Android Mazes

Hi all, so previously we had discussed in brief about the Gradle and studio, we had also gone through the steps for environment setup and helloworld coding. We will now climb each step to the different aspects of android programming with studio, so, fasten your seat belts

Understand the android studios project structure

Lets start by creating a new project(click here if you want to know how), say the same hello world program for now which we discussed previously. For any android application, the main areas to focus is the activities and layouts.

An activity can be considered as a presentation layer, it will decide the behaviour of the app from its start to end. Each activity is a class which will control how the app will interact with the user. For example, when you open any android app what do you see?, you would see a complex view with clickable, non clickable, editable, non editable components in a single page, the entire page or view is called a layout. On the other hand, try interacting with the layout, say, clicking a button or typing in your user name / password etc. all such functional behaviours as to what each individual component in a layout is to do is controlled by the activity class. You will learn more while start coding.

Moving on, lets take a look at our project, you will see an app directory which has a few sub-directories namely manifests, java, res. We will begin with the java folder; on expanding which you would see a package name in the form "com.somthing.somethingelse".

A package name is kind of a unique identifier for an application. It is a mandatory part of any application, 2 applications may exist in the same device with same name and different package names, but if 2 applications with same package names are tried to be installed, the system will come up with a failure message. Also if you are uploading an app to the Google play store with whatever package name and after a while you want to release the same app with updated features and bug fixes, you have to use the same package name you used previously, if you are going to upload the apk with a different package name it will be treated as a new app.

In android each class files are grouped under packages. Within an application , you can declare multiple packages for grouping different types of class files such as a com.example.db for all the database classes or com.example.constant to hold all the classes which declare constants, but, only one package will act as the unique id for the application, mostly it will be the package you declared while creating the project unless you change the package forcibly.

As said activities and layouts form the main parts of an android app, you can see that under your package there is the MainActivity.java file. Open the java file and you will see something like


package androidstudio.test.com.myapplication;

import android.support.v7.app.ActionBarActivity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.Menu;
import android.view.MenuItem;

public class MainActivity2Activity extends ActionBarActivity {

    @Override    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main_activity2);
    }

    @Override    public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
        // Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.        getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.menu_main_activity2, menu);
        return true;
    }

    @Override    public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
        // Handle action bar item clicks here. The action bar will        // automatically handle clicks on the Home/Up button, so long        // as you specify a parent activity in AndroidManifest.xml.        int id = item.getItemId();

        //noinspection SimplifiableIfStatement        if (id == R.id.action_settings) {
            return true;
        }

        return super.onOptionsItemSelected(item);
    }
}

As you can see the MainActivity extends the Activity class. The Activity class contains a series that defines each state of the app. An activity goes through a series of lifecycle as you navigate through the app, like if the app is in started or the activity is in foreground, the onCreate and onResume method are called.

Activity Life cycle methods

onCreate() - called when an activity is created or launched. This method will be overridden in our activity to create view,  initialise views, bind data etc

onStart() - called right after onCreate(), this may be used to implement any task before the UI becomes visible to the user such as refreshing or reloading UI contents etc. This is immediately followed by onResume()

onResume() - called when the UI is ready for user interaction.This is one of the important method to be overridden. It is method that get called whenever the activity comes to foreground hence it always is the state that may happen after onPause(). This method can be used to bind services, listeners etc.

onPause() - This method is called whenever the activity goes in background like when another activity is opened on top of the current activity or when home button is pressed etc. i.e. when the activity is no longer visible but is not killed. This can be overridden to unbind services or listeners, release system resources, save application data etc. It can be considered as the opposite of onResume(). The onPause() is always guaranteed to be called whenever the apps goes in background or turns invisible, but after that the Android system has the right to kill your app so make sure your app data is saved.

onStop() - called when the app is completely invisible and happens after onPause(). After this the onRestart(), onDestroy() or nothing may be called. We cannot depend on this system, as the system may or may not call it considering low memory scenarios. Hence write all the commit codes in your onPause().

onDestroy() -  called when the activity is temporarily or permanently killed. This happens when either the system kills your application instance when it is low on resources as well as when the activity is finished by the user, the two scenarios can be differentiated with the help of the isFinishing() method. It is the last method that would be called in an activity's life cycle. Like onStop() this method also cannot be relied on as it is up to the system whether it will be called or not. This method is usually implemented to free resources that may be used by the activity.

Before we go into doing an example on this, I would like to talk about one more important object, called Intent.

An intent can be described as a message carrier between components. In programming world it can be considered as an object that can carry information or data between components belonging to the same application. Intents are mainly used for three major functions:


To start another activity
To start a service
To pass messages to broadcast receivers

Intent will mainly carry three important parts; an action, data, component name. An action is a String that generally describes what action the Intent is intended for such as ACTION_VIEW, which is used to display information through an activity to the user such as displaying video in the video player, or images in the gallery etc.

A data is a bundle of information that is required to be communicated between components.

A component name is the package name of the other component to which the intent is passed. For example, you want to pass the intent to MainActivity.java residing in package com.example.sampleintent package, then, its component name is com.example.sampleintent.MainActivity which can be said as the fully qualified class name.

There are two types of Intents


Explicit intents
Implicit intents

Explicit intents are those in which the component names are specified. These components might be activities or other components within your application and whose component names you are aware of, mostly used when starting another activity from your current activity.

Implicit intents are those in which the the component is not specified, whereas an action will be declared with it. These types of intents are usually used if you want to use a specific function on an in built component whose component name you are not aware of such as to call a particular number you can use the phones default caller with the help of the ACTION_CALL intent action.

Lets move on to an example to understand these aspects. I hope you know how to create a project and all, if any confusions please refer to earlier posts. Assuming you would have started a new project, you will already have a MainActivity.java, lets create one more Activity. For this:


Right click your application package
Goto New >> Activity >> Blank Activity
Name your activity as SecondActivity(you may name as you wish)

A new activity and its corresponding layout file will be created

Once this is done, let's move back to the MainActivity.java and override our lifecycle methods. To override in Android Studio, point and click the cursor to any location you like to create your methods and from the Keyboard press Alt+Insert, you can also right click on the emoty space and select Generate, It will open up a small window with a list of actions, select Override Methods...

From the list that follows, keep pressing CTRL from your keyboard and click the following methods:

onResume()

onStart()

onPause()

onRestart()

onStop()

onDestroy()

and click OK.

The methods will get added up at the point where your cursor was clicked. Inside each method, we will write a Log statement(a log is used to print out a text while a specific code is being run, it is basically used for debug purposes, in our case to check when each method is being called, based on the log that appears). A log statement is in the form:

Log.d("",""); //d for debug

Log.i("",""); //i for info

Log.e("",""); //e for error

There are many types of log, we will use Log.d

Next, goto activity_main.xml the layout file for this activity. Go to the Design mode

If your see any Helloword text in the mobile screen, just click and press Delete from keyboard.

From the pallete available in the left hand side, drag and drop the button into the mobile screen.

Double click on the button and a window will appear, in the text field type "Click to goto next activity", in the id give "click_button"(you may give any, but you should remember it). Now click in the empty space outside the window and the button label will get updated. Beside the Design field at the bottom left , there is another label called Text, click on that and you will see the xml file of the layout you just edited.

Come back to the MainActivity.java. In the declaration area, declare a button as

private Button clickButton; //name your variable as you wish

inside onCreate lets initialize the button as

clickButton=(Button)findViewById(R.id.click_button);  //this is he std format to declare any                                                         view components

Next, we will implement the click functionality for the button as

clickButton.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
    @Override    public void onClick(View v) {
 
    }
});

inside the onClick method write the following code to pass control to the next activity when the button is clicked. The onClick is an event and whatever you write inside of it will define the buttons function:

clickButton.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
    @Override    public void onClick(View v) {
        Intent goToSecondActivity=new Intent(MainActivity.this,SecondActivity.class);
        goToSecondActivity.putExtra("data","dataToBePassed");
        startActivity(goToSecondActivity);
    }
});

code snippet

public class MainActivity extends ActionBarActivity {
public static final String TAG = "ACTIVITY_LIFECYCLE";
    private Button clickButton;
    @Override    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        Log.d(TAG, "onCreate called");
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
        clickButton=(Button)findViewById(R.id.click_button);
        clickButton.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
            @Override            public void onClick(View v) {
                Intent goToSecondActivity=new Intent(MainActivity.this,SecondActivity.class);
                goToSecondActivity.putExtra("data","dataToBePassed");
                startActivity(goToSecondActivity);
            }
        });
    }

    @Override    protected void onDestroy() {
        super.onDestroy();
        Log.d(TAG,"onDestroy called");
    }

    @Override    protected void onRestart() {
        super.onRestart();
        Log.d(TAG, "onRestart called");
    }

    @Override    protected void onStop() {
        super.onStop();
        Log.d(TAG, "onStop called");
    }

    @Override    protected void onStart() {
        super.onStart();
        Log.d(TAG, "onStart called");
    }

    @Override    protected void onResume() {
        super.onResume();
        Log.d(TAG, "onResume called");
    }

    @Override    protected void onPause() {
        super.onPause();
        Log.d(TAG, "onPause called");
    }


    @Override    public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
        // Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.        getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.menu_main, menu);
        return true;
    }
    @Override    public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
        // Handle action bar item clicks here. The action bar will        // automatically handle clicks on the Home/Up button, so long        // as you specify a parent activity in AndroidManifest.xml.        int id = item.getItemId();

        //noinspection SimplifiableIfStatement        if (id == R.id.action_settings) {
            return true;
        }

        return super.onOptionsItemSelected(item);
    }
}
Now in your SecondActivity, write the below snippet in its onCreate, below the setContentView method.

Let's set the received string content in the TextView present in the activity's layout. Inorder to access any view(TextView in our case), make sure the view has an id defined in its xml. So, go the layout and in the TextView xml, declare a unique id(if not present), say,

android:id="@+id/my_textview"

Now you need to initialize your TextView, inorder to set the content. For this, create an object of the TextView class say,

private TextView mTextView;

and then we can initialize it as

mTextView = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.my_textview);

Now the mTextView object will officially represent the my_textview.

So, we can set its text with the receivedText as

mTextView.setText(receivedText);

Lets also override the life cycle methods here as well so that we can understand the state of this activity when we try to navigate fro here,

code snippet

SecondActivity.java

public class SecondActivity extends ActionBarActivity {
    public static final String TAG = "SECONDACTIVITY_LIFECYCL";
    private TextView mTextView;
    String receivedText;
    @Override    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        Log.d(TAG, "onCreate called");
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_second);
        receivedText=getIntent().getStringExtra("data");
        System.out.println(receivedText);
        mTextView=(TextView)findViewById(R.id.my_textview);
        mTextView.setText(receivedText);
    }

    @Override    protected void onDestroy() {
        super.onDestroy();
        Log.d(TAG,"onDestroy called");
    }

    @Override    protected void onRestart() {
        super.onRestart();
        Log.d(TAG, "onRestart called");
    }

    @Override    protected void onStop() {
        super.onStop();
        Log.d(TAG, "onStop called");
    }

    @Override    protected void onStart() {
        super.onStart();
        Log.d(TAG, "onStart called");
    }

    @Override    protected void onResume() {
        super.onResume();
        Log.d(TAG, "onResume called");
    }

    @Override    protected void onPause() {
        super.onPause();
        Log.d(TAG, "onPause called");
    }
    @Override    public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
        // Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.        getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.menu_second, menu);
        return true;
    }
}


Layout for the activity - activity_second.xml
<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="androidstudio.test.com.myapplication.SecondActivity">

    <TextView        android:id="@+id/my_textview"        android:text="@string/hello_world" 
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"        android:layout_height="wrap_content" />

</RelativeLayout>

Vola, we are done with our project. Lets now run and check the ouput's. To run the project, click the green play button onthe top, or click Run>>Run 'app'

:::Output::::

Check your logcat to see the out put, to view logcat you can see the Android tab in the bottom left of your studio, and inside it you can see log cat.

Remember the TAG string representing the logs from the MainActivity is ACTIVITY_LIFECYCLE and that from the SecondActivity is SECONDACTIVITY_LIFECYCL, this will help us differentiate the output from each activity.

When the app is launched, you will see

D/ACTIVITY_LIFECYCLE﹕ onCreate called //represent the log we have written in the onCreate of MainActivity, D represents that it is a debug log

D/ACTIVITY_LIFECYCLE﹕ onStart called

D/ACTIVITY_LIFECYCLE﹕ onResume called

Press your device's home button and check the logcat, the following comes up

D/ACTIVITY_LIFECYCLE﹕ onPause called

D/ACTIVITY_LIFECYCLE﹕ onStop called

Resume the app from your recent app list(long press the home button)

D/ACTIVITY_LIFECYCLE﹕ onRestart called

D/ACTIVITY_LIFECYCLE﹕ onStart called

D/ACTIVITY_LIFECYCLE﹕ onResume called

Click Button > CLICK TO GOTO NEXT ACTIVITY, the SecondActivity Opens up through the Intent and you can see the message that was passed through the Intent has been set in the TextView, the logcat will show

D/ACTIVITY_LIFECYCLE﹕ onPause called

D/SECONDACTIVITY_LIFECYCL﹕ onCreate called //logs from SecondActivity

D/SECONDACTIVITY_LIFECYCL﹕ onStart called

D/SECONDACTIVITY_LIFECYCL﹕ onResume called

D/ACTIVITY_LIFECYCLE﹕ onStop called //MainActivity Stopped after SecondActivity is visible

Press device's back button

D/SECONDACTIVITY_LIFECYCL﹕ onPause called

D/ACTIVITY_LIFECYCLE﹕ onRestart called

D/ACTIVITY_LIFECYCLE﹕ onStart called

D/ACTIVITY_LIFECYCLE﹕ onResume called

D/SECONDACTIVITY_LIFECYCL﹕ onStop called

D/SECONDACTIVITY_LIFECYCL﹕ onDestroy called

There you go, now you know what goes on when you navigate through an application. Have a good day. I will be back soon with another topic. Please see below if you wish to see the app screenshots.

Android Mazes

Monday, 23 January 2017

Xamarin setup

Xamarin.Android - a change in the pattern

Friday, 19 June 2015

Error Solving time - Android Studio - bad class file magic (cafebabe) or version (0034.0000) android studio

Tuesday, 16 June 2015

Error Solving time - Android Studio - peer not authenticated

peer not authenticated

Tuesday, 9 June 2015

Error Solving time - Android Studio - aidl is missing

Friday, 5 June 2015

Adding gradle dependencies when library package name is not known

Wednesday, 27 May 2015

Stepping stones to becoming a developer - Android Studio project structure

Understand the android studios project structure

code snippet

code snippet

SecondActivity.java

Layout for the activity - activity_second.xml

:::Output::::

Popular Posts