Android is now the world's most popular mobile platform. It powers millions of mobile devices and provides a flexibility to enjoy applications and games from the open marketplace.
Here are some features of Android, what makes it so fascinating:
- Open source community: New vendors can opt for Android mobile operating system anytime. Developers can build innovative applications and distribute them instantly.
- Open marketplace: One million applications are now available on Google Play Store, with a range of education apps, health apps, games apps and many other utility apps.
- Dozens of job opportunities: Looking at the android market, there is a revolution of job propects for android developers.
- Easy learning curve and community support: With Java and XML mostly used coding languages, it becomes very easy to learn android. Also, looking at its wide use there is a lot of support one can get from the community.
- Basics to quick start. An insight into the android stack.
- Android's main building blocks.
- Useful APIs of Android.
- Some short tutorials.
- Time to design your innovative mobile apps
I would ask all of you to setup development environment in your notebooks. This would allows us to quickly learn and start designing apps in the workshop. Following guide will help you in the installation.
- Install
- Git
- Java environment. Select JDK 11. Java
- Gradle
- Option 1 (Preferable): Needs quite a space ~1.5GB on your notebook. Make sure you have this space available.
- Android Studio (This will take a while to setup)
- Option 2: If you already have eclipse.
If you already have played around with android before, and want to learn about the latest version, please update your sdk version by android-sdk-manager. Here, are the steps you would take to update your existing sdk:
- Launch
SDK Manager. - Select latest Android SDK Tools, Platform Tools, SDK Build-tools, API 29-31. Since, we would certainly need the minimum sdk compatibility upto API 21 (Android 5.0.1) as all of us are not so update conscious :)
In case you want to update the android version using Android Studio, you need to follow the below steps:
- Go to Tools -> SDK manager
- Select Android SDK on the left pane (default) and
SDK Platformson the right pane. Select latest Android (API level 29-31). Click OK. - You will see a dialog mentioning the components that will be installed and the corresponding disk usage. Make sure you have sufficient space for the SDK. Otherwise deselect API level 29 and only install 30 and 31. Click OK.
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Java : Environment Path
-
Android Studio : if it is very slow, try re-configuring the memory allocation at
$ANDROIDSTUDIOHOME/bin/studio.exe.vmoptions, e.g.,:-Xms512m -Xmx1024m -
Eclipse : if it is very slow, try re-configuring the memory allocation at
$ECLIPSEHOME/eclipse.ini, e.g.,:-Xms512m -Xmx1024m -
Now you can connect your devices to your laptop wirelessly. See here for more information.
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Old school method: To help you, some USB drivers can be availed from here.
Others can download manufacturer specific drivers from here.
Here you can find a forked repository of cool ideas for Android apps. You can of course think of your own idea as well. Its fine if it comprises of:
- 1-2 activities
- 1-2 layouts
- use of intent
- some use of UI elements taught in the workshop (Day II)
- some use of Sensors (Day III) (optional)
- java source (logic of your idea)
It need not be something very big or comprehensive but just to demonstrate that you understood concepts taught in the workshop.
The deadline to finish the app is 18th October, 00:00h.
- Participation: 10%
- In-workshop Exercises : 20%
- Initial Presentation: 10%
- Post-workshop Exercise : 60%