1.7. How This Book Fits Together

Android is a sophisticated platform whose parts all work together: drawing and layout, inter-process communication and data storage, search and location. Introducing it in pieces is a challenge, but we've entertained the conceit of introducing the complexities of the platform in a linear order.

The platform is also so rich that we can't hope to show you how to use everything you want, or even a large subset of its capabilities. We expect you to consult the official documentation while reading this book and trying the examples. You should also use other online resources—but be careful about web pages or forum postings that have been around a while, because interfaces change. There is also a substantial amount of misinformation out on the Web; we discovered scads of it while writing the book.

This book is written for experienced developers who want to quickly learn what they need to know to build Android applications. The book is written with references to an example application (MJAndroid, discussed in much more detail in the next chapter) that you can freely download and reuse. The major topics covered in the book include:

New Android concepts

Android builds upon a lot of legacy technology (Java, Linux, and the Internet, just to name a few), but it also introduces some new concepts needed to enable the application environment.

Android development environment

We'll show how to install the free, open source Android development environment on your own system, and how to use that environment to develop, test, and debug your own applications. You'll not only learn the mechanics of using the system, but also what's going on behind the scenes, so you'll have a better understanding of how the whole system fits together.

Android user interface

The Android user interface elements are similar to things you've seen before, but also different. We'll show you what the principal elements are, how they're used, and what they look like on the screen. We'll also show you the basic layout types available for the Android screen.

Intents

Android makes it easy to leverage existing applications through the use of Intents. For example, if you want to dial a phone number, you don't have to do all the work in your application, or even know what applications are available that know how to dial. You can just ask Android to find you an installed application that knows how to dial out, and pass it the string of numbers.

Location-based services and mapping

As you'd expect from a Google-sponsored environment, mapping and location are major features of Android. You'll see how easy it is to create sophisticated mapping and location-based applications.

Persistent data

Android includes the SQLite database libraries and tools, which your application can use to store persistent data. Content providers, which we've already introduced, provide data to other applications. Using the libraries can be a little tricky, but in Chapter 8 we'll guide you through the creation of a database, and reading, writing, and deleting data records.

Graphics

Your application has access to 2D and 3D graphics capabilities in Android. Animation and various advanced effects are also provided. This book will show you how to use those libraries so you can build a compelling user interface for your application.

Communications

Android, even more than most smartphone operating systems, places great emphasis on communication—by voice, by text messaging, by instant messaging, and by Internet. You'll see how your application can take advantage of these capabilities so your users can become part of a larger community of data and users.

The next three chapters, Chapters Chapter 2 through Chapter 4, set you up with a working application, and will give you a sense of how the files and basic classes fit together. Chapter 5 empowers you to better understand what you're doing and helps you debug your first efforts.

The Android toolkit naturally comes with an enormous number of working code examples in its ApiDemos application. Unfortunately, its very size and sophistication make it a formidable castle for novices to enter. Chapter 6 guides you through it.

A bit of experience with ApiDemos will convince you that you need some more background and tutorial help. In Chapter 7, we'll show you how to sign and publish your application, which you need to do in order to test it with Google Maps, even before you're ready to go public.

Chapter 8 presents tutorials on two data storage systems.

Chapter 9 presents location and mapping, which are key features that draw people to mobile devices and which you'll surely want to incorporate into your application.

We then turn to a critical part of any end-user application, graphics, in three information-packed chapters, Chapters Chapter 10 through Chapter 12.

Chapter 13 takes another step into the complexity and unique power of Android, by discussing how applications can offer functionality to other applications. This allows for powerful mashups, which involve one program standing on the shoulders of other programs.

Let's not forget that Android runs on telephones. Chapters Chapter 14 and Chapter 15 wrap up the book by showing you how to place and track phone calls.

There's even more to Android than these features, of course, but programmers of all stripes will find in this book what they need to create useful and efficient programs for the Android platform.