As I told before, I attended the free webinar by CreativeTech on Developing Android Applications with Java yesterday.
My friend Jaskirat, asked me write about the session since he missed some parts of it as he slept during the session. 🙂 Okay it was not because the session was boring, but due to the fact that 11 AM PST is midnight of us guys in India. I happily obliged and here are my notes from the session.
Introduction
The training started off with a brief introduction about the format of the session, about CreativeTech trainings, partnership with O’Reilly, brief profile of the author etc. They also explained how to use the GoTo Webinar console, ask questions etc.
Then there was a brief introduction about the android platform, its stack and how various components fit it. He also explained the various verbs like activity, intent etc. You can read about them in the Application fundamentals section of the android documentation.
Choosing the SDK version
Next there was a brief explanation about the SDK and the difference between android SDK and Google API’s and also about the various versions of SDK. This led to a brief Q&A session where people asked which version to SDK to target. The instructor then recommended targeting for SDK version 1.5. He said that version 1.5 strikes a balance between market reach and available features.
You can checkout the different versions of SDK and their market share in the android developer page.
Installing necessary software
After the Q&A, the instructor showed how to install the necessary software to follow the code samples.
You need to install the following
- Eclipse
- Android SDK
- ADT Eclipse Plugin
You can follow the instructions in the android documentation page to install the above softwares.
After installing the necessary software, you should also create an Android Virtual Device (AVD), which will allow you to run the application in the Android Emulator.
Demo Application
The goal of the session was to introduce the android platform and to write a demo flashlight app.
The app will have two views (red and green, see screenshot), which can be toggled by clicking a button. The following are the screenshots of the application.
Implementing the demo application
This was the meat of the presentation (but was pretty short due to time constraints), where he explained how to start writing code, to implement the demo application.
You can follow the steps in the “Hello World” tutorial of the android documentation to setup the project.
Source code
I have uploaded source code for yesterday’s session in github and you can download it from there.
The first session was really very good and I will be attending the remaining 5 sessions too and if possible will write blog posts with the notes that I take. Meanwhile if you are interested in developing android applications, then you should really watch this tutorial.
Update: I have added additional information about the android project structure in a subsequent post.
Update 2: I have also completed the homework for this session and have posted my source code and explanation.
Update 3: You can also view my notes for the next session.
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