My First Android App

    
    In this weeks assignment I decided to write about something new that I started learning about. So to give you some context I have mentioned before that in school so far I have learned java and currently learning assembly language. I started learning python on the side but recently had a conversation with a friend who has been a developer for 10 years and gave me a suggestion. He said instead of trying to learn multiple languages try to become a master of one. It's like the old saying that says "Fear the man that has practiced one technique 1000 times not the man that knows 1000 techniques". That really sunk in so I decided to look up what can I do with java? I found out that Java is one of the languages that is used to develop android applications. So I decided it was time to take a dive and jump into my first project.
   
 I started watching a tutorial on youtube on how to build an android application. Just getting the correct tools installed took a while. I downloaded Android Studio and installed different extensions. For my first application I decided that I was going to build a friend of mine that is a barber an application where his clients can go on there and schedule appointments depending on his availability. So every time he gets a new client he can just text them a link to his app and they can avoid the wait times. My app is far from there but getting all the tools I need to work on it is where I have started. I learned that in android app development every different page in the app is called an activity. This is sort of like when you go to a website and you are on the homepage. If you click on a link and it takes you to a different part of the website that would be a different activity. On the first image above you see the white screen on the left and the blue screen on the right. The white screen on the left is where you change the interface of the app. The one on the right is called a blueprint. This means that if you hide something on the white screen on the left you can still see it in the blueprint on the right. 
   
 I also learned to launch the application directly on my phone. First since my app is not published on the play store yet I had to turn on developer options on my android phone. Once you do that you hook up your phone to your computer using an USB cable and launch your app on your selected device. That is what you see on the second image that is attached at the top. How android development works as far as I understand it so far is that a programing language called xml is used to manipulate the interface of the app. This is really interesting because xml has the option to view code but also view design. If you alter the design of the app it also alters your code. For every object in your interface you also can create and id for it. This is used so when you want to run your java code you can reference that id to make changes to it in the backend. I am still learning on how that will specifically work but I will keep updating the more I learn.  

 

Comments

  1. EricaMarch 12, 2022 at 11:17 AM

    Can't wait to see what you create!! Best of luck, and keep in mind with things like this-- persistence and patience are often all you need.

    ReplyDelete

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