create a new Activity for our settings screen and see what effect that has on the AndroidManifest.xml file; we will then create a very simple layout for our settings screen and add the Java code to switch from MainActivity to the new one. We will, however, defer wiring up our settings screen with Java until we have learned how to save the settings to disk. We will do this later in this chapter and then come back to the settings screen to make its data persist.

First, let's create that new Activity class. We will call it SettingsActivity.

Creating SettingsActivity

This will be a screen where the user can turn on or off the decorative divider between each note in the RecyclerView widget. This will not be a comprehensive settings screen but it will...