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)

The life and times of an Android app

We have talked a bit about the structure of our code; we know that we can write classes, and within those classes we have methods, and the methods contain our code, which gets things done. We also know that when we want the code within a method to run (be executed), we call that method by using its name.

Also, in Chapter 2, First Contact: Java, XML, and the UI Designer, we learned that Android itself calls the onCreate method just before the app is ready to start. We saw this when we output to the logcat and used the Toast class to send a pop-up message to the user.

What we will look at in this chapter is what happens throughout the lifecycle of every app we write – when it starts and ends as well as a few stages in between as well. And what we will see is that Android interacts with our app on numerous occasions, each time it is run.