Documentation Android

ANDROID DOCUMENTATION
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Android - An Open Handset Alliance Project
Welcome to Android!
The Android platform is a software stack for mobile devices including an operating syst em, middleware and key applications. Developers can create applications for the platform using the An droid SDK. Applications are written using the Java programming language and run on Dalvik, a custom virtual machine designed for embedded use which runs on top of a Linux kernel. If you want to know how to develop applications for Android , you're in the right place. This site provides a variety of documentation that will help you learn about Android and develop mobile applications for the platform. An early look at the the Android SDK is also available. It includes sample projects with source code, development tools, an emulator, and of course all the libraries you'll need to bui ld an Android application. Download the SDK
To start learning about the Android platform, please read the documentation in the following order: What is Android? An overview of the Android platform Getting Started All the basics, including Hello World Developing Applications The nuts and bolts of Android applications Developer Toolbox In-depth information on specific topics Reference Information A myriad of reference material Sample Code Several sample Android applications for your viewing pleasure Frequently Asked Questions Common issues and questions
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What is Android?
Android is a software stack for mobile devices that includes an operating system, middleware and key applications. This early look at the Android SDK provides the tools and APIs necessary to begin developing applications on the Android platform using the Java programming language.
Features
Application framework enabling reuse and replacement of components Dalvik virtual machine optimized for mobile devices Integrated browser based on the open source WebKit engine Optimized graphics powered by a custom 2D graphics library; 3D graphics based on the OpenGL ES 1.0 specification (hardware acceleration optional) SQLite for structured data storage Media support for common audio, video, and still image formats (MPEG4, H.264, MP3, AAC, AMR, JPG, PNG, GIF) GSM Telephony (hardware dependent) Bluetooth, EDGE, 3G, and WiFi (hardware dependent) Camera, GPS, compass, and accelerometer (hardware dependent) Rich development environment including a device emulator, tools for debugging, memory and performance profiling, and a plugin for the Eclipse IDE
Android Architecture
The following diagram shows the major components of the Androi d operating system. Each section is described in more detail below.
Applications
Android will ship with a set of core applications including an email client, SMS program, calendar, maps, browser, contacts, and others. All applications are written using the Java programming language.
Application Framework
Developers have full access to the same framework APIs used by the core applications. The application architecture is designed to simplify the reuse of components; any application can publish its capabilities and any other application may then make use of those capabilities (subj ect to security constraints enforced by the framework). This same mechanism allows components to be replaced by th e user. Underlying all applications is a set of services and systems, includ ing: A rich and extensible set of Views that can be used to build an application, including li sts, grids, text boxes, buttons, and even an embeddable web browser Content Providers that enable applications to access data from other applications (such as Contacts), or to share their own data A Resource Manager, providing access to non-code resources such as localized strings, graph ics, and layout files A Notification Manager that enables all applications to display custom alerts in the status bar An Activity Manager that manages the lifecycle of applications and provides a commo n navigation backstack For more details and a walkthrough of an application, see Writing an Android Application .
Libraries
Android includes a set of C/C++ libraries used by various components of the Android system. These capabilities are exposed to developers through the Android application frame work. Some of the core libraries are listed below: System C library - a BSD-derived implementation of the standard C system library (libc), tuned for embedded Linux-based devices Media Libraries - based on PacketVideo's OpenCORE; the libraries support playback and recording of many popular audio and video formats, as well as static image f iles, including MPEG4, H.264, MP3, AAC, AMR, JPG, and PNG Surface Manager - manages access to the display subsystem and seamlessly composites 2D an d 3D graphic layers from multiple applications LibWebCore - a modern web browser engine which powers both the Android b rowser and an embeddable web view SGL - the underlying 2D graphics engine 3D libraries - an implementation based on OpenGL ES 1.0 APIs; the libraries use either hardware 3D acceleration (where available) or the included, highly optimize d 3D software rasterizer FreeType - bitmap and vector font rendering SQLite - a powerful and lightweight relational database engin e available to all applications
Android Runtime
Android includes a set of core libraries that provides most of the functionality available in the core libraries of the Java programming language. Every Android application runs in its own process, with its own in stance of the Dalvik virtual machine. Dalvik has been written so that a device can run multiple VMs efficiently. The Dalvik VM executes files in the Dalvik Executable (.dex) format which is optimized for minimal memory footprint. The VM is register-based, and runs classes compiled by a Java language compiler that have been transf ormed into the .dex format by the included "dx" tool. The Dalvik VM relies on the Linux kernel for underlying function ality such as threading and low-level memory management.
Linux Kernel
Android relies on Linux version 2.6 for core system services such as security, memory management, process management, network stack, and driver model. The kernel also acts as an abstraction layer between the hardware and the rest of the software stack.
Getting Started with Android

To get started with Android, please read the following sections first: Installing the SDK and Plugin How to install the SDK and Eclipse plugin, or how to use ot her tools to build Android applications. Also a guide to running the sample applications. Hello Android! Writing your first Android Application, the ever popular Hello World, Android style. Anatomy of an Android Application A guide to the structure and architecture of an Android Applicat ion. This guide will help you understand the pieces that make up an Android app. Tutorial: Building a Full Android Application This tutorial document will lead you through constructing a re al Android Application: A notepad which can create, edit and delete notes, and covers many of the basic concepts with practical examples. Development Tools The command line tools included with the SDK, what they do, and how to use them. Lifecycle of an Android Application The important lifecycle details for Applications and Activities ru nning inside of them.
Other Introductory Material

After reading the sections above, the following Getting Started information is also very useful:
Core Packages
These are the basic packages that make up the Android SDK for writing applications. The packages are organized as layers, listed here from lowest-level to highest. android.util contains various low-level utility classes, such as specialized contai ner classes, XML utilities, etc. android.os provides basic operating system services, message passing, and inter-process communication.
android.graphics is the core rendering package. android.text, android.text.method, android.text.style, and android.text.util supply a rich set of text processing tools, supporting rich text, input methods, etc. android.database contains low-level APIs for working with databases. android.content provides various services for accessing data on the device: applicatio ns installed on the device and their associated resources, and content providers for persistent dynamic data. android.view is the core user-interface framework. android.widget supplies standard user interface elements (lists, buttons, layout managers, etc) built from the view package. android.app provides the high-level application model, implemented using Activities.
Other Notable Packages

These packages provide additional domain-specific features of th e Android platform. They are not necessary for basic application development. android.provider contains definitions for various standard content providers includ ed with the platform. android.telephony provides APIs for interacting with the device's phone stack. android.webkit includes various APIs for working with web-based content.
Hello, Android!
First impressions matter, and as a developer you know that the first impression you get of a development framework is how easy it is to write "Hello, World!" Well, in Android, it's pretty easy. Here's how it looks: Create the Project Construct the UI Run the Code: Hello, Android The sections below spell it all out in detail. Upgrading the UI to an XML Layout Debugging Your Project Creating a Project without Eclipse Let's jump in!
Create the Project

Creating the project is as simple as can be. An Eclipse plugin is available making Android development a snap. You'll need to have Eclipse 3.2 or 3.3 installed, and you'll need to install the Android Plugin for Eclipse. Once you have those installed, come back here. First, here's a high-level summary of how to build "Hello, World!": 1. Create a new "Android Project" via the File > New > Project menu. 2. Fill out the project details in the New Android Project dialog. 3. Edit the auto-generated source code template to display some output. That's it! Next, let's go through each step above in detail. 1. Create a new Android Project From Eclipse, select the File > New > Project menu item. If the Android Plugin for Eclipse has been successfully installed, the resulting dialog should have a fol der labeled "Android" which should contain a single entry: "Android Project".
Once you've selected "Android Project", press the Next button.
2. Fill out the project details The next screen allows you to enter the relevant details for your project. Here's an example:
Here's what each field on this screen means:
Project Name Package Name
This is the name of the directory or folder on your computer that you want to contain the project. This is the package namespace similar to the Java programming lang uage that you want all your source code to reside under. This also sets the package name under which the stub Activity will be generated. The package name you use in your application must be unique a cross all packages installed on the system; for this reason, it's very important to use a standard domain-style package for your applications. In the example above, we used the package domain "com.google.android"; you should use a different one appropriate to your organization.
Activity Name
This is the name for the class stub that will be generated by the plugin. This will be a subclass of Android's Activity class. An Activity is simply a class that can run and do work. It can create a UI if it chooses, but it doesn't need to. This is the human-readable title for your application.
Application Name
The checkbox for toggling "Use default location" allows you to change the location on disk where the project's files will be generated and stored.
3. Edit the auto-generated source code After the plugin runs, you'll have a class named HelloAndroid t hat looks like this: public class HelloAndroid extends Activity { /** Called when the activity is first created. */ @Override public void onCreate(Bundle icicle) { super.onCreate(icicle); setContentView(R.layout.main); } } The next step is to start modifying it!
Construct the UI
Once you've got the project set up, the obvious next step is to get some text up there on the screen. Here's the finished product next we'll dissect it line by line: public class HelloAndroid extends Activity { /** Called when the activity is first created. */ @Override public void onCreate(Bundle icicle) { super.onCreate(icicle); TextView tv = new TextView(this); tv.setText("Hello, Android"); setContentView(tv); } } Note that you should also add import android.widget.TextView; to the import statements in order for this example to compile. In Android, user interfaces are composed of hierarchies of classes called Views. A View is simply a drawable object, such as a radio button, an animation, or (in our case) a text label. The specific name for the View subclass that handles text is simply TextView. Here's how you construct a TextView: TextView tv = new TextView(this); The argument to TextView's constructor is an Android Context instance. The Context is simply a handle to the system; it provides services like resolving resources, obtaining access to databases and preferences, and so on. The Activity class inherits from Context. Since our HelloAndroid class is a subclass of Activity, it is also a Context, and so we can pass the 'this' reference to the TextView.
Once we've constructed the TextView, we need to tell it what to display: tv.setText("Hello, Android"); Nothing too surprising there. At this point, we've constructed a TextView and told it what text to display. The final step is to connect this TextView with the on-screen display, like so: setContentView(tv); The setContentView() method on Activity indicates to the system which View should be associated with the Activity's UI. If an Activity doesn't call this method, no UI is present at all and the system will display a blank screen. For our purposes, all we want is to display some text, so we pass it the TextView we just created. There it is "Hello, World" in Android! The next step, of course, is to see it running.
Run the Code: Hello, Android

The Eclipse plugin makes it very easy to run your applications. Begin by selecting the Run > Open Run Dialog menu entry; you should see a dialog like this:
Next, highlight the "Android Application" entry, and then press the icon in the top left corner (the one depicting a sheet of paper with a plus sign in the corner) or simply double-click the "Android Application" entry. You should have a new launcher entry named "New_configura tion".
Change the name to something expressive, like "Hello, Android", and then pick your project by pressing the Browse button. (If you have more than one Android project open in Eclipse, be sure to pick the right one.) The plugin will automatically scan your project for Activity subclasses, and add each one it finds to the drop-down list under the "Activity:" label. Since your "Hello, Android" project only has one, it will be the default, and you can simply continue. Press the "Apply" button. Here's an example:
That's it you're done! Press the Run button, and the Android Emulator should start. Once it's booted up your application will appear. When all is said and done, you should see something like this:
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That's "Hello, World" in Android. Pretty straightforward, eh? The next sections of the tutorial offer more detailed information that you may find valuable as you learn more about Android.
Upgrading the UI to an XML Layout

The "Hello, World" example you just completed uses what we call "programmatic" UI layout. This means that you construct and build your application's UI directly in source code. If you've done much UI programming, you're probably familiar with how brittle that approach can sometimes be: small changes in layout can result in big source-code headaches. It's also very easy to forget to properly connect Views together, which can result in errors in your layout and wasted time debugging your code. That's why Android provides an alternate UI construction model: XML-based layout files. The easiest way to explain this concept is to show an example. Here's an XML layout file that is identical in behavior to the programmatically-constructed example you just completed: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <TextView xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com /apk/res/android" android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="fill_parent" android:text="Hello, Android"/> The general structure of an Android XML layout file is simple. It's a tree of tags, where each tag is the name of a View class. In this example, it's a very simple tree of one element, a TextView. You can use the name of any class that extends View as a tag name in your XML layouts, including custom View classes you define in your own code. This structure makes it very easy to quickly build up UIs, using a much simpler structure and syntax than you would in source code. This model is inspired by the web development model, where you can separate the presentation of your application (its UI) from the application logic used to fetch and fill in data.
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In this example, there are also four XML attributes. Here's a summary of what they mean: Attribute xmlns:android Meaning This is an XML namespace declaration that tells the Android tools that you are going to refer to common attributes defined in the Android namespace. The outermost tag in every Android layout file must have this attribute. This attribute defines how much of the available width on the screen this View should consume. In this case, it's our only View so we want it to take up the entire screen, which is what a value of "fill_parent" means. This is just like android:layout_width, except that it refers to available screen height. This sets the text that the TextView should contain. In this example, it's our usual "Hello, Android" message.
android:layout_width
android:layout_height
android:text
So, that's what the XML layout looks like, but where do you put it? Under the res/ directory in your project. The "res" is short for "resources" and that directory contains all the non-code assets that your application requires. This includes things like images, localized strings, and XML layout files. The Eclipse plugin creates one of these XML files for you. In our example above, we simply never used it. In the Package Explorer, expand the folder res/layout, and edit the file main.xml. Replace its contents with the text above and save your changes. Now open the file named R.java in your source code folder in the Package Explorer. You'll see that it now looks something like this: public final class R { public static final class attr { }; public static final class drawable { public static final int icon=0x7f020000; }; public static final class layout { public static final int main=0x7f030000; }; public static final class string { public static final int app_name=0x7f040000 ; }; }; A project's R.java file is an index into all the resources defined in the file. You use this class in your source code as a sort of short-hand way to refer to resources you've included in your project. This is particularly powerful with the code-completion features of IDEs like Eclipse because it lets you quickly and interactively locate the specific reference you're looking for. The important thing to notice for now is the inner class named "layout", and its member field "main". The Eclipse plugin noticed that you added a new XML layout file and then regenerated this R.java file. As you add other resources to your projects you'll see R.java change to keep up.
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The last thing you need to do is modify your HelloAndroid source code to use the new XML version of your UI, instead of the hard-coded version. Here's what your new class will look like. As you can see, the source code becomes much simpler: public class HelloAndroid extends Activity { /** Called when the activity is first created. */ @Override public void onCreate(Bundle icicle) { super.onCreate(icicle); setContentView(R.layout.main); } } When you make this change, don't just copy-and-paste it in. Try out the code-completion feature on that R class. You'll probably find that it helps a lot. Now that you've made this change, go ahead and re-run your application all you need to do is press the green Run arrow icon, or select Run > Run Last Launched from the menu. You should see.... well, exactly the same thing you saw before! After all, the point was to show that the two different layout approaches produce identical results. There's a lot more to creating these XML layouts, but that's as far as we'll go here. Read the Implementing a User Interface documentation for more information on the power of this approach.
Debugging Your Project

The Android Plugin for Eclipse also has excellent integration w ith the Eclipse debugger. To demonstrate this, let's introduce a bug into our code. Change your HelloAndroid source code to look like this: public class HelloAndroid extends Activity { /** Called when the activity is first created. */ @Override public void onCreate(Bundle icicle) { super.onCreate(icicle); Object o = null; o.toString(); setContentView(R.layout.main); } } This change simply introduces a NullPointerException into your code . If you run your application again, you'll eventually see this:
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To find out what went wrong, set a breakpoint in your source code on the line "Object o = null;" (You can do this by double-clicking on the region to the left of the line number in Eclipse.) Then select Run > Debug Last Launched from the menu to enter debug mode. Your app will restart in the emulator, but this time it will suspend when it reaches the breakpoint you set. You can then step through the code in Eclipse's Debug Perspective, just as you would for any other application.
Creating the Project without Eclipse

If you don't use Eclipse (such as if you prefer another IDE, or simply use text editors and command line tools) then the Eclipse plugin can't help you. Don't worry though you don't lose any functionality just because you don't use Eclipse. The Android Plugin for Eclipse is really just a wrapper around a set of tools included with the Android SDK. (These tools, like the emulator, aapt, adb, ddms, and others are documented elsewhere.) Thus, it's possible to wrap those tools with another tool, such as an 'ant' build file. The Android SDK includes a Python script named "activityCreator.py" that can be used to create all the source code and directory stubs for your project, as well as an ant-compatible build.xml file. This allows you to build your project from the command line, or integrate it with the IDE of your choice. For example, to create a HelloAndroid project similar to the one we just created via Eclipse, you'd use this command: activityCreator.py --out HelloAndroid com.google.an droid.hello.HelloAndroid To build the project, you'd then run the command 'ant'. When that command successfully completes, you'll be left with a file named HelloAndroid.apk under the 'bin' directory. That .apk file is an Android Package, and can be installed and run in your emulator using the 'ad b' tool. For more information on how to use these tools, please read the documentation cited above.
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Anatomy of an Android Application

There are four building blocks to an Android application: Activity Intent Receiver Service Content Provider Not every application needs to have all four, but your appli cation will be written with some combination of these. Once you have decided what components you need for your applica tion, you should list them in a file called AndroidManifest.xml. This is an XML file where you declare the components of your application and what their capabilities and requirements are. See the Android manifest file documentation for complete details.
Activity
Activities are the most common of the four Android building blocks. An activity is usually a single screen in your application. Each activity is implemented as a single class that extends the Activity base class. Your class will display a user interface composed of Views and respond to events. Most applications consist of multiple screens. For example, a text messaging application might have one screen that shows a list of contacts to send messages to, a second screen to write the message to the chosen contact, and other screens to review old messages or change settings. Each of these screens would be implemented as an activity. Moving to another screen is accomplished by a starting a new activity. In some cases an activity may return a value to the previous activity -- for example an activity that lets the user pick a photo would return the chosen photo to the caller. When a new screen opens, the previous screen is paused and put onto a history stack. The user can navigate backward through previously opened screens in the history. Screens can also cho ose to be removed from the history stack when it would be inappropriate for them to remain. Android retains hi story stacks for each application launched from the home screen.
Intent and Intent Filters

Android uses a special class called an Intent to move from screen to screen. An intent describes what an application wants done. The two most important parts of the intent data structure are the action and the data to act upon. Typical values for action are MAIN (the front door of the activity), VIEW, PICK, EDIT, etc. The data is expressed as a URI. For example, to view contact information for a person, you would create an intent with the VIEW action and the data set to a URI representing that person. There is a related class called an IntentFilter. While an intent is effectively a request to do something, an intent filter is a description of what intents an activity (or intent receiver, see below) is capable of handling. An activity that is able to display contact information for a person would publish an IntentFilter that said that it knows how to handle the action VIEW when applied to data representing a person. Activities publish the ir IntentFilters in the AndroidManifest.xml file. Navigating from screen to screen is accomplished by resolving intents. To navigate forward, an activity calls startActivity(myIntent). The system then looks at the intent filters for all installed applications and picks the activity whose intent filters best matches myIntent. The new activity is informed of the intent, which causes it to be launched. The process of resolving intents happens at run time when startActivity is called, which offers two key benefits: Activities can reuse functionality from other components simply by making a request in the form of an Intent Activities can be replaced at any time by a new Activity with an equivalent IntentFilter
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Intent Receiver
You can use an IntentReceiver when you want code in your application to execute in reacti on to an external event, for example, when the phone rings, or when the data network is available, or when it's midnight. Intent receivers do not display a UI, although they may use the NotificationManager to alert the user if something interesting has happened. Intent receivers are registered in AndroidManifest.xml, but you can also register them from code using Context.registerReceiver(). Your application does not have to be running for its intent receivers to be called; the system will start your application, if necessary, when an intent receiver is triggered. Applications can a lso send their own intent broadcasts to others with Context.broadcastIntent().
Service
A Service is code that is long-lived and runs without a UI. A good example of this is a media player playing songs from a play list. In a media player application, there would probably b e one or more activities that allow the user to choose songs and start playing them. However, the music playback itself should not be handled by an activity because the user will expect the music to keep playing even after navigating to a new screen. In this case, the media player activity could start a service using Context.startService() to run in the background to keep the music going. The system will then keep the music playback service running until it has finished. (You can learn more about the priority given to services in the system by reading Lifecycle of an Android Application .) Note that you can connect to a service (and start it if it's not already running) with the Context.bindService() method. When connected to a service, you can communicate with it through an interface exposed by the service. For the music service, this might allow you to pause, rewind, etc.
Content Provider
Applications can store their data in files, an SQLite database, or any other mechanism that makes sense. A content provider, however, is useful if you want your application's data to be shared with other applications. A content provider is a class that implements a standard set of methods to let other applications store and retrieve the type of data that is handled by that content provider. To get more details on content providers, see Accessing Content Providers .
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Tutorial: A Notepad Application

The tutorial in this section gives you a "hands-on" introduction to the Android framework and the tools you use to build applications on it. Starting from a preconfigured project file, it guides you through the process of developing a simple notepad application and provides concrete examples of how to set up the project, develop the application logic and user interface, and then compile and run the application. The tutorial presents the notepad application development as a set of exercises (see below), each consisting of several steps. You can follow along with the steps in each exercise and gradually build up and refine your application. The exerci ses explain each step in detail and provide all the sample code you need to complete the application. When you are finished with the tutorial, you will have created a functioning Android application and learned in dep th about many of the most important concepts in Android development. If you want to add more complex features to your application, you can look at and use the code in the notepad applicati on that is supplied in the sample code area of the Android SDK.
Contents
Who Should Use this Tutorial Preparing for the Exercises Exercises Other Resources and Further Learning
Who Should Use this Tutorial

This tutorial is designed for experienced developers, especially those with knowledge of the Java programming language. If you haven't written Java applications before, you can still use the tutorial, but you might need to work at a slower pace. Also, the tutorial builds on the information provided in the Installing the SDK and Hello Android documents, which explain in detail how to set up your development environment for buildi ng Android applications. Before you start the tutorial, make sure that you have already downloaded the SDK and installed it according to the instructions. Finally, this tutorial describes how to develop the notepad application in the Eclipse development environment, with th e Android plugin installed. If you are not using Eclipse, you ca n follow the exercises and build the application, but you will need to determine how to accomplish the Eclipse-specific steps in your en vironment. If you want to add more complex features to your application, you can look at and use the code in the notepad application that is supplied in the sample code are a of the Android SDK. The tutorial assumes that you have some familiarity with the basic Android application concepts and terminology. If you aren't yet familiar with those, you should read Overview of an Android Application and Application Lifecycle before continuing.
Preparing for the Exercises

Before you begin, it's important that you install the SDK and set up your Eclipse development. Once your environment is set up, locate and unpack the exercises archive, which is included in the SDK package. The archive includes a series of Eclipse project files that are used in the exercises. You can use these project files instead of creating and configuring your own project files. To get the tutorial project files: 1. Download the project exercises archive (.zip) 2. Unpack the archive file to a suitable location on your machine 3. Open the NotepadCodeLab folder Inside the NotepadCodeLab folder, you should see six project files: Notepadv1, Notepadv2, Notepadv3, Notepadv1Solution, Notepadv2Solution and Notepadv3Solution. The Notepadv* projects are the starting points for each of the exercises, while the Notepadv*Solution projects are the exercise solutions. If you are having trouble with a particular exercise, you can compare your current work against the exe rcise solution to try and track down the problem.
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Exercises
The table below lists the tutorial exercises and describes the devel opment areas that each covers. Each exercise assumes that you have completed the previous example (if any). Exercise 1 Construct a simple notes list that lets the user add new notes but not edit them. Demonstrates the basics of ListActivities and creating and handling menu options. Uses a SQLite database to store the notes. Add a second activity to the application. Demonstrates constructing a new Activity, adding it to the Android manifest, passing data between the activities, and using more advanced screen layout. Also shows how t o invoke another activity asynchronously using startSubActivity(). Add handling of life-cycle events to the application, to let it maintain application state across the life cycle. Demonstrates how to use the Eclipse debugger and how you can u se it to view lifecycle events as they are generated. This section is optional but highly recommended.
Exercise 2
Exercise 3
Extra Credit
Other Resources and Further Learning

For a lighter but broader introduction to concepts not covered in the tutorial, take a look at Common Android Tasks . The Android SDK includes a variety of fully functioning sample a pplications that make excellent opportunities for further learning. You can find the sample applications in th e samples/ directory. This tutorial draws from the full Notepad application inclu ded in the samples/ directory of the SDK. When you are done with the tutorial, it is highly recommended that you take a closer look at the full Notepad application, as it demonstrates a variety of interesting additions for your applicat ion, such as: Setting up a custom striped list for the list of notes. Creating a custom text edit view that overrides the draw() method to make it look like a lined notepad. Implementing a full ContentProvider for notes. Reverting and discarding edits instead of just automatically sa ving them.
Tutorial: Notepad Exercise 1

In this exercise, you will construct a simple notes list that lets the user add new notes but not edit them. The exercise demonstrates: The basics of ListActivities and creating and handling menu options. How to access/store the notes in an SQLite database to store the notes. How to bind data into a ListView using an ArrayAdapter (one o f the simplest ways to bind to a ListView). The basics of screen layouts, including how to lay out a list view, how you can add items to the activity menu, and how the activity handles those menu selections.
Step 1
Open up the Notepadv1 project in Eclipse. Notepadv1 is a project that is provided as a starting point - it takes care of some of the boilerplate work that you have already seen if you followed the Hello Android tutorial. a. Right click in the Package Explorer, select Import.../General/Existing Projects into Workspace. b. Hit the browse button, and navigate to where you copied the three exercise folders, select Notepadv1 and hit OK. c. You should see Notepadv1 listed in the projects with a check mark next to it. d. Hit Finish. e. The exercise project should be open and ready to go in your Ecli pse package explorer. f. If you see an error about AndroidManifest.xml, or some problems related to an Android zip file, right click on the project and select Android Tools->Fix Project Properties from the popup menu (the project is looking in the wrong location for the library file, this will fix it for you).
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Step 2
Take a look at the DBHelper class this class is provided to encapsulate data access to a SQLite database that will hold our notes data and allow us to update it.
Accessing and modifying data For this exercise, we are just going to use a SQLite database directly to store our
Typically you would implement this using a ContentProvider, and in fact the full data, but in a real application it would be Notepad application included with the SDK does implement su ch a much better to write a proper ContentProvider. However, there is no reason you can't just use your own SQLite ContentProvider to encapsulate this behavior instead. database directly as we do here. The main thing to notice about this class is that it takes care of the details of storing, retrieving and updating data in the SQLite If you are interested, you can find out more about content providers or the database for us. There are methods for retrieving all the rows, retrieving a row whole subject of Storing, Retrieving, and based on rowIds, creating a new row, deleting an existing ro w and updating a row. Exposing Data. If you want a quick primer in how to use the SQLite Database for your own applications, either take a look at this class or better yet, look at the full Notepad application included with the SDK in the samples/ folder as the sample uses a ContentProvider.
Step 3
Open the notepad_list.xml file in res/layout and take a look at it: This is a layout definition file with a default starting point in it, we have provided this as a convenience to get you going quickly. a. All Android layout files must start with the XML header line: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>. b. Also, the next definition will often (but not always) be a layout definition of some kind, in this case a LinearLayout. c. Note also that the xml namespace of Android should always be d efined in the top level component or layout in the XML so that android: tags can be used through the rest of the file: xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/a ndroid"
Layouts and activities Most Activities will have a layout associated with them. The layout will be the "face" of the activity to the user. In this case our layout will take over the whole screen and provide a list of notes. Full screen layouts are not the only option for an Activity however. You might also want to use a floating layout (for example, a dialog or alert), or perhaps you don't need a layout at all (the activity will be invisible to the user unless you specify some kind of layout for it to use).
Step 4
We need to create the layout to hold our list. Add code inside of the LinearLayout tag so the whole file looks like this: (you may have to hit the Source tab in order to edit the XML file) <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android .com/apk/res/android" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content"> <ListView id="@id/android:list" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content"/> <TextView id="@id/android:empty" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:text="@string/no_notes"/> </LinearLayout>
a. The ListView and TextView can be thought as two alternative views, only one of which will be displayed at once. ListView will be used when there are notes to be shown, wh ile the TextView (which has a default value of "No Notes Yet!" defined as a string resource, will be displayed if there aren't any notes to display). b. The @ in the id strings of the ListView and TextView means that the XML parser should parse and expand the rest of the id string and use an ID resource.
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c. And, the android:list and android:empty are IDs that are already provided for us by the Android platform, empty is used automatically when no data is provided in the l ist adapter. The List Adapter knows to look for these names specifically by default. Alternatively you could also choose to change the default empty view used by the List Adapter by using the setEmptyView(). More broadly, the android.R class is a set of predefined resources provided for you by the platform, while your project's R class is the set of resources your project has defined. Resources found in the android.R resource class can be used in the XML files by using the android: name space prefix (as we see here).
Step 5
To make a list view, we also need to define a view for each row in the list: a. Create a new file under res/layout called notes_row.xml. b. Add the following contents (note: again the xml header is used, and the first node defines the Android xml namespace) <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <TextView id="@+id/text1" xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/a ndroid" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>
Resources and the R class The folders under res/ in the Eclipse project are special. There is a specific structure to the folders and files under this folder. In particular, resources defined in these folders and files will have corresponding entries in the R class allowing them to be easily accessed and used from your application. Furthermore, they will be bundled and deployed as part of the application.
c. This is the view that will be used for each .notes title row it has only one text field in it. d. In this case we create a new id called text1. The + after the @ in the id string indicates that the id should be automatically created if it does not already exist, so we are defining text1 on the fly and then using it. e. After saving this file, open the R.java class in the project and look at it, you should see new definitions for notes_row and text1 (our new definitions) meaning we can now gain access to these from the our code.
Step 6
Next, open the Notepadv1 class in the source. We are going to alter this class to become a list adapter and display our notes, and also allow us to add new notes Notepadv1 will be a subclass of Activity called a ListActivity, which has extra functionality to accommodate the kinds of things you might want to do with a list, for example: displaying an arbitrary number of list items in rows on the screen, moving through the list items, and allowing them to be selected. Take a look through the existing code in Notepadv1 class. There are some constant definitions at the top, followed by a private field we will use to create numbered note titles, and some overrides of methods from the superclass.
Step 7
Change the inheritance of Notepadv1 from Activity to ListActivity: public class Notepadv1 extends ListActivity Note: you will have to import ListActivity into the Notepadv1 class using Eclipse, ctrl-shift-O on Windows or Linux, or cmd-shift-O on the Mac (organize imports) will do this for you.
Step 8
There are already three override methods defined: onCreate, onCreateOptionsMenu and onOptionsItemSelected, we need to fill these out: onCreate() is called when the activity is started it is a little like the "main" method for the activity. We use this to set up resources and state for the activity when it is running onCreateOptionsMenu() is used to populate the menu for the activity. This is shown when the user hits the menu button, and has a list of options they can select (like "Create Note") onOptionsItemSelected() is the other half of the menu equation, it is used to handle events generated from the menu (e.g. when the user selects the "Create Note" item).
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Step 9
Fill out the body of the onCreate() method. Here we will set the title for the activity (shown at the top of the screen), use the notepad_list layout we have created for the activity display contents, set up the DBHelper instance we will use to access notes data, then populate the list with the available note titles: a. call super() with the icicle parameter passed into our method b. setContentView to R.layout.notepad_list c. Create a new private class field called dbHelper of class DBHelper (before the onCreate method) d. Back in the onCreate method, construct a DBHelper instance assign to the dbHelper field (note, you must pass this into the constructor for DBHelper) e. Finally, call a new method -fillData()- gets the data and populates it using the helper, we haven't defined it yet f. onCreate() should now look like this: @Override public void onCreate(Bundle icicle) { super.onCreate(icicle); setContentView(R.layout.notepad_list); dbHelper = new DBHelper(this); fillData(); } And remember to add the DBHelper field definition (right under the noteNumber definition ): private DBHelper dbHelper;
Step 10
Fill out the body of the onCreateOptionsMenu() method. We are going to add just one menu item for now, "Add Item", using a string we will create in strings.xml, and defined with a constant we will create at the top of the class to identify the Add Item operation. a. In strings.xml resource (under res/values), add a new string for menu_insert with text "Add Item" <string name="menu_insert">Add Item</string>, then save the file b. Also, you need a menu position constant at the top of the Notepadv1 class (right under the KEY_BODY definition): public static final int INSERT_ID = Menu.FIRST; c. In the onCreateOptionsMenu() method, add the menu item. Also take care of the result of the super call being returned. The whole method should now look like this: @Override public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) { boolean result = super.onCreateOptionsMenu( menu); menu.add(0, INSERT_ID, R.string.menu_insert ); return result; }
More on menus The notepad application we are constructing only scratches the surface with menus. You can also add shortcut keys for menu items, create submenus and even add menu items to other applications!.
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Step 11
Fill out the body of the onOptionsItemSelected() method: This is going to handle our new "Add Note" menu item. When this is selected the onOptionsItemSelected() method will be called with the item.getId() set to INSERT_ID (the constant we used to identify the menu item). We can detect this, and take the appropriate actions: a. The super.onOptionsItemSelected(item) method call goes at the end of this method we want to catch our events first! b. Switch statement on item.getId() c. case INSERT_ID: d. calls new method createNote() e. break at the end of the case f. return the result of the superclass onOptionsItemSelected() method at the end g. The whole onOptionsItemSelect() method should now look like this: @Override public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(Item item) { switch (item.getId()) { case INSERT_ID: createNote(); break; } return super.onOptionsItemSelected(item); }
Step 12
Add a new createNote() method: In this first version of our application, createNote() is not going to be very useful. We will simply create a new note with a title assigned to it based on a counter ("Note 1", "Note 2"...) and with an empty body. At present we have no way of editing the contents of a note, so for now we will have to be content making one with some default values: a. String noteName = "Note " + noteNumber++; (Construct the name using "Note" and the counter we have defined in the class) b. Call dbHelper.createRow() using noteName as the title and "" for the body c. Call fillData() method again after adding (inefficient but simple) d. The whole createNote() method should look like this: private void createNote() { String noteName = "Note " + noteNumber++; dbHelper.createRow(noteName, ""); fillData(); }
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Step 13
Define the fillData() method. This is fairly long: This method uses ArrayAdapter, which is the simplest way of putting data into a ListView. ArrayAdapter takes either a List or an array of Strings, and binds them into a text view provided in the layout defined for the list row (this is the text1 field in our notes_row.xml layout). The method simply obtains a list of notes from the database helper, constructs a List of Strings using the title strings from each row, and then creates an ArrayAdapter out of those items and bound to use the notes_row we defined. private void fillData() { // We need a list of strings for the list i tems List<String> items = new ArrayList<String>( );
List adapters Our example uses a very simple array adapter which binds an array or list of items into a ListView. More commonly in Android, List Adapters go hand in hand with ContentProviders, and this is also a very easy way to use lists. To bind a ContentProvider to a ListView you can use a android.widget.SimpleCursorAdapter to bind data from a ContentProvider into a ListView
// Get all of the rows from the database an d create the item list List<Row> rows = dbHelper.fetchAllRows(); for (Row row : rows) { items.add(row.title); } // Now create an array adapter and set it t o display using our row ArrayAdapter<String> notes = new ArrayAdapter<String>(this, R.layout .notes_row, items); setListAdapter(notes); } a. ArrayAdapter needs a List of Strings (List<String>) containing the items to display b. The data is read out of the database as rows, and the title field from each row is used to populate the list of strings c. We specify the notes_row view we created as the receptacle for the data d. If you get compiler errors about classes not being found, ctrl-shift-O or (cmd-shift-O on the mac) to organize imports. Note: that for this exercise we use an ArrayAdapter, this is not a very scalable solution and more typically a SimpleCursorAdapter would be used with a ContentProvider or at least a Cursor returned from a query. See the sidebar on List Adapters for more information.
Step 14
Run it! a. Right click on the Notepadv1 project b. From the popup menu, select Run As -> Android Application c. If you see a dialog come up, select Android Launcher as the way of running the application (you can also use the link near the top of the dialog to set this as your default for the workspace, this is recommended as it will stop the plugin from asking you this every time) d. Add new notes by hitting the menu button and selecting Add Item from the menu
Solution and Next Steps

You can see the solution to this class in Notepadv1Solution from the zip file to compare with your own. Once you are ready, move on to Tutorial Exercise 2 to add the ability to create, edit and delete notes.
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In this exercise, you will add a second activity to your notepad application, to let the user create, edit, and delete notes. The new activity assumes responsibility for creating new notes by collect ing user input and packing it into a return bundle provided by the intent. This exercise demonstrates: Constructing a new activity and adding it to the Android manifest Invoking another activity asynchronously using startSubActivity() Passing data between activites in bundles How to use a more advanced screen layout
Step 1
Import the existing Notepadv2 project from under the NotepadCodeLab folder. If you see an error about AndroidManifest.xml, or some problems related to an android.zip file, right click on the project and select Android Tools->Fix Project Properties from the popup menu. Open the Notepadv2 project and take a look around: a. Open and look at the strings.xml file under res/values there are several new strings which we will use for our new functionality b. Also, open and take a look at the top of the Notepadv2 class, you will notice some new stuff in there as well several new constants have been defined, as well as a member fi eld for rows (to hold row data for the list) c. Note also that the fillData() method has been altered slightly to use this rows field instead of a local variable d. There are also a couple of new overridden methods ( onListItemClick() and onActivityResult()) which we will be filling in below.
Step 2
Check the onCreate() method, you will see that it is unchanged from what we wrote in the first exercise.
Step 3
We need to add a delete entry into the menu: a. In the onCreateOptionsMenu() method, add a new line: menu.add(0, DELETE_ID, R.string.menu_delete); b. The whole method should now look like this: @Override public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) { super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu); menu.add(0, INSERT_ID, R.string.menu_insert ); menu.add(0, DELETE_ID, R.string.menu_delete ); return true; }
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Step 4
In the onMenuItemSelected() method, add a new case for DELETE_ID: dbHelper.deleteRow(rows.get(getSelection()) .rowId); fillData(); break; a. This uses the getSelection() method from the ListActivity to see what note is currently selected from the list b. It then looks that row up from the rows field we have been holding on to, and gets the rowId, and uses it to delete the row using the DBHelper c. We fill data afterwards to keep everything up to date d. The whole method should now look like this: @Override public boolean onMenuItemSelected(int featureId , Item item) { super.onMenuItemSelected(featureId, item); switch(item.getId()) { case INSERT_ID: createNote(); fillData(); break; case DELETE_ID: dbHelper.deleteRow(rows.get(getSelectio n()).rowId); fillData(); break; } return true; }
Starting Other Activities As well as starting intents in classes we already know about, be they in our own application or another application, we can also create intents without knowing exactly which application will handle it. For example, we might want to open a page in a browser, and for this we still use an intent. But instead of specifying a class to handle it, we use a predefined Intent constant, and a content URI that describes what we want to do.
Step 5
Fill in the body of the createNote() method: We will create a new Intent to create a note (ACTIVITY_CREATE) using the NoteEdit class. We then fire the Intent using the startSubActivity() method call. Intent i = new Intent(this, NoteEdit.class) ; startSubActivity(i, ACTIVITY_CREATE); Don't worry about the fact that NoteEdit doesn't exist yet, we will fix that soon. Note: in this example our Intent uses a class name specifically. While this makes sense sometimes, it is more common to call an Intent using an action and contentURI. See android.content.Intent for more information.
Step 6
Fill in the body of the onListItemClick() override. onListItemClick() is the overridden method that is called when the user selects an item from the list. It is passed four parameters: the ListView object it was invoked from, the View inside the ListView that was clicked on, the position in the list that was clicked, and the rowId of the item that was clicked. In this instance we can ignore the first two parameters (we only have one ListView it could be), and we ignore the rowId as well. All we are interested in is the position that the user selected. We use this to get the data from the correct row, and bundle it up to send in to the NoteEdit activity.
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This method creates an Intent to edit the note using the NoteEdit class. It then adds data into the extras bundle in the Intent, which can be used to pass information into the Intent. We use it to pass in the title and body text, and the rowId for the note we are editing. Finally, it will fire the Intent using the startSubActivity() method call. super.onListItemClick(l, v, position, id); Intent i = new Intent(this, NoteEdit.class) ; i.putExtra(KEY_ROW_ID, rows.get(position).r owId); i.putExtra(KEY_BODY, rows.get(position).bod y); i.putExtra(KEY_TITLE, rows.get(position).ti tle); startSubActivity(i, ACTIVITY_EDIT); a. This implementation uses an extras bundle available on the i ntent we are using to pass in the title, body and rowId of the note we want to edit, then invokes the intent ACTIVITY_EDIT on the NoteEdit class b. putExtra() is the method to add items into the extras bundle to pass in to intent invocations
Step 7
The above createNote() and onListItemClick() methods use an asynchronous intent invocation. We need a handler, so we fill in the body of the onActivityResult() override. onActivityResult() is the overridden method which will be called when a sub a ctivity returns. The parameters provided are: requestCode the original request code specified in the Intent invocation (either ACTIVITY_CREATE or ACTIVITY_EDIT for us) resultCode the result (or error code) of the call, this should be zero if everything was OK, but may have a non-zero code indicating that something failed. There are sta ndard result codes available, and you can also create your own constants to indicate specific problems data this is a simple string that can be used to hold some kind of textual return information (for example, the result of the user typing something into a dialog). This is useful if you only have one thing to return, and it happens to be a string, if you need to return more, use the extras bundle instead extras this is the returned extras bundle (if any) provided by the called Intent The combination of startSubActivity() and onActivityResult() can be thought of as an asynchronous RPC (remote procedure call) and forms the recommended way for Activities to invoke each other and share services. super.onActivityResult(requestCode, resultC ode, data, extras); switch(requestCode) { case ACTIVITY_CREATE: String title = extras.getString(KEY_TIT LE); String body = extras.getString(KEY_BODY ); dbHelper.createRow(title, body); fillData(); break; case ACTIVITY_EDIT: Long rowId = extras.getLong(KEY_ROW_ID) ; if (rowId != null) { String editTitle = extras.getString (KEY_TITLE); String editBody = extras.getString( KEY_BODY); dbHelper.updateRow(rowId, editTitle , editBody); } fillData(); break; } a. We are handling both the ACTIVITY_CREATE and ACTIVITY_EDIT activity results in this method b. In the case of a create, we pull the title and body from the extras and use them to create a new note c. In the case of an edit, we pull the rowId as well, and use that to update the note in the database d. fillData() at the end ensures everything is up to date
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Step 8
Open the file note_edit.xml that has been provided and take a look at it. This is the UI code for the Note Editor. This is the most sophisticated UI we have dealt with yet. The file is given to you to avoid problems that may sneak in when typing the code in (the XML is very strict about case sensitivity and structure, mistakes in these are the usual cause of problems with layout XML files). There is a new parameter used here that we haven't seen before: android:layout_weight (in this case set to use the value 1). layout_weight is used in LinearLayouts to assign "importance" to views within the layout. All views have a default layout_weight of zero, meaning they take up only as much room on the screen as they need to be displayed. Assigning a value higher than zero will split up the rest of the available space in the parent according to the value of the view's layout_weight and its ratio to the overall layout_weight specified in the current layout for this and other views.
The Art of Layout The provided note_edit.xml layout file is the most sophisticated one in the application we will be building, but that doesn't mean it is even close to the kind of sophistication you will be likely to want in real Android applications. Creating a good UI is part art and part science, and the rest is work. Mastering Android layout is an essential part of creating a good looking Android application. Take a look at the View Gallery for some example layouts and how to use them. The ApiDemos sample project is also a great resource from which to learn how to create different layouts.
To give an example: let's say we have a text label and two text edit views in a horizontal row. The label has no layout_weight specified, so it takes up the minimum space required to render. If the layout_weight of each of the two text edit views is set to 1, the remaining width in the parent layout will be split equally between them. If one has a layout_weight of 1 and the other has a layout_weight of 2, then one third of the remaining space will be given to the first, and two thirds to the second. This layout also demonstrates how to nest multiple layouts inside each other to achieve a more complex and pleasant layout. In this example, a horizontal linear layout is nested inside the vertical one to allow the title label and text field to be alongside each other horizontally.
Step 9
Create a NoteEdit class that extends android.app.Activity. This is the first time we will have created an activity without the Android Eclipse plugin doing it for us. When you do so, the onCreate() method is not automatically overridden for you. It is hard to imagine an activity that doesn't override the onCreate() method, so this should be the first thing you do (there is an override/implement methods option available from the right click popup menu in the eclipse editor that we will use) a. Right click on the com.google.android.demo.notepad2 package in the Package Explorer, and select New->Class from the popup menu b. Fill in NoteEdit for the Name: field in the dialog c. In the Superclass: field, enter android.app.Activity (you can also just type Activity and hit Ctrl-Space on Windows and Linux or Cmd-Space on the Mac, to invoke code assist and find the right package and class) d. Hit the Finish button e. In the resulting NoteEdit class, right click in the editor window and select Source->Override/Implement Methods... f. Scroll down through the checklist in the dialog until you see onCreate(Bundle) and check the box next to it g. Hit the OK button.
Step 10
Fill in the body of the onCreate() method. This will set the title of our new activity to say "Edit Note" (one of the strings defined in strings.xml). It will also set the content view to use our note_edit.xml layout file. We can then grab handles to the title and body text edit views, and the confirm button, so that our class can use them to set and get the note title and body, and attach an event to the confirm button for when it is pressed by the user.
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We can then unbundle the values that were passed in to the activity from the extras bundle in the calling Intent, and use those to pre-populate the title and body text edit views with data so that the user can edit them. We will grab and store the rowId as well so that we can keep track of what note the user is editing. a. Set up the layout: setContentView(R.layout.note_edit); b. Find the edit and button components we need: These are found by the IDs associated to them in the R class, and need to be cast to the right type of View (EditText for the two text views, and Button for the confirm button) titleText = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.ti tle); bodyText = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.bod y); Button confirmButton = (Button) findViewByI d(R.id.confirm); Note that titleText and bodyText are member fields (you will need to add them at the top of the class definition) c. Create a Long rowId private field which will be used to store the current rowId being edited (if any) d. Add code to initialize the title, body and rowId from the extras bundle in the intent, if it is present: rowId = null; Bundle extras = getIntent().getExtras(); if (extras != null) { String title = extras.getString(Notepad v2.KEY_TITLE); String body = extras.getString(Notepadv 2.KEY_BODY); rowId = extras.getLong(Notepadv2.KEY_RO W_ID); if (title != null) { titleText.setText(title); } if (body != null) { bodyText.setText(body); } } We are pulling the title and body out of the extras bundle that was set from the Intent invocation Have to null-protect the text field setting (i.e. we don't want to set the text fields to null accidentally) e. Create an onClickListener() for the button: Listeners can be one of the more confusing aspects of UI implementation, but what we are trying to achieve in this case is simple. We simply want an onClick() method to be called when the user presses the confirm button, and we can use that to do some work and return the values of the edited note to the Intent caller. We do this using something called an anonymous inner class. This is a bit confusing to loo k at unless you have seen them before, but all you really need to take away from this is that you can refer to this code in the future to see how to create a listener and attach it to a button. (Listeners are a common idiom in Java development, particularly for user interfaces.) confirmButton.setOnClickListener(new View.O nClickListener() { public void onClick(View view) { } });
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Step 11
Fill in the body of the onClick() method. This is the code that will be run when the user clicks on the confirm button. We want this to grab the title and body text from the edit text fields, and put them into the return bundle so that they can be passed back to the activity that invoked this Intent in the first place. If the operation is an edit rather than a create, we also want to put the rowId into the bundle as well so that the Notepadv2 class can save the changes back to the correct note. a. Create a bundle and put the title and body text into it using the constants defined in Notepadv2 as keys Bundle bundle = new Bundle(); bundle.putString(Notepadv2.KEY_TITLE, titleT ext.getText().toString()); bundle.putString(Notepadv2.KEY_BODY, bodyTex t.getText().toString()); if (rowId != null) { bundle.putLong(Notepadv2.KEY_ROW_ID, row Id); } b. Set the result information, including the bundle, and finish the activity: The setResult() method is used to set the result code, return data string, and extras bundle to be passed back to the Intent caller. In this case everything worked, so we return RESULT_OK for the result code. We are not using the string data field in this case, so we pass a null back for that and pass the bundle we have just created with the title, body and rowId information in it. The finish() call is used to signal that the activity is done (like a return call). Anything set in the Result will then be returned to the caller, along with execution control. setResult(RESULT_OK, null, bundle); finish(); c. The full onCreate() method (plus supporting class fields) should now look like this: private EditText titleText; private EditText bodyText; private Long rowId; @Override protected void onCreate(Bundle icicle) { super.onCreate(icicle); setContentView(R.layout.note_edit); titleText = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.ti tle); bodyText = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.bod y); Button confirmButton = (Button) findViewByI d(R.id.confirm); rowId = null; Bundle extras = getIntent().getExtras(); if (extras != null) { String title = extras.getString(Notepad v2.KEY_TITLE); String body = extras.getString(Notepadv 2.KEY_BODY); rowId = extras.getLong(Notepadv2.KEY_RO W_ID); if (title != null) { titleText.setText(title); } if (body != null) { bodyText.setText(body); } }
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confirmButton.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickList ener() { public void onClick(View view) { Bundle bundle = new Bundle(); bundle.putString(Notepadv2.KEY_TITL E, titleText.getText().toString()); bundle.putString(Notepadv2.KEY_BODY , bodyText.getText().toString()); if (rowId != null) { bundle.putLong(Notepadv2.KEY_RO W_ID, rowId); } setResult(RESULT_OK, null, bundle); finish(); } }); }
Step 12
Finally the new activity has to be defined in the manifest file: Before the new activity can be seen by Android, it needs its own activity entry in the AndroidManifest.xml file. This is to let the system know that it is there and can be called. We could also specify which IntentFilters the activity implements here, but we are going to skip this for now and just let Android know that the Activity is defined. <activity class=".NoteEdit"/> This should be placed just below the line that reads </activity> for the .Notepadv2 activity.
The All-Important Android Manifest File The AndroidManifest.xml file is the way in which Android sees your application. This file defines the category of the application, where it shows up (or even if it shows up) in the launcher or settings, what activities, services, and content providers it defines, what intents it can receive, and more. For more information, see the reference document AndroidManifest.xml
Step 13
Now Run it! (use Run As -> Android Application on the project right click menu again) You should now be able to add real notes from the menu, as well as deleting an existing one using the menu. Furthermore , selecting a note title from the list should bring up the note editor to let you edit it. Hit confirm when finished to save the changes back to the database.

You can see the solution to this exercise in Notepadv2Solution from the zip file to compare with your own. Now try editing a note, and then hitting the back button on the emulator instead of the confirm button (the back button is below the menu button). You will see an error come up. Clearl y our application still has some problems. Worse still, if you did make some changes and hit the back button, when you go back into the notepad to look at the note you change, you will find that all your changes have been lost. In the next exercise we will fix these problems. Once you are ready, move on to Tutorial Exercise 3 where you will fix the problems with the back button and lost edits by introducing a proper life cycle into the NoteEdit Activity.
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In this exercise, you will use life-cycle event callbacks to store and retrieve application state data. This exercise demonstrates: Life-cycle events and how your application can use them Techniques for maintaining application state
Step 1
The current example has some problems hitting the back button when editing causes a crash, and anything else that happens during editing will cause the edits to be lost. To fix this, we will move most of the functionality for creating and editing the note into the NoteEdit class, and introduce a full lifecycle for editing notes. Import Notepadv3 into Eclipse. If you see an error about AndroidManifest.xml, or some problems related to an Android zip file, right click on the project and select Android Tools->Fix Project Properties from the popup menu. The starting point for this exercise is exactly the same as the solution for Notepadv2. a. Remove the NoteEdit code to parse out the title and body from the extras bundle. We are going to use the DBHelper class to access the notes from the database directly. All we need passed into the activity is a rowId (if we are editing, if creating we don't need anything). We will get rid of the properties that were being passed in through the extras bundle that we were using to set the title and body text edit values in the UI. b. Remove the lines that read: String title = extras.getString(Notepadv3.K EY_TITLE); String body = extras.getString(Notepadv3.KE Y_BODY); and if (title != null) { titleText.setText(title); } if (body != null) { bodyText.setText(body); }
(Extra credit, you could replace the remaining if (extras != null) block with a ternary operator as well: rowId = extras != null ? extras.getLong(Not epadv3.KEY_ROW_ID) : null;
Step 2
Create a class field for a DBHelper at the top of the class: private DBHelper dbHelper; and an instance of DBHelper in the onCreate() method (right below the super.onCreate() call): dbHelper = new DBHelper(this);
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Step 3
We need to check the icicle for a rowId in case the note editing has been frozen and thawed: a. Replace the code that currently initializes the rowId: rowId = null; Bundle extras = getIntent().getExtras(); if (extras != null) { rowId = extras.getLong(Notepadv3.KEY_RO W_ID); }
with rowId = icicle != null ? icicle.getLong(Not epadv3.KEY_ROW_ID) : null; if (rowId == null) { Bundle extras = getIntent().getExtras() ; rowId = extras != null ? extras.getLong (Notepadv3.KEY_ROW_ID) : null; }
b. Note the null check for icicle, and we still need to load up rowId from the extras bundle if it is not provided by the icicle. This is a ternary operator shorthand to safely either use the value or null if it is not present.
Step 4
Next, we need to populate the fields based on the rowId if we have it: populateFields(); before the confirmButton.setOnClickListener() line.
Step 5
Get rid of the bundle creation and bundle value settings from the onClick() handler method. The Activity no longer needs to return any extra information to the caller. You can also use the shorter version of setResult(): public void onClick(View arg0) { setResult(RESULT_OK); finish(); } We will take care of storing the updates or new notes in the database ourselves using the lifecycle methods. The whole onCreate() method should now look like this: super.onCreate(icicle); dbHelper = new DBHelper(this); setContentView(R.layout.note_edit); titleText = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.ti tle); bodyText = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.bod y); Button confirmButton = (Button) findViewByI d(R.id.confirm);
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rowId = icicle != null ? icicle.getLong(Not epadv3.KEY_ROW_ID) : null; if (rowId == null) { Bundle extras = getIntent().getExtras() ; if (extras != null) { rowId = extras.getLong(Notepadv3.KE Y_ROW_ID); } } populateFields(); confirmButton.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener( ) { public void onClick(View arg0) { setResult(RESULT_OK); finish(); } });
Step 6
Define the populateFields() method. private void populateFields() { if (rowId != null) { DBHelper.Row row = dbHelper.fetchRow(ro wId); if (row.rowId > -1) { titleText.setText(row.title); bodyText.setText(row.body); } } }
Step 7
Override methods onFreeze(), onPause() and onResume() These are our lifecycle methods (along with onCreate() which we already have). onFreeze() is called by Android if the Activity is being stopped and may be killed before it is resumed! This means it should store any state necessary to re-initialize to the same condition when the activity is restarted. It is the counterpart to the onCreate() method, and in fact the icicle bundle passed in to onCreate() is the same bundle that you construct as outState in the onFreeze() method. onPause() and onResume() are also complimentary methods. onPause() is always called when the Activity ends, even if we instigated that (with a finish call for example). We will use this to save the current note back to the database. Good practice is to release any resources that can be released during an onPause() as well, to take up less resources when in the passive state. For this reason we will close the DBHelper class and set the field to null so that it can be garbage collected if necessary. onResume() on the other hand, will re-create the dbHelper instance so we can use it, and then read the note out of the database again and populate the fields.
Why handling lifecycle events is important If you are used to always having control in your applications, you might not understand why all this lifecycle work is necessary. The reason is that in Android, you are not in control of your activity, the operating system is! As we have already seen, the Android model is based around Activities calling each other. When one Activity calls another, the current activity is paused at the very least, and may be killed altogether if the system starts to run low on resources. If this happens, your Activity will have to store enough state to come back up later, preferably in the same state it was in when it was killed. Android has a well-defined lifecycle. Lifecycle events can happen even if you are not handing off control to another activity explicitly. For example, perhaps a call comes in to the handset. If this happens, and your activity is running, it will be swapped out while the call activity takes over.
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a. onFreeze(): @Override protected void onFreeze(Bundle outState) { super.onFreeze(outState); outState.putLong(Notepadv3.KEY_ROW_ID, rowId); } b. onPause(): @Override protected void onPause() { super.onPause(); saveState(); dbHelper.close(); dbHelper = null; } c. onResume(): @Override protected void onResume() { super.onResume(); if (dbHelper == null) { dbHelper = new DBHelper(this); } populateFields(); }
Step 8
Define the saveState() method to put the data out to the database. private void saveState() { String title = titleText.getText().toString (); String body = bodyText.getText().toString() ; if (rowId == null) { dbHelper.createRow(title, body); } else { dbHelper.updateRow(rowId, title, body); } }
Step 9
Now pull out the previous handling code from the onActivityResult() method in the Notepadv3 class All of the note retrieval and updating now happens withi n the NoteEdit lifecycle, so all the onActivityResult() method needs to do is update its view of the data, no other work is necessary. The resulting method should look like this: @Override protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode , int resultCode, String data, Bu ndle extras) { super.onActivityResult(requestCode, resultC ode, data, extras); fillData(); } Because the other class now does the work, all this has to do is refresh the data.
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Step 10
Also remove the lines which set the title and body from the onListItemClick() method (again they are no longer needed, only the rowId is): i.putExtra(KEY_TITLE, rows.get(position).title); i.putExtra(KEY_BODY, rows.get(position).bod y); Run it! (use Run As -> Android Application on the project right click menu again)

You can see the solution to this exercise in Notepadv3Solution from the zip file to compare with your own. When you are ready, move on to the Tutorial Extra Credit exercise, where you can use the Eclipse debugger to examine the lifecycle events as they happen.
Tutorial: Extra Credit

In this exercise, you will use the debugger to look at the work you did in Exercise 3. This exercise demonstrates: How to set breakpoints to observe execution How to run your application in debug mode
Step 1
Using the working Notepadv3, put breakpoints in the code at the beginning of the onCreate(), onPause(), onFreeze() and onResume() methods in the NoteEdit class (if you are not familiar with Eclipse, just right click in the narrow grey border on the left of the edit window at the line you want a breakpoint, and select Toggle Breakpoint, you should see a blue dot appear).
Step 2
Now start the notepad demo in debug mode: a. Right click on the Notepadv3 project and from the Debug menu select Debug As -> Android Application. b. The Android emulator should say "waiting for debugger to connect" briefly and then run the application. c. If it gets stuck on the waiting... screen, quit the emulator and Eclipse, from the command line do an adb kill-server, and then restart Eclipse and try again.
Step 3
When you edit or create a new note you should see the breakpoints getting hit and the execution stopping.
Step 4
Hit the Resume button to let execution continue (yellow rectangle with a green triangle to its right in the Eclipse toolbars near the top).
Step 5
Experiment a bit with the confirm and back buttons, and try hitting home and making other mode changes. Watch what lifecycle events are generated and when. The Android Eclipse plugin not only offers excellent debuggin g support for your application development, but also superb profiling support. If your application is running too slow, this can help you find the bottlenecks and fix them.
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Common Tasks and How To Do Them in Android

Creating an Android Application using the Eclipse plugin Creating an Android Application without the Eclipse plugin Implementing Activity callbacks (Android calls your activity at various key moments in its lifecycle. You must know how to handle each of these to draw your screen, initialize class members, and acquire data.) Opening a new screen Listening for button clicks Configuring general window properties Storing and retrieving state Storing and retrieving preferences Storing and retrieving larger or more complex persistent data (files and data) Playing audio, video, still, or other media files Listening for and broadcasting global messages and setting al arms Displaying alerts Displaying a progress bar Adding your application to the Favorites list Adding items to the screen menu Display a web page Binding to data Capture images from the phone camera Handling expensive operations in the UI thread Selecting, highlighting, or styling portions of text List of files for an Android application The ApiDemos sample application includes many, many examples of commo n tasks and UI features. See the code inside samples/ApiDemos and the other sample applications under the samples/ folder in the SDK.
Creating an Android Application using the Eclipse Plugin

Using the Android Eclipse plugin is the fastest and easiest way to start creating a new Android application. The plugin automatically generates the correct project structure for your application, and keeps the resources compiled for you automatically. It is still a good idea to know what is going on though. Take a look at Overview of an Android Application to understand the basics of how an Android application works. It is also recommended that you take a look at the ApiDemos application and the other sample applications in the samples/ folder in the SDK. Finally, a great way to started with Android development in Eclipse is to follow both the Hello Android and Notepad code tutorials. In particular, the start of the Hello Android tutorial is an excellent introduction to creating a new Android application in Eclipse.
Creating an Android Application without the Eclipse Plugin

This topic describes the manual steps in creating an Android app lication. Before reading this, you should read Overview of an Android Application to understand the basics of how an Android application works. You might also want to look at the sample applications that ship with Android under the samples/ directory.
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Here is a list of the basic steps in building an application. 1. Create your required resource files This includes the AndroidManifest.xml global description file, string files that your application needs, and layout files describing your user in terface. A full list of optional and required files and syntax details for each is given in File List for an Android Application. 2. Design your user interface See Implementing a UI for details on elements of the Android screen. 3. Implement your Activity (this page) You will create one class/file for each screen in your applicatio n. Screens will inherit from an android.app class, typically android.app.Activity for basic screens, android.app.ListActivity for list screens, or android.app.Dialog for dialog boxes. You will implement the required callbacks th at let you draw your screen, query data, and commit changes, and also perform any required tasks such as opening additional screens or reading data from the device. Common tasks, such as opening a new screen or reading data from the device, are described below. The list of files you'll need for your application are described in List of Files for an Android Application. 4. Build and install your package. The Android SDK has some nice tools for generating projects and debugging code.
Implementing Activity Callbacks

Android calls a number of callbacks to let you draw your screen, store data before pausing, and refresh data after closing. You must implement at least some of these methods. See Lifetime of a Screen to learn when and in what order these methods are called. Here are some of the standard types of screen classes that Android provides: android.app.Activity - This is a standard screen, with no specialization. android.app.ListActivity - This is a screen that is used to display a list of something. It hosts a ListView object, and exposes methods to let you identify the selected item, receive callbacks when the selected item changes, and perform other list-related actions. android.app.Dialog - This is a small, popup dialog-style window that isn't intended to remain in the history stack. (It is not resizeable or moveable by the user.)
Opening a New Screen

Your Activity will often need to open another Activity screen as it progresses. This new screen can be part of the same application or part of another application, the new screen can be floating or full screen, it can return a result, and you can decide whether to close this screen and remove it from the history stack when you are done with it, or to keep the screen open in history. These next sections describe all these options.
Floating or full?
When you open a new screen you can decide whether to make it transparent or floating, or full-screen. The choice of new screen affects the event sequence of events in the old screen (if the new screen obscures the old screen, a different series of events is called in the old screen). See Lifetime of an Activity for details. Transparent or floating windows are implemented in three stan dard ways: Create an app.Dialog class Create an app.AlertDialog class Set the Theme_Dialog theme attribute to @android:style/Theme.Dialog in your AndroidManifest.xml file. For example: <activity class="AddRssItem" android:label="Add an item" android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Dialog"/> Calling startActivity() or startSubActivity() will open a new screen in whatever way it defines itself (if it uses a floating theme it will be floating, otherwise it will be full screen).
Opening a Screen
When you want to open a new screen, you can either explicitly specify the activity class to open, or you can let the operating system decide which screen to open, based upon the data and various parameters you pass in. A screen is opened by calling startActivity and passing in an Intent object, which specifies the criteria for the handling screen. To specify a specific screen, call Intent.setClass or setClassName with the exact activity class to open. Otherwise, set a variety of values and
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data, and let Android decide which screen is appropriate to open. Android will find one or zero Activities that match the specified requirements; it will never open multiple activities for a single request. More information on Intents and how Android resolves them to a specific class is given in the Intent topic.
Some Intent examples

The following snippet loads the com.google.android.samples. Animation1 class, and passes it some arbitrary data.: Intent myIntent = new Intent(); myIntent.component = "com.google.android.samples.An imation1"; myIntent.putExtra("com.google.android.samples.Speci alValue", "Hello, Joe!"); // key/value pair, where key needs current package pre fix. startActivity(myIntent); The next snippet requests that a Web page be opened by specifying the VIEW action, and a URI data string starting with "http://" schema: Intent myIntent = new Intent(Intent.VIEW_ACTION, ContentURI.create("http://www.google.com")); Here is the intent filter from the AndroidManifest.xml file for com.google.android.browser: <intent-filter> <action value="android.intent.action.VIEW" /> <category value="android.intent.category.DEFAUL T" /> <scheme value="http" /> <scheme value="https" /> <scheme value="file" /> </intent-filter> Android defines a number of standard values, for instance the action constants defined by Intent. You can define custom values, but both the caller and handler must use them. See the <intent-filter> tag description in AndroidManifest.xml File Details for more information on the manifest syntax for the handling application.
Returning a Result from a Screen

A window can return a result after it closes. This result will be passed back into the calling Activity's onActivityResult() method, which can supply an integer result code, a string of data, and a Bundle of arbitrary data, along with the request code passed to startSubActivity(). Note that you must call the startSubActivity() method that accepts a request code parameter to get this callback. The following code demonstrates opening a new screen and retrieving a result. // Open the new screen. public void onClick(View v){ // Start the activity whose result we want to r etrieve. The // result will come back with request code GET_ CODE. Intent intent = new Intent(this, com.example.ap p.ChooseYourBoxer.class); startSubActivity(intent, CHOOSE_FIGHTER); } // Listen for results. protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, in t resultCode, String data, Bundle extras){ // See which child activity is calling us back. switch (resultCode) { case CHOOSE_FIGHTER: // This is the standard resultCode that is sent back if the // activity crashed or didn't doesn't s upply an explicit result. if (resultCode == RESULT_CANCELED){ myMessageboxFunction("Fight cancell ed");
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} else { myFightFunction(data, extras); } default: break; } } // Class SentResult // Temporary screen to let the user choose somethin g. private OnClickListener mLincolnListener = new OnClickListener(){ public void onClick(View v) { Bundle stats = new Bundle(); stats.putString("height","6\'4\""); stats.putString("weight", "190 lbs"); stats.putString("reach", "74\""); setResult(RESULT_OK, "Lincoln", stats); finish(); } }; private OnClickListener mWashingtonListener = n ew OnClickListener() { public void onClick(View v){ Bundle stats = new Bundle(); stats.putString("height","6\'2\""); stats.putString("weight", "190 lbs"); stats.putString("reach", "73\""); setResult(RESULT_OK, "Washington", Bund le); finish(); } };
Lifetime of the new screen

An activity can remove itself from the history stack by calling Activity.finish() on itself, or the activity that opened the screen can call Activity.finishSubActivity() on any screens that it opens to close them.
Listening for Button Clicks

Button click and other UI event capturing are covered in Listening for UI Notifications on the UI Design page.
Configuring General Window Properties

You can set a number of general window properties, such as whet her to display a title, whether the window is floating, and whether it displays an icon, by calling methods on the Window member of the underlying View object for the window. Examples include calling getWindow().requestFeature() (or the convenience method requestWindowFeature( some_feature)) to hide the title. Here is an example of hiding the title bar: //Hide the title bar requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_NO_TITLE);
Storing and Retrieving State

If your application is dumped from memory because of space concerns, it will lose all user interface state information such as checkbox state and text box values as well as class member values. Android calls Activity.onFreeze before it pauses the application. This method hands in a Bundle that can be used to store name/value pairs that will persist and be handed back to the application even if it is dropped from memory. Android will pass this Bundle back to you when it calls onCreate(). This
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Bundle only exists while the application is still in the history stack (whether or not it has been removed from memory) and will be lost when the application is finalized. See the topics for onFreeze(Bundle) and onCreate(Bundle) for examples of storing and retrieving state. Read more about the life cycle of an application in Lifetime of an Activity.
Storing and Retrieving Larger or More Complex Persistent Data

Your application can store files or complex collection objects, an d reserve them for private use by itself or other activities in the application, or it can expose its data to all other applications on the device. See Storing, Retrieving, and Exposing Data to learn how to store and retrieve private data, how to store and retrieve common data from the device, and how to expose your private data to other applications.
Playing Media Files

Please see the document Android Media APIs for more details.
Listening For and Broadcasting Global Messages, and Setting Alarms

You can create a listening class that can be notified or even instantiated whenever a specific type of system message is sent. The listening classes, called intent receivers, extend IntentReceiver. If you want Android to instantiate the object whenever an appropriate intent notification is sent, define the receiver with a <receiver> element in the AndroidManifext.xml file. If the caller is expected to instantiate the object in preparation to receive a message, this is not required. The receiver will get a call to their IntentReceiver.onReceiveIntent() method. A receiver can define an <intent-filter> tag that describes the types of messages it will receive. Just as Android's IntentResolver will look for appropriate Activity matches for a startActivity() call, it will look for any matching Receivers (but it will send the message to all matching receiver, not the "best" match). To send a notification, the caller creates an Intent object and calls Activity.broadcastIntent() with that Intent. Multiple recipients can receive the same message. You can broadcast an Intent message to an intent receiver in any application, not only your own. If the receiving class is not registered using <receiver> in its manifest, you can dynamically instantiate and register a receiver by calling Context.registerReceiver() . Receivers can include intent filters to specify what kinds of intents they are listening for. Alternatively, if you expect a single known caller to contact a single known receiver, the receiver does not specify an intent filter, and the caller specifies the receiver's class name in the Intent by calling Intent.setClassName() with the recipient's class name. The recipient receives a Context object that refers to its own package, not to the package of the sender. Note: If a receiver or broadcaster enforces permissions, your application might need to request permission to send or receive messages from that object. You can request permission by using the <uses-permission> tag in the manifest. Here is a code snippet of a sender and receiver. This example does not demonstrate registering receivers dynamically. For a full code example, see the AlarmService class in the ApiDemos proje ct.
Sending the message

// We are sending this to a specific recipient, so we will // only specify the recipient class name. Intent intent = new Intent(this, AlarmReceiver.clas s); intent.putExtra("message","Wake up."); broadcastIntent(intent);
Receiving the message

Receiver AndroidManifest.xml (because there is no intent filter child, this class will only receive a broadcast when the receiver class is specified by name, as is done in this example): <receiver class=".AlarmReceiver" />
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Receiver Java code: public class AlarmReceiver extends IntentReceiver{ // Display an alert that we've received a messa ge. @Override public void onReceiveIntent(Context context, In tent intent){ // Send a text notification to the scre en. NotificationManager nm = (NotificationManag er) context.getSystemService(Context.NOTIFICATI ON_SERVICE); nm.notifyWithText(R.id.alarm, "Alarm!!!", NotificationManager.LENGT H_SHORT, null); } }
Other system messages

You can listen for other system messages sent by Android as well, such as USB connection/removal messages, SMS arrival messages, and timezone changes. See Intent for a list of broadcast messages to listen for. Messages are marked "Broadcast Action" in the documentation.
Listening for phone events

The telephony package overview page describes how to register to listen for phone events.
Setting Alarms
Android provides an AlarmManager service that will let you specify an Intent to send at a designated time. This intent is typically used to start an application at a preset time. (Note: If you want to send a notification to a sleeping or running application, use Handler instead.)
Displaying Alerts
There are two major kinds of alerts that you may display to the user: (1) Normal alerts are displayed in response to a user action, such as trying to perform an action that is not allowed. (2) Out-of-band alerts, called notifications, are displayed as a result of something happening in the background, such as the user receiving new e-mail.
Normal Alerts
Android provides a number of ways for you to show popup notifications to your user as they interact with your application. Class app.Dialog app.AlertDialog or Context.showAlert() ProgressDialog A dialog box used to indicate progress of an operation with a known progress value or an indeterminate length (setProgress(bool)). See Views > Progress Bar in ApiDemos for examples. By setting the theme of an activity to android:theme="android:style/Theme.Dialog" , your activity will take on the appearance of a normal dialog, floating on top of whatever was underneath it. You usually set the theme through the android:theme attribute in your AndroidManifest.xml. The advantage of this over Dialog and AlertDialog is that Appli cation has a much better managed Description A generic floating dialog box with a layout that you design. A popup alert dialog with two buttons (typically OK and Cancel) that take callback handlers. It can be created separately, or launched using the Application h elper method Context.showAlert(). See the section after this table for more details.
Activity
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AlertDialog
This is a basic warning dialog box that lets you configure a message, button text, and callback. You can create one by calling the Application helper method Context.showAlert(), as shown here. private Handler mHandler = new Handler() { public void handleMessage(Message msg) { switch (msg.what) { case ACCEPT_CALL: answer(msg.obj); break; case BOUNCE_TO_VOICEMAIL: voicemail(msg.obj); break; } } };
private void IncomingMotherInlawCall(Connection c) { String Text; // "Answer" callback. Message acceptMsg = Message.obtain(); acceptMsg.target = mHandler; acceptMsg.what = ACCEPT_CALL; acceptMsg.obj = c.getCall(); // "Cancel" callback. Message rejectMsg = Message.obtain(); rejectMsg.target = mHandler; rejectMsg.what = BOUNCE_TO_VOICEMAIL; rejectMsg.obj = c.getCall(); showAlert(null, "Phyllis is calling", "Answer", acceptMsg, true, rejectMsg); }
Notifications
Out-of-band alerts should always be displayed using the NotificationManager, which allows you to tell the user about something they may be interested in without disrupting what they are currently doing. A notification can be anything from a brief pop-up box informing the user of the new information, through displaying a persistent icon in the status bar, to vibrating, playing sounds, or flashing lights to get the user's attention. In all cases, the user must explicitly shift their focus to the notification before they can interact with it. The following code demonstrates using NotificationManager to display a basic text popup when a new SMS message arrives in a listening service, and provides the current message count. You can see several more examples in the ApiDemos application, under app/ (named notification*.java). static void setNewMessageIndicator(Context context, int messageCount){ // Get the static global NotificationManager obj ect. NotificationManager nm = NotificationManager.get Default();
// If we're being called because a new message h as been received, // then display an icon and a count. Otherwise, delete the persistent // message.
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if (messageCount > 0) { nm.notifyWithText(myApp.NOTIFICATION_GUID, // ID for this notification. messageCount + " new message" + mes sageCount > 1 ? "s":"", // Text to display. NotificationManager.LENGTH_SHORT); // Show it for a short time only. } } To display a notification in the status bar and have it launch an intent when the user selects it (such as the new text message notification does), call NotificationManager.notify(), and pass in vibration patterns, status bar icons, or Intents to associate with the notification.
Displaying a Progress Bar

An activity can display a progress bar to notify the user that something is happening. To display a progress bar in a screen, call Activity.requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_PROGRESS) . To set the value of the progress bar, call Activity.getWindow().setFeatureInt(Window.FEATURE_PROGRESS, level). Progress bar values are from 0 to 9,999, or set the value to 10,000 to make the progress bar invisible. You can also use the ProgressDialog class, which enables a dialog box with an embedded progress b ar to send a "I'm working on it" notification to the user.
Adding Your Application to the Favorites List

You can't. Only a user can add an application to the Favorites list.
Adding Items to the Screen Menu

Every Android screen has a default menu with default options, such as adding the activity to the favorites menu. You can add your own menu entries to the default menu options by implementing Activity.onCreateOptionsMenu or Activity.onPrepareOptionsMenu(), and adding Item objects to the Menu passed in. To handle clicks implement Activity.onOptionsItemSelected() to handle the click in your Activity class. You may also pass the Item object a handler class that implements the Runnable class (a handler) but this is less efficient and discouraged. An application receives a callback at startup time to enable it to populate its menu. Additionally, it receives callbacks each time the user displays the options menu to let you perform some contextual modifications on the menu. To populate the menu on startup, override Activity.onCreateOptionsMenu; to populate it when the menu is called (somewhat less efficient), you can override Activity.onPrepareOptionsMenu(). Each Activity has its own menu list. Menu items are displayed in the order added, though you can g roup them as described in the Menu.add documentation. The following code snippet adds three items to the default menu options and handles them through the overridden Activity.onOptionsItemSelected() method. You can show or hide menu items by calling setItemShown() or setGroupShown().
// Called only the first time the options menu is d isplayed. // Create the menu entries. // Menu adds items in the order shown. @Override public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) { super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu); // Parameters for menu.add are: // group -- Not used here. // id -- Used only when you want to handle and identify the click yourself. // title menu.add(0, 0, "Zoom"); menu.add(0, 1, "Settings"); menu.add(0, 2, "Other");
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return true; } // Activity callback that lets your handle the sele ction in the class. // Return true to indicate that you've got it, fals e to indicate // that it should be handled by a declared handler object for that // item (handler objects are discouraged for reason s of efficiency). @Override public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(Menu.Item item ){ switch (item.getId()) { case 0: showAlert("Menu Item Clicked", "Zoom", "ok" , null, false, null); return true; case 1: showAlert("Menu Item Clicked", "Settings", "ok", null, false, null); return true; case 2: showAlert("Menu Item Clicked", "Other", "ok ", null, false, null); return true; } return false; } You can add key shortcuts by calling the Item.setAlphabeticShortcut() or Item.setNumericShortcut() methods, as demonstrated here to add a "C" shortcut to a menu item: thisItem.setAlphabeticShortcut(0, 'c');
Adding Submenus
Add a submenu by calling Menu.addSubMenu(), which returns a SubMenu object. You can then add additional items to this menu. Menus can only be one level deep, and you can customize t he appearance of the submenu menu item. @Override public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) { super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu); // Parameters for menu.add are: // group -- Not used here. // id -- Used only when you want to handle and identify the click yourself. // title menu.add(0, 0, "Send message"); menu.add(0, 1, "Settings"); menu.add(0, 2, "Local handler"); menu.add(0, 3, "Launch contact picker"); // Add our submenu. SubMenu sub = menu.addSubMenu(1, 4, "Days of th e week"); sub.add(0, 5, "Monday"); sub.add(0, 6, "Tuesday"); sub.add(0, 7, "Wednesday"); sub.add(0, 8, "Thursday"); sub.add(0, 9, "Friday"); sub.add(0, 10, "Saturday"); sub.add(0, 11, "Sunday"); return true; }
Adding yourself to menus on other applications

You can also advertise your Activity's services so that other Activities can add your activity to their own option menu. For
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example, suppose you implement a new image handling tool that shrinks an image to a smaller size and you would like to offer this as a menu option to any other Activity that handles pictures. To do this, you would exposes your capabilities inside an intent filter in your manifest. If another application that handles photos asks Android for any Activities that can perform actions on pictures, Android will perform intent resolution, find your Activity, and add it to the other Activity's options menu.
The offering application

The application offering the service must include an <intent-filter> element in the manifest, inside the <activity> tag of the offering Activity. The intent filter includes all the details describing what it can do, such as a <type> element that describes the MIME type of data that it can handle, a custom <action> value that describes what your handling application can do (this is so that when it receives the Intent on opening it knows what it is expected to do), and most important, include a <category> filter with the value android.intent.category.ALTERNATIVE and/or android.intent.category.SELECTED_ALTERNATIVE (SELECTED_ALTERNATIVE is used to handle only the currently selected element on the screen, rather than the whole Activity intent. Here's an example of a snip of a manifest that advertises picture shrinking technology for both selected items and the whole screen. <activity class="PictureShrink"> <! -- Handling class --> <intent-filter label="Shrink picture"> <!- - Menu label to display --> <action value="com.example.sampleapp.SHRINK _IT" /> <type value="image/*" /> <! -- MIME type for generic images --> <category value="android.intent.category.AL TERNATIVE " /> <category value="android.intent.category.SE LECTED_ALTERNATIVE" /> </intent-filter> </activity>
The menu-displaying application

An application that wants to display a menu that includes any additional external services must, first of all, handle its menu creation callback. As part of that callback it creates an intent with the category Intent.ALTERNATIVE_CATEGORY and/or Intent.SELECTED_ALTERNATIVE, the MIME type currently selected, and any other requirements, the same way as it would satisfy an intent filter to open a new Activity. It then calls menu.addIntentOptions() to have Android search for and add any services meeting those requirements. It can optionally add addit ional custom menu items of its own. You should implement SELECTED_ALTERNATIVE in onPrepareOptionsMenu() rath er than onCreateOptionsMenu(), because the user's selection can change after the application is launched. Here's a code snippet demonstrating how a picture application would search for additional services to display on its menu. @Override public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu){ super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu); // Create an Intent that describes the requirem ents to fulfill to be included // in our menu. The offering app must include a category value of Intent.ALTERNATIVE_CATEGORY. Intent intent = new Intent(null, getIntent().ge tData()); intent.addCategory(Intent.ALTERNATIVE_CATEGORY) ; // Search for, and populate the menu with, acce ptable offering applications. menu.addIntentOptions( 0, // Group 0, // Any unique IDs we might care to add. MySampleClass.class.getName(), // Name of the class displaying the menu--here, its this class. null, // No specifics. intent, // Previously created intent that describes our requirements. 0, // No flags. null); // No specifics. return true; }
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Display a Web Page

Use the webkit.WebView object.
Binding to Data
You can bind a ListView to a set of underlying data by using a shim class called ListAdapter (or a subclass). ListAdapter subclasses bind to a variety of data sources, and expose a common set of methods such as getItem() and getView(), and uses them to pick View items to display in its list. You can extend ListAdapter and override getView() to create your own custom list items. There are essentially only two steps you need to perform to bind to data: 1. Create a ListAdapter object and specify its data source 2. Give the ListAdapter to your ListView object. That's it! Here's an example of binding a ListActivity screen to the results from a cursor query. (Note that the setListAdapter() method shown is a convenience method that gets the page's ListView object and calls setAdapter() on it.) // Run a query and get a Cursor pointing to the res ults. Cursor c = People.query(this.getContentResolver(), null); startManagingCursor(c); // Create the ListAdapter. A SimpleCursorAdapter le ts you specify two interesting things: // an XML template for your list item, and // The column to map to a specific item, by ID, in your template. ListAdapter adapter = new SimpleCursorAdapter(this, android.R.layout.simple_list_item_1 , // Use a template that displays a text view c, // Give the cursor to the list adapter new String[] {People.NAME} , // Map the NAME column in the people database to... new String[] {"text1"}); // The "text1" view defined in the XML template setListAdapter(adapter); See view/List4 in the ApiDemos project for an example of extending ListAdapter for a new data type.
Capture Images from the Phone Camera

You can hook into the device's camera onto your own Canvas object by using the CameraDevice class. See that class's documentation, and the ApiDemos project's Camera Preview applicat ion (Graphics/Camera Preview) for example code.
Handling Expensive Operations in the UI Thread

Avoid performing long-running operations (such as network I/O) direct ly in the UI thread the main thread of an application where the UI is run or your application may be blocked and become unresponsive. Here is a brief summary of the recommended approach for handling expensive operations: 1. Create a Handler object in your UI thread 2. Spawn off worker threads to perform any required expensive operatio ns 3. Post results from a worker thread back to the UI thread's handler either through a Runnable or a Message 4. Update the views on the UI thread as needed
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The following outline illustrates a typical implementation: public class MyActivity extends Activity { [ . . . ] // Need handler for callbacks to the UI thread final Handler mHandler = new Handler(); // Create runnable for posting final Runnable mUpdateResults = new Runnable() { public void run() { updateResultsInUi(); } }; @Override protected void onCreate(Bundle icicle) { super.onCreate(icicle); [ . . . ] } protected void startLongRunningOperation() { // Fire off a thread to do some work that w e shouldn't do directly in the UI thread Thread t = new Thread() { public void run() { mResults = doSomethingExpensive(); mHandler.post(mUpdateResults); } }; t.start(); } private void updateResultsInUi() { // Back in the UI thread -- update our UI e lements based on the data in mResults [ . . . ] } } For further discussions on this topic, see Developing Responsive Applications and the Handler documentation.
Selecting, Highlighting, or Styling Portions of Text

You can highlight or style the formatting of strings or substrings of text in a TextView object. There are two ways to do this: If you use a string resource, you can add some simple styling, such as bold or italic using HTML notation. So, for example, in res/values/strings.xml you could declare this: <resource> <string>id="@+id/styled_welcome_message">We are <b><i>so</i></b> glad to see you.</string> </resources> To style text on the fly, or to add highlighting or more complex styling, you must use the Spannable object as described next. To style text on the fly, you must make sure the TextView is using Spannable storage for the text (this will always be true if the TextView is an EditText), retrieve its text with getText(), and call setSpan(Object, int, int, int), passing in a new style class
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from the android.text.style package and the selection range. The following code snippet demonstrates creating a string wit h a highlighted section, italic section, and bold section, and adding it to an EditText object. // Get our EditText object. EditText vw = (EditText)findViewById(R.id.text); // Set the EditText's text. vw.setText("Italic, highlighted, bold."); // // // // If this were just a TextView, we could do: vw.setText("Italic, highlighted, bold.", TextVie w.BufferType.SPANNABLE); to force it to use Spannable storage so styles c an be attached. Or we could specify that in the XML.
// Get the EditText's internal text storage Spannable str = vw.getText(); // Create our span sections, and assign a format to each. str.setSpan(new StyleSpan(android.graphics.Typeface .ITALIC), 0, 7, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE); str.setSpan(new BackgroundColorSpan(0xFFFFFF00), 8, 19, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE); str.setSpan(new StyleSpan(android.graphics.Typeface .BOLD), 21, str.length() - 1, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
List of Files for an Android Application

The following list describes the structure and files of an Android application. Many of these files can be built for you (or stubbed out) by the activityCreator.py application shipped in the tools/ menu of the SDK. See Building an Android Sample Application for more information on using activityCreator.py. MyApp/ AndroidManifest.xml (required) Advertises the screens that this application provides, where they can be launched (from the main program menu or elsewhere), any cont ent providers it implements and what kind of data they handle, where the implementation classes are, and other application-wide informat ion. Syntax details for this file are described in AndroidManifest.xml. (required) This folder holds all the source code files for your application, inside the appropriate package subfolders. (required) This folder holds all the resources for your application. Resources are external data files or description files that are compiled into your code at build time. Files in different folders are compiled differently, so you must put the proper resource into the proper folder. (See Resources for details.) (optional) Holds any animation XML description files that the application uses. The format of these files is described in Resources.
src/ /myPackagePath/.../MyClass.java res/
anim/ animation1.xml ... drawable/ some_picture.png some_stretchable.9.png some_background .xml ...
(optional) Zero or more files that will be compiled to android.graphics.drawable resources. Files can be image files (png, gif, or other) or XML files describing other graphics such as bitmaps, stretchable bitmaps, or gradients. Supported bitmap file formats are PNG (preferred), JPG, and GIF (discouraged), as well as the custom 9-patch stretchable bitmap format. These formats are described in Resources.
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Lifecycle of an Android Application

In most cases, every Android application runs in its own Linux process. This process is created for the application when some of its code needs to be run, and will remain running until it is no longer needed and the system needs to reclaim its memory for use by other applications. An important and unusual feature of Android is that an application process's lifetime is not directly controlled by the application itself. Instead, it is determined by the system through a combination of the parts of the application that the system knows are running, how important these things are to the user, and how much overall memory is available in the system. It is important that application developers understand how different application components (in particular Activity, Service, and IntentReceiver) impact the lifetime of the application's process. Not using these components correctly can result in the system killing the application's process while it is doing important work. A common example of a process lifecycle bug is an IntentReceiver that starts a thread when it receives an Intent in its onReceiveIntent() method, and then returns from the function. Once it returns, the system considers that IntentReceiver to be no longer active, and thus its hosting process no longer needed (unless other application components are active in it). Thus, it may kill the process at any time to reclaim memory, terminating the spawned thread that is running in it. The solution to this problem is to start a Service from the IntentReceiver, so the system knows that there is still active work being done in the process. To determine which processes should be killed when low on memory, Android places them into an "importance hierarchy" based on the components running in them and the state of those components. These are, in order of importance: 1. A foreground process is one holding an Activity at the top of the screen that the user is interacting with (its onResume() method has been called) or an IntentReceiver that is currently running (its onReceiveIntent() method is executing). There will only ever be a few such processes in the system, and these will only be killed as a last resort if memory is so low that not even these processes can continue to run. Generally at this point the device has reached a memory paging state, so this action is required in order to keep the user interface responsive. 2. A visible process is one holding an Activity that is visible to the user on-screen but not in the foreground (its onPause() method has been called). This may occur, for example, if the foreground activity has been displayed with a dialog appearance that allows the previous activity to be see n behind it. Such a process is considered extremely important and will not be killed unless doing so is required to keep all foreground processes running. 3. A service process is one holding a Service that has been started with the startService() method. Though these processes are not directly visible to the user, they are generally doing things that the user cares about (such as background mp3 playback or background network data upload or down load), so the system will always keep such processes running unless there is not enough memory to retain all foreground and visible process. 4. A background process is one holding an Activity that is not currently visible to the user (its onStop() method has been called). These processes have no direct impact on the user experience . Provided they implement their activity lifecycle correctly (see Activity for more details), the system can kill such processes at any time to reclaim memory for one of the three previous processes types. Usually there are many of these processes running, so they are kept in an LRU list to ensure the process that was most recently seen by the user is the last to be killed when running low on memory. 5. An empty process is one that doesn't hold any active application components. The only reason to keep such a process around is as a cache to improve startup time the next time a component of its application needs to run. As such, the system will often kill these processes in order to balance overall system resources between these empty cached processes and the underlying kernel caches. When deciding how to classify a process, the system picks the most important level of all the components currently active in the process. See the Activity, Service, and IntentReceiver documentation for more detail on how each of these components contribute to the overall lifecycle of a process. The documentation for each of these classes describes in more detail how they impact the overall lifecycle of their application.
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Development Tools
The Android SDK includes a variety of custom tools that help you develop mobile applications on the Android platform. The most important of these are the Android Emulator and the Android Development Tools plugin for Eclipse, but the SDK also includes a variety of other tools for debugging, packaging, and installing your applications on the emulator. Android Emulator A virtual mobile device that runs on your computer. You use the emulator to design, debug, and test your applications in an actual Android run-time environment. Android Development Tools Plugin for the Eclipse IDE The ADT plugin adds powerful extensions to the Eclipse integrated environment, making creating and debugging your Android applications easier and faster. If you use Eclipse, the ADT plugin gives you an incredible boost in developing Android applications: It gives you access to other Android development tools from inside the Eclipse IDE. For example, ADT lets you access the many capabilities of the DDMS tool taking screenshots, managing port-forwarding, setting breakpoints, and viewing thread and process information directl y from Eclipse. It provides a New Project Wizard, which helps you quickly create and set up all of the basic files you'll need for a new Android application. It automates and simplifies the process of building your Android application. It provides an Android code editor that helps you write valid XML for your Android manifest and resource files. For more information about the ADT plugin, including installation instructions, see Installing the ADT Plugin for Eclipse. For a usage example with screenshots, see Hello Android. Dalvik Debug Monitor Service (ddms) Integrated with Dalvik, the Android platform's custom VM, this tool lets you manage processes on an emulator or device and assists in debugging. You can use it to kill processes, select a specific process to debug, generate trace data, view heap and thread information, take screenshots of the emulator or device, and more. Android Debug Bridge (adb) The adb tool lets you install your application's .apk files on an emulator or device and access the emulator or device from a command line. You can also use it to link a standard debugger to application code running on an Android emulator or device. Android Asset Packaging Tool (aapt) The aapt tool lets you create .apk files containing the binaries and resources of Android applications. Android Interface Description Language (aidl) Lets you generate code for an interprocess interface, such as what a service might use. sqlite3 Included as a convenience, this tool lets you access the SQLite data files created and used by Android applications. Traceview This tool produces graphical analysis views of trace log data that you can generate from your Android application. mksdcard Helps you create a disk image that you can use with the emulator, to simulate the presence of an external storage card (such as an SD card). dx The dx tool rewrites .class bytecode into Android bytecode (stored in .dex files.) activityCreator A script that generates Ant build files that you can use to compile your Android applications. If you are developing on Eclipse with the ADT plugin, you won't need to use this script.
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Android Emulator
The Android SDK includes a mobile device emulator a virtual device that runs on your computer. The emulator lets you prototype, develop, and test Android applications without using a physical device. The Android emulator mimics all of the typical functions and behaviors of a mobile device, except that it can not receive or place phone calls. As shown at right, the emulator provides a variety of navigation and control keys, which you can "press" using your mouse or keyboard to generate events for your application. It also provides a screen in which your applicatio n is displayed, together with any other Android applications running. To help you model and test your application, the emulator lets your application use the services of the Android platform to invoke other applications, access the network, play audio and video, store and retrieve data, notify the user, and render graphical transitions and themes. The emulator also includes a variety of debug capabilities, such as a console from which you can log kernel output, simulate application interrupts (such as arriving SMS messages or phone calls), and simulate latency effects and dropouts on the data channel. The sections below provide more information about the emulator and how to use it when developing your applications.
Contents
Starting and Stopping the Emulator Controlling the Emulator Emulator Startup Options Using the Emulator Console Port Redirections Network Status Network Delay Emulation Network Speed Emulation Telephony Emulation Using Emulator Skins Running Multiple Instances of the Emulator Installing Applications on the Emulator SD Card Emulation Creating a Disk Image Copying Files to a Disk Image Loading the Disk Image at Emulator Startup Troubleshooting Emulator Problems Emulator Limitations
Starting and Stopping the Emulator

To start the emulator, change to the tools/ folder of the SDK and enter emulator or ./emulator. This initializes the Android system and you will see the emulator window appear on your screen. To stop the emulator, close the emulator window.
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Controlling the Emulator

You can use emulator startup options and console commands to control the behaviors and characteristics of the emulated environment. Once the emulator is running, you can control it by using use your mouse pointer or keyboard keys to "press" the simulated device keys. The table below summarizes the mappings between the emulator keys and and the keys of your keyboard. Emulator Key Back Menu Star Call End Call ---Power button Disable/enable all networking Start tracing Stop tracing Home DPad left/up/right/down DPad center click Volume down Volume up Keyboard Key ESC F1 or PgUp F2 or PgDn F3 F4 F5, F6 unassigned F7 F8 F9 (only with -trace flag) F10 (only with -trace flag) HOME Keypad 4/8/6/2 Keypad 5 Keypad minus sign (-) Keypad plus sign (+)
Emulator Startup Options

The emulator supports a variety of options that you can specify when launching the emulator, to control its appearance or behavior. Here's the command-line usage for launching the emula tor with options: emulator [-option [value]] ... [-qemu args] The table below summarizes the available options.
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Category Help
Option -help
Description Print a list of all emulator commands. Use <file> as the working user-data disk image.
Comments
Data
-data [file]
If -data is not used, the emulator looks for a file named "userdata.img" in ~/.android (Linux/Mac) or C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Local Settings\Android (Windows). If you use -data <file> but <file> does not exist, the emulator creates a file at that location.
-ramdisk <file>
Use <file> as the ramdisk image. Use <file> as the SD card image. Wipe all data on the user disk image (see -data) before starting. Enable console shell on the current terminal. Send kernel output to the console. Enable logcat output with given tags.
Default value is <system>/ramdisk.img
-sdcard <file>
Default value is <system>/sdcard.img
-wipe-data
Debug
-console
-debug-kernel
-logcat <logtags>
If the environment variable ANDROID_LOG_TAGS is defined and not empty, its value will be used to enable logcat output by default
-trace <name>
Enable code profiling (press F9 to start). Enable verbose output. Enable verbose key presses. Use device or WAV file for audio input. Disable Android audio support. Redirect radio modem interface to a host character device. Enable Android audio support. Set network latency emulation to <delay>. Disabled by default. Default value is none. See the table in Network Delay Emulation for supported Set by default.
-verbose -verbosekeys Media -mic <device or file> -noaudio -radio <device>
-useaudio Network -netdelay <delay>
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Using the Emulator Console

Each running emulator instance includes a console facility that lets you dynamically query and control the simulated device environment. For example, you can use the console to dynamically manage port redirections and network characteristics and simulate telephony events. To access the console and enter commands, you use telnet to connect to the console's port number. To connect to the console of any running emulator instance at any time, use this command: telnet localhost <port> The console of the first emulator instance running on a given machine uses port 5554. Subsequent instances use port numbers increasing by two for example, 5556, 5558, and so on. You can determine the port that an emulator instance is using by starting it with the -verbose option and looking in the debug output for the line beginning, "emulator console running on port number". Alternatively, you can use adb devices from the command line, to see a list of emulator instances and their ports. Up to 16 concurrent instances can run a console facility. Note: The emulator listens for connections on ports 5554-5587, from any computer. In a future release, the emulator will accept connections only from localhost, but until then, you should use a firewall to block external connections to your development machine on those ports. Once the console is connected, you can then enter help [command] to see a list of console commands and learn about specific commands. To exit the console session, use quit or exit. The sections below describe the major functional areas of the console.
Port Redirection
You can use the console to add and remove port redirections while the emulator is running. After connecting to the console, you can manage port redirections in this way: redir <list|add|del> The redir command supports the subcommands listed in the table below. Subcommand list Description List the current port redirections. Add a new port redirection. <protocol> must be either "tcp" or "udp" <host-port> is the port number to open on the host <guest-port> is the port number to route data to on the emulator/device del <protocol>:<host-port> Delete a port redirection. See above for meanings of <protocol> and <host-port>. Comments
add <protocol>:<host-port>:<guest-port>
Network Status
You can use the console to check the network status and current delay and speed characteristics. To do so, connect to the console and use the netstatus command. Here's an example of the command and its output. network status
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console and use the netstatus command. Here's an example of the command and its output. network status
Network Delay Emulation

The emulator lets you simulate various network latency levels, so that you can test your applicaton in an environment more typical of the actual conditions in which it will run. You can set a latency level or range at emulator startup or you can use the console to change the latency dynamically, while the applicat ion is running in the emulator. To set latency at emulator startup, use the -netdelay emulator option with a supported <delay> value, as listed in the table below. Here are some examples: emulator -netdelay gprs emulator -netdelay 40 100 To make dynamic changes to network delay while the emulator is running, connect to the console and use the netdelay command with a supported <delay> value from the table below. network delay gprs The format of network is one of the following (numbers are milliseconds): Value gprs edge umts none <num> Description GPRS EDGE/EGPRS UMTS/3G No latency Emulate an exact latency (milliseconds). Emulate an specified latency range (min, max milliseconds). Comments (min 150, max 550) (min 80, max 400) (min 35, max 200) (min 0, max 0)
<min>:<max>
Network Speed Emulation

The emulator also lets you simulate various network transfer rates. You can set a transfer rate or range at emulator startup or you can use the console to change the rate dynamically, while the application is running in the emulator. To set the network speed at emulator startup, use the -netspeed emulator option with a supported <speed> value, as listed in the table below. Here are some examples: emulator -netspeed gsm emulator -netspeed 14.4 80 To make dynamic changes to network speed while the emulator is running, connect to the console and use the netspeed command with a supported <speed> value from the table below. network speed 14.4 80 The format of network <speed> is one of the following (numbers are kilobits/sec):
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Value gsm hscsd gprs edge umts hsdpa full <num>
Description GSM/CSD HSCSD GPRS EDGE/EGPRS UMTS/3G HSDPA no limit Set an exact rate used for both upload and download. Set exact rates for upload and download separately.
Comments (Up: 14.4, down: 14.4) (Up: 14.4, down: 43.2) (Up: 40.0, down: 80.0) (Up: 118.4, down: 236.8) (Up: 128.0, down: 1920.0) (Up: 348.0, down: 14400.0) (Up: 0.0, down: 0.0)
<up>:<down>
Telephony Emulation
The Android emulator includes its own GSM emulated modem that lets you simulate telephony functions in the emulator. For example, you can simulate inbound phone calls and establish/t erminate data connections. The Android system handles simulated calls exactly as it would actual calls. The emulator does not support call audio in this release. You can use the console to access the emulator's telephony functions. After connecting to the console, you can use gsm <call|data|voice> to invoke telephony functions. The gsm command supports the subcommands listed in the table below. Subcommand call <phonenumber> Description Simulate an inbound phone call from <phonenumber>. Change the state of the GPRS voice connection to <state>. Supported <state> values are: unregistered -- No network available home -- On local network, non-roaming roaming -- On roaming network searching -- Searching networks denied -- Emergency calls only off -- Same as 'unregistered' on -- Same as 'home' data <state> Change the state of the GPRS data connection to <state>. Supported <state> values are: unregistered -- No network available home -- On local network, non-roaming roaming -- On roaming network searching -- Searching networks Comments
voice <state>
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Using Emulator Skins

You can run the emulator with any of four default skins, as described in the table below. To specify a skin, use -skin <skinID> when starting the emulator. For example: emulator -skin HVGA-L Note that you must enter the in uppercase letters (if your development computer is case-sensitive). skinID QVGA-L Description 320x240, landscape (default) Skin
QVGA-P
240x320, portrait
HVGA-L
480x320, landscape
HVGA-P
320x480, portrait
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Running Multiple Emulator Instances

You can run multiple instances of the emulator concurrently, if necessary. Each emulator instance uses separate user-data memory and a different console port. This lets you manage each instance in isolation. However, if you will run multiple emulator instances, note that there are limitations on the capability of each instance to maintain its persistent user-data user settings and installed applications across sessions. Specifically: Only the first emulator instance can preserve user data across sessions. It stores the user data in a file by default, it stores the data in the file ~/.android/userdata.img (on Linux and Mac) or C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Local Settings\Android\userdata.img (on Windows) in your development computer. You can control the storage (and loading) location of the user data file by using the -data option when starting the emulator (see Startup Options). Emulator instances that you start after the first instance (that are running concurrently) also store user data during a session, but they do not preserve it for the next session. These instances store the data in temporary files that are deleted when their corresponding instances exit.
Installing Applications on the Emulator

To install applications on the emulator, you use the adb utility. Note that the emulator preserves user settings and installed applications across restarts. By default, the emulator saves the user data in a file on your development computer. On Linux and Mac, the emulator stores the data in ~/.android/userdata.img. On Windows, the emulator stores the data in C:\Documents and Settings\. The emulator uses the contents of the userdata.img file as the data/ folder.
SD Card Emulation
You can create a disk image and then load it to the emulator at startup, to simulate the presence of a user's SD card in the device. The sections below describe how to create the disk image, how to copy files to it, and how to load it in the emulator at startup. Note that you can only load disk image at emulator startup. Similarly, you can not remove a simulated SD card from a running emulator. However, you can browse, send files to, and copy/remove files from a simulated SD card either with adb or the emulator. Also note that the emulator supports SD card images that are a maximum of 2 GB in size.
Creating a Disk Image

You can use the mksdcard tool, included in the SDK, to create a FAT32 disk image that you can load in the emulator at startup. You can access mksdcard in the tools/ directory of the SDK and create a disk image like this: mksdcard <size> <file> For more information, see Other Tools.
Copying Files to a Disk Image

Once you have created the disk image, you can copy files to it prior to loading it in the emulator. To copy files, you can mount the image as a loop device and then copy the files to it, or you can use the mtools utility mcopy to copy the files directly to the image. The mtools package is available for Linux, Mac, and Windows.
Loading the Disk Image at Emulator Startup

To load FAT32 disk image in the emulator, start the emulator with the -sdcard flag and specify the name and path of your image (relative to the current working directory): emulator -sdcard <filepath>
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Troubleshooting Emulator Problems

The adb utility sees the emulator as an actual physical device. For this reason, you might have to use the -d flag with some common adb commands, such as install. The -d flag lets you specify which of several connected devices to use as the target of a command. If you don't specify -d, the emulator will target the first device in its list. For more information about adb, see Android Debug Bridge. For emulators running on Mac OS X, if you see an error "Warning: No DNS servers found" when starting the emulator, check to see whether you have an /etc/resolv.conf file. If not, please run the following line in a command window: ln -s /private/var/run/resolv.conf /etc/resolv.conf See Frequently Asked Questions for more troubleshooting information.
Emulator Limitations
In this release, the limitations of the emulator include: No support for placing or receiving actual phone calls. You can simulate phone calls (placed and received) through the emulator console, however. No support for USB connections No support for camera/video capture (input). No support for audio input (capture). Output (playback) is supported. No support for device-attached headphones No support for determining connected state No support for determining battery charge level and AC charging state No support for determining SD card insert/eject No support for Bluetooth
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Android - An Open Handset Alliance Project
Developing Android Applications

You can develop Android applications with the same high-quality tools you use to develop Java applications. The Android core libraries provide the functionality needed to build some amazingly rich mobile applications, and the Android development tools make running, debugging, and testing your applications a snap. This section explains the ins and outs of developing Android applications. It outlines the philosophy behind the system and then describes each of the key subsystems in detail. After reading this section, you'll have the knowledge and confidence to begin writing that real-world Android app you have in mind. Before reading this section you should read the Getting Started Guide, which helps you get up and running with the Android SDK and shows you how to build a basic app. This section builds on the information in the Getting Started section. Here's the content you'll find in this section: Implementing a UI Explains how to construct and interact with user interfaces for Android applications. After reading this page you'll have a solid understanding of how Android layouts are built, how they operate at runtime, and how you can make them pretty. Building Blocks Detailed descriptions of Android components. Covers the ins and outs of the components summarized in Anatomy of an Android App, plus more. This section goes into detail on each of the key Android components (Intents, Activities, Views, and events.) Storing and Retrieving Data How to read and write data to the various storage mechanisms provided by Android, and to network services. There are several different ways to read and write data from an Android application, each aimed at different needs. This page describes them all and explains how to pick the right one for your needs. Security Model Gaining access to secure system resources and features, and declaring permissions to control access to your own secure features. Permissions control whether a given application is able to access piece of functionality provided by another application (for example, which applications can dial the phone). This page describes how permissions work and how to request permissions as well as define your own. Resources and i18n Detailed descriptions of Android's application-resource management system, including how it's used for internationalization and localization. "Resources" are applicat ion assets (such as images, localized strings, and XML layouts) that need to be resolved at runtime. This page describes how Android resolves which resource to load from a selection of them, as well as how to create and use resources.
Implementing a User Interface

This section describes the basics of how to implement the user interface of an Android screen. It covers the basic elements that make up a screen, how to define a screen in XML and load it in your code, and various other tasks you'll need to handle for your user interface.
Topics
Hierarchy of Screen Elements Common Layout Objects Working with AdapterViews (Binding to Data) Designing Your Screen in XML Hooking into a Screen Element Listening for UI Notifications Applying a Theme to Your Application UI Elements and Concepts Glossary
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Hierarchy of Screen Elements

The basic functional unit of an Android application is the activity--an object of the class android.app.Activity. An activity can do many things, but by itself it does not have a presence on the screen. To give your activity a screen presence and design its UI, you work with views and viewgroups -- basic units of user interface expression on the Android platform.
Views
A view is an object of base class android.view.View. It's a data structure whose properties store the layout and content for a specific rectangular area of the screen. A View object handles measuring and layout, drawing, focus change, scrolling, and key/gestures for the screen area it represents. The View class serves as a base class for widgets -- a set of fully implemented subclasses that draw interactive screen elements. Widgets handle their own measuring and drawing, so you can use them to build your UI more quickly. The list of widgets available includes Text, EditText, InputMethod, MovementMethod, Button, RadioButton, Checkbox, and ScrollView.
Viewgroups
A viewgroup is an object of class android.view.Viewgroup. As its name indicates, a viewgroup is a special type of view object whose function is to contain and manage a subordinate set of views and other viewgroups, Viewgroups let you add structure to your UI and build up complex screen elements that can be addressed as a single entity. The Viewgroup class serves as a base class for layouts -- a set of fully implemented subclasses that provide common types of screen layout. The layouts give you a way to build a structure for a set of views.
A Tree-Structured UI
On the Android platform, you define an Activity's UI using a tree of view and viewgroup nodes, as shown in the diagram below. The tree can be as simple or complex as you need to make it, and you can build it up using Android's set of predefined widgets and layouts or custom view types that you create yourself.
To attach the tree to the screen for rendering, your Activity calls its setContentView() method and passes a reference to the root node object. Once the Android system has the reference to the root node object, it can work directly with the node to invalidate, measure, and draw the tree. When your Activity becomes active and receives focus, the system notifies your activity and requests the root node to measure and draw the tree. The root node then requests that its child nodes draw themselves -- in turn, each viewgroup node in the tree is responsible for drawing its direct children. As mentioned previously, each view group has the responsibility of measuring its available space, laying out its children, and calling Draw() on each child to let it render itself. The children may request a size and location in the parent, but the parent object has the final decision on where how big each child can be.
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LayoutParams: How a Child Specifies Its Position and Size

Every viewgroup class uses a nested class that extends ViewGroup.LayoutParams. This subclass contains property types that define a child's size and position, in properties appropriate for that view group class.
Note that every LayoutParams subclass has its own syntax for setting values. Each child element must define LayoutParams that are appropriate for its parent, although it may define different LayoutParams for its children. All viewgroups include width and height. Many also include ma rgins and borders. You can specify width and height exactly, though you probably won't want to do this often. More often you will tell your view to size itself either to the dimensions of its content, or to become as big as its containing object will allow.
Common Layout Objects

The following are the most common view groups you'll use in your applications. This gives some basic information about each type; for in-depth detail, see the linked reference page topic for each.
FrameLayout
FrameLayout is the simplest layout object. It is intended as a blank reserved space on your screen that you can later fill with a single object for example, a picture that you'll swap out. All child elements are pinned to the top left corner of the screen; you cannot specify a location for a child of a FrameLayout. Later children will simply be drawn over earlier objects, partially or totally obscuring them (unless the newer object is transparent).
LinearLayout
A LinearLayout aligns all children in a single direction vertically or horizontally, depending on what property you set on the LinearLayout. All children are stacked one after the other, so a vertical list will only have one child per row, no matter how wide they are, and a horizontal list will only be one row high (the height of the tallest child, plus padding). LinearLayout respects margins between children, and also gravity (right, center, or left alignment of a child). LinearLayout also supports assigning a weight to individual children. This value allows children to expand to fill any remaining space on a screen. This prevents a list of small objects from being bunched to one end of a large screen, allowing them to expand to fill the space. Children specify a weight value, and any remaining space is assigned to children in the proportion of their declared weight. Default weight is zero. So, for example, if there are three text boxes, and two of them declare a weight of 1, two of them will expand equally to fill the remaining space, and the third will not grow any additional amount.
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The following two forms represent a LinearLayout with a set of elements: a button, some labels, some text boxes. Both have padding values to adjust the padding nicely. The text boxes have their width set to FILL_PARENT; other elements are set to WRAP_CONTENT. The gravity, by default, is left. The form on the left has weight values unset (0 by default); the form on the right has the comments text box weight set to 1. If the Name textbox had also been set be the same height.
Tip: To create a proportionate size layout on the screen, create a container object that is fill_parent, assign the children heights or widths of zero, and then assign relative weight values to each child, depending on what proportion of the screen each should take. to 1, the Name and Comments text boxes would
Within a horizontal LinearLayout, items are aligned by the position of their text base line (the first line of the first list element topmost or leftmost is considered the reference line). This is so that people scanning elements in a form shouldn't have to jump up and down to read element text in neighboring elements. This can be turned off by setting android:baselineAligned="false" in the layout XML.
TableLayout
TableLayout positions its children into rows and columns. A TableLayout consists of a number of TableRow objects, each defining a row (actually, you can have other children, which will be explained below). TableLayout containers do not display border lines for their rows, columns, or cells. Each row has zero or more cells; each cell can hold one View object. The table has as many columns as the row with the most cells. A table can leave cells empty. Cells cannot span columns, as they can in HTML. The following image shows a table layout, with the invisible cell borders displayed as dotted lines.
Columns can be hidden, can be marked to stretch to fill available screen space, or can be marked as shrinkable to force the column to shrink until the table fits the screen. See the reference documentation for this class for more details.
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AbsoluteLayout
AbsoluteLayout enables children to specify exact x/y coordinates to display on the screen, where (0,0) is the upper left corner, and values increase as you move down or to the right. Margins are not supported, and overlapping elements are allowed (although not recommended). W e generally recommend against using AbsoluteLayout unless you have good reasons to use it, because it is fairly rigid and does not work well with different device displays.
RelativeLayout
RelativeLayout lets children specify their position relative to each other (specified by ID), or to the parent. So you can align two elements by right border, or make one below another, or centered in the screen. Elements are rendered in the order given, so if the first element is centered in the screen, other elements aligning themselves to that element will be aligned relative to screen center. If using XML to specify this layout (as described later), a referenced element must be listed before you refer to it. Here is an example relative layout with the visible and invisible elements outlined. The root screen layout object is a RelativeLayout object.
This diagram shows the class names of the screen elements, followed by a list of the properties of each. Some of these properties are supported directly by the element, and some are supported by its LayoutParams member (subclass RelativeLayout for all the elements in this screen, because all elements are children of a RelativeLayout parent object). The RelativeLayout parameters are width, height, below, alignTop, toLeft, padding, and marginLeft. Note that some of these parameters support values relative to other children hence the name RelativeLayout. These include the toLeft, alignTop, and below properties, which indicate the object to the left, top, and below respectively.
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Summary of Important View Groups

These objects all hold child UI elements. Some provide visible UI, and others only handle child layout. Class AbsoluteLayout Description Enables you to specify the location of child objects relative to the parent in exact measurements (for example, pixels). Layout that acts as a view frame to display a single object. A horizontal scrolling display of images, from a bound list. Displays a scrolling grid of m columns and n rows. A layout that organizes its children into a single horizontal or vertical row. It creates a scrollbar if the length of the window exceeds the length of the screen. Displays a scrolling single column list.
FrameLayout Gallery GridView LinearLayout
ListView
Working with AdapterViews (Binding to Data)

As we mentioned, some view groups have UI. These objects typically subclass AdapterView. Examples include such as Gallery (an image selection widget) and ListView (a list of views). These objects have two jobs in common: Filling the layout with data Handling user selections
Filling the layout with data

This is typically done by binding the class to an Adapter that gets its data from somewhere either a list that the code supplies, or query results from the device's database. // Get a Spinner and bind it to an ArrayAdapter that // references a String array. private String[] fruit = {"apples", "oranges", "lemons"} Spinner s1 = (Spinner)findViewById(R.id.fruitlist); s1.setAdapter(new ArrayAdapter<String>(this, R.layout.spinner_1, mStrings)); // Load a Spinner and bind it to a data query. private String[] cols={android.provider.Contacts.PeopleColumns.NAME}; private Cursor cur = managedQuery(android.provider.Contacts.People.CONTENT_URI, cols, null, null); s2.setAdapter(new CursorAdapter(cur, this));
Handling user selections

This is done by setting the class's AdapterView.OnItemClickListener member to a listener and catching the selection changes. // Create a message handling object as an anonymous class. private OnItemClickListener mMessageClickedHandler = new OnItemClickListener() { public void onItemClick(AdapterView parent, View v, int position, long id) { // Display a messagebox. showAlert("You've got an event", "Clicked me!", "ok", false); } }; // Now hook into our object and set its onItemClickListener member // to our class handler object. mHistoryView = (ListView)findViewById(R.id.history); mHistoryView.setOnItemClickListener(mMessageClickedHandler);
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Designing Your Screen in XML

Because designing a screen in code can be cumbersome, Android supports an XML syntax to design screens. Android defines a large number of custom elements, each representing a specific Android View subclass. You can design a screen the same way you create HTML files, as a series of nested tags, saved in an XML file inside the application's res/layout/ directory. To learn what elements are exposed, and the format of the XML file, see Layout Resources. Each file describes a single android.view.View element, but this element can be either a simple visual element, or a layout element that contains a collection of child objects (a screen or a portion of a screen). When Android compiles your application, it compiles each file into an android.view.View resource that you can load in code by calling setContentView(R.layout. layout_file_name ) in your Activity.onCreate() implementation. Each XML file is made of tags that correspond to Android GUI classes. These tags have attributes that roughly correspond to methods in that class (for example, EditText has a text attribute that corresponds to EditText.setText). Note that there is not an exact correspondence between class and method names, and element and attribute names they're close, but not always 1:1. Also note that Android tends to draw elements in the order in which they appear in the XML. Therefore, if elements overlap, the last one in the XML file will probably be drawn on top of any previously listed elements in that same space. Each XML file is compiled into a tree rooted by single View or ViewGroup object, and so must contain a single root tag. In the following example, it evaluates to the outermost LinearLayout object. Attributes named layout_something apply to that object's LayoutParams member. Layout Resources also describes how to learn the syntax for specifying LayoutParams properties. The following values are supported for dimensions (described in TypedValue): px (pixels) dip (device independent pixels) sp (scaled pixels best for text size) pt (points) in (inches) mm (millimeters) Example: android:layout_width="25px" For more information about these dimensions, see Dimension Values. The following XML file creates the screen shown. Note that the text on the top of the screen was set by calling Activity.setTitle. Note that the attributes that refer to relative elements (i.e., layout_toLeft) refer to the ID using the syntax of a relative resource (@id/ id_number).
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>  <RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/a ndroid android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="wrap_content " android:background="@drawable/blue" android:padding="10px"> <TextView id="@+id/label" android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:text="Type here:"/> <EditText id="@+id/entry" android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:background="@android:drawable/editbox_backg round"
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Loading the XML Resource

Loading the compiled layout resource is very easy, and done with a single call in the application's onCreate() method, as shown here: protected void onCreate(Bundle savedValues) { // Be sure to call the super class. super.onCreate(savedValues); // Load the compiled layout resource into the wi ndow's // default ViewGroup. // The source file is res/layout/hello_activity. xml setContentView(R.layout.hello_activity); // Retrieve any important stored values. restoreValues(savedValues); }
Hooking into a Screen Element

You can get a handle to a screen element by calling Activity.findViewById. You can use this handle to set or retrieve any values exposed by the object. TextView msgTextView = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.msg); msgTextView.setText(R.string.push_me);
Listening for UI Notifications

Some UI notifications are automatically exposed and called by Android. For instance, Activity exposes overrideable methods onKeyDown and onKeyUp, and Widget exposes onFocusChanged(boolean, int) . However, some important callbacks, such as button clicks, are not exposed natively, and must be registered for manually, as shown here. public class SendResult extends Activity { /** * Initialization of the Screen after it is first created. * call setContentView() to * describe what is to be displayed in the screen. */ protected void onCreate(Bundle savedValues) { ... // Listen for button clicks. Button button = (Button)findViewById(R.id.corky); button.setOnClickListener(mCorkyListener); } // Create an anonymous class to act as a button click listener. private OnClickListener mCorkyListener = new OnClickListener() { public void onClick(View v) { // To send a result, simply call setResult() before your // activity is finished. setResult(RESULT_OK, "Corky!"); finish(); } };
Must at least
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Applying a Theme to your Application

If you do not explicitly specify a theme for your UI, Android will use the default theme defined by android.R.style.Theme. Many times you will want to use a different system theme (such as Theme.Dark) or create your own theme (as described in Style and Theme Resources). To set your theme in XML, simply specify the desired theme in your AndroidManifest.xml file with the theme attribute. This can be used with the <application> tag (shown here) to specify a default theme for all of your activities, and/or with the <activity> to control the theme of a particular activity.  <manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" package="com.google.android.home"> <application android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Dark" > <activity class=".Home" ... </activity> </application> </manifest> You can also set the theme programmatically, if needed. When doing so, be sure to set the theme before creating any views so that the correct theme is used for all of your user-interface elements. Note that this approach should typically be avoided, especially from the main activities of your application, because the theme you set here may not be used for any animations the system uses to show the activity (which is done before your application starts). protected void onCreate(Bundle icicle) { super.onCreate(icicle); ... setTheme(android.R.style.Theme_Dark); setContentView(R.layout.linear_layout_3); }
UI Elements and Concepts Glossary

Here is a list of common UI elements and concepts that you will see here and elsewhere in the SDK. Activity The standard screen in an Android application. Activity is a class that Android can start when a matching Intent is thrown by this or another application. Most commonly, it is visibly represented by a full screen window that can receive and handle UI events and perform complex tasks, because of the Window it uses to render its window. Though an Activity is typically full screen, it can also be floating or transparent. View A rectangular area on the screen that can be drawn to, handles click, keystroke, and other interaction events. A View is a base class for most components of an Activity or Dialog screen (text boxes, windows, and so on). It receives calls from its container object to draw itself, and informs its parent object about where and how big it would like to be (which may or may not be respected by the parent). It is represented by the base class View. View Group A container that holds multiple child View objects, deciding where they will be and how large they can be, and calling on them to draw themselves when appropriate. Some are invisible and for layout only, while others have a UI themselves (for instance, scrolling list boxes). View groups are all in the widget package, but extend ViewGroup. Widget A form element, such as a text box or popup menu. They have the ability to draw themselves and handle UI events. Widgets are all in the widget package. Drawable A visual element that is loaded into another UI element, typically as a background image. It does not receive events, but does assign various other properties such as "state" and scheduling to enable subclasses such as animation objects or image libraries. Many drawable objects are loaded from resource files xml or bitmap files that describe the image. The base class is Drawable. See Resources.
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Panel A panel is a concept not backed by a specific class. It is a View of some sort that is tied in closely to a parent window, but can handle clicks and perform simple functions related to its parent. A panel floats in front of its parent, and is positioned relative to it. A common example of a panel (implemented by Android) is the options menu available to every screen. At present, there are no specific classes or methods for creating a panel it's more of a general idea. Dialog A dialog is a floating window that can have buttons, and acts as a lightweight form that is intended to, at most, perform a simple action (such as click a button) and perhaps return a value. It is not intended to persist in the history stack, contain complex layout, or perform complex actions. Android provides a default simple dialog for you with optional buttons, though you can define a dialog layout yourself. The base class is Dialog, and the helper methods to open a dialog box are the various Activity.showAlert() methods. Window An abstract class that specifies the elements of a generic window, such as the look and feel (title bar text, location and content of menus, and so on). Dialog and Activity use an implementation of this class to render a window. You should not need to implement this class. Surface A block of memory that gets composited to the screen. A Surface holds a Canvas object for drawing, and provides various helper methods to draw layers and resize the surface. You should not use this class directly; use SurfaceView instead. SurfaceView A View object that wraps a Surface for drawing, and exposes methods to specify its size and format dynamically. The camera app uses SurfaceView for its preview screen. A SurfaceView provides a way to draw independently of the UI thread for resource-intense operations (such as games or camera previews), but it uses extra memory as a result. SurfaceView supports both Canvas and OpenGL ES graphics. Canvas A drawing surface where the actual bits are composited. It has methods for standard computer drawing of bitmaps, lines, circles, rectangles, text, and so on. It is bound to a Bitmap or Surface. Canvas is the simplest, easiest way to draw 2D objects on the screen. However, it does not support hardware acceleration, as OpenGL ES does. OpenGL ES Android provides OpenGL ES libraries that you can use for fast, complex 3D images. It is much harder to use than a Canvas object, but better for 3D objects. The graphics.glutils package exposes OpenGL ES functionality.
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Android Building Blocks

You can think of an Android application as a collection of components, of various kinds. These components are for the most part quite loosely coupled, to the degree where you can accurately describe them as a federation of components rather than a single cohesive application. Generally, these components all run in the same system process. It's possible (and quite common) to create multiple threads within that process, and it's also possible to create completely separate child processes if you need to. Such cases are pretty uncommon though, because Android tries very hard to make processes transparent to your code. These are the most important parts of the Android APIs: AndroidManifest.xml The AndroidManifest.xml file is the control file that tells the system what to do with all the top-level components (specifically activities, services, intent receivers, and content providers described below) you've created. For instance, this is the "glue" that actually specifies which Intents your Activities receive. Activities An Activity is, fundamentally, an object that has a lifecycle. An Activity is a chunk of code that does some work; if necessary, that work can include displaying a UI to the user. It doesn't have to, though - some Activities never display UIs. Typically, you'll designate one of your application's Activities as the entry point to your application. Views A View is an object that knows how to draw itself to the screen. Android user interfaces are comprised of trees of Views. If you want to perform some custom graphical technique (as you might if you're writing a game, or building some unusual new user interface widget) then you'd create a View. Intents An Intent is a simple message object that represents an "intention" to do something. For example, if your application wants to display a web page, it expresses its "Intent" to view the URI by creating an Intent instance and handing it off to the system. The system locates some other piece of code (in this case, the Browser) that knows how to handle that Intent, and runs it. Intents can also be used to broadcast interesting events (such as a notification) system-wide. Services A Service is a body of code that runs in the background. It can run in its own process, or in the context of another application's process, depending on its needs. Other components "bind" to a Service and invoke methods on it via remote procedure calls. An example of a Service is a media player; even when the user quits the media-selection UI, she probably still intends for her music to keep playing. A Service keeps the music going even when the UI has completed. Notifications A Notification is a small icon that appears in the status bar. Users can interact with this icon to receive information. The most well-known notifications are SMS messages, call history, and voicemail, but applications can create their own. Notifications are the strongly-preferred mechanism for alerting the user of something that needs their attention. ContentProviders A ContentProvider is a data storehouse that provides access to data on the device; the classic example is the ContentProvider that's used to access the user's list of contacts. Your application can access data that other applications have exposed via a ContentProvider, and you can also define your own ContentProviders to expose data of your own.
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The AndroidManifest.xml File

AndroidManifest.xml is a required file for every application. It sits in the root folder for an application, and describes global values for your package, including the application components (activities, services, etc) that the package exposes and the implementation classes for each component, what kind of data each can handle, and where they can be launched. An important aspect of this file are the intent filters that it includes. These filters describe where and when that activity can be started. When an activity (or the operating system) wants to perform an action such as open a Web page or open a contact picker screen, it creates an Intent object. This object can hold several descriptors describing what you want to do, what data you want to do it to, the type of data, and other bits of information. Android compares the information in an Intent object with the intent filter exposed by every application and finds the activity most appropriate to handle the data or action specified by the caller. More details on intents is given in the Intent reference page. Besides declaring your application's Activities, Content Providers, Services, and Intent Receivers, you can also specify permissions and instrumentation (security control and testing) in AndroidManifest.xml. For a reference of the tags and their attributes, please see AndroidManifest. A simple AndroidManifest.xml looks like this: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" package="com.my_domain.app.helloactivity"> <application android:label="@string/app_name"> <activity class=".HelloActivity"> <intent-filter> <action android:value="android.intent.action.MAIN"/> <category android:value="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER"/> </intent-filter> </activity> </application> </manifest> Some general items to note: Almost every AndroidManifest.xml (as well as many other Android XML files) will include the namespace declaration xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" in its first element. This makes a variety of standard Android attributes available in the file, which will be used to supply most of the data for elements in that file. Most manifests include a single <application> element, which defines all of the application-level components and properties that are available in the package. Any package that will be presented to the user as a top-level application available from the program launcher will need to include at least one Activity component that supports the MAIN action and LAUNCHER category as shown here. Here is a detailed outline of the structure of an AndroidManifest.xml file, describing all tags that are available. <manifest> The root node of the file, describing the complete contents of the package. Under it you can place: <uses-permission> Requests a security permission that your package must be granted in order for it to operate correctly. See the Security Model document for more information on permissions. A manifest can contain zero or more of these elements.
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<permission> Declares a security permission that can be used to restrict which applications can access components or features in your (or another) package. See the Security Model document for more information on permissions. A manifest can contain zero or more of these elements. <instrumentation> Declares the code of an instrumentation component that is available to test the functionality of this or another package. See Instrumentation for more details. A manifest can contain zero or more of these elements. <application> Root element containing declarations of the application-level components contained in the package. This element can also include global and/or default attributes for the application, such as a label, icon, theme, required permission, etc. A manifest can contain zero or one of these elements (more than one application tag is not allowed). Under it you can place zero or more of each of the following component declarations: <activity> An Activity is the primary facility for an application to interact with the user. The initial screen the user sees when launching an application is an activity, and most other screens they use will be implemented as separate activities declared with additional activity tags. Note: Every Activity must have an <activity> tag in the manifest whether it is exposed to the world or intended for use only within its own package. If an Activity has no matching tag in the manifest, you won't be able to launch it. Optionally, to support late runtime lookup of your activity, you can include one or more <intent-filter> elements to describe the actions the activity supports: <intent-filter> Declares a specific set of Intent values that a component supports, in the form of an IntentFilter. In addition to the various kinds of values that can be specified under this element, attributes can be given here to supply a unique label, icon, and other information for the action being described. <action> An Intent action that the component supports. <category> An Intent category that the component supports. <type> An Intent data MIME type that the component supports. <scheme> An Intent data URI scheme that the component supports. <authority> An Intent data URI authority that the component supports. <path> An Intent data URI path that the component supports. <receiver> An IntentReceiver allows an application to be told about changes to data or actions that happen, even if it is not currently running. As with the activity tag, you can optionally include one or more <intent-filter> elements that the receiver supports; see the activity's <intent-filter> description for more information. <service> A Service is a component that can run in the background for an arbitrary amount of time. As with the activity tag, you can optionally include one or more <intent-filter> elements that the receiver supports; see the activity's <intent-filter> description for more information. <provider> A ContentProvider is a component that manages persistent data and publishes it for access by other applications.
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Storing, Retrieving and Exposing Data

A typical desktop operating system provides a common file system that any application can use to store and read files that can be read by other applications (perhaps with some access control settings). Android uses a different system: on Android, all application data (including files) are private to that application. However, Android also provides a standard way for an application to expose its private data to other applications. This section describes the many ways that an application can store and retrieve data, expose its data to other applications, and also how you can request data from other applications that expose their data. Android provides the following mechanisms for storing and retrieving data: Preferences A lightweight mechanism to store and retrieve key/value pairs of primitive data types. This is typically used to store application preferences. Files You can store your files on the device or on a removable storage medium. By default, other applications cannot access these files. Databases The Android APIs contain support for SQLite. Your application can create and use a private SQLite database. Each database is private to the package that creates it. Content Providers A content provider is a optional component of an application that exposes read/write access to an application's private data, subject to whatever restrictions it wants to impose. Content providers implement a standard request syntax for data, and a standard access mechanism for the returned data. Android supplies a number of content providers for standard data types, such as personal contacts. Network Don't forget that you can also use the network to store and retrieve data.
Using Application Preferences

You can store application preferences such as a default greeting or text font to be loaded whenever this application is started. Call Context.getSharedPreferences() to read and write values. Assign a name to your set of preferences if you want to share them with other components in the same package, or use Activity.getPreferences() with no name to keep them private to the calling activity. You cannot share preferences across packages. Here is an example of setting user preferences for silent keypress mode for a calculator. public class Calc extends Activity { public static final String PREFS_NAME = "MyPrefsFile"; ... @Override protected void onCreate(Bundle state){ super.onCreate(state); ... // Restore preferences SharedPreferences settings = getSharedPreferences(PREFS_NAME, 0); boolean silent = settings.getBoolean("silentMode", false); setSilent(silent); } @Override protected void onStop(){ super.onStop(); // Save user preferences. We need an Editor object to // make changes. All objects are from android.context.Context SharedPreferences settings = getSharedPreferences(PREFS_NAME, 0); SharedPreferences.Editor editor = settings.edit(); editor.putBoolean("silentMode", mSilentMode); // Don't forget to commit your edits!!! editor.commit(); } }
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Using Files
Android provides access to read or write streams to files local to an application. Call Context.openFileOutput() and Context.openFileInput() with a local name and path to read and write files. Calling these methods with the same name and path strings from another application will not work; you can only access local files. If you have static files to package with your application at compile time, you can save your file in your project in res/raw/<mydatafile>, and then get it with Resources.openRawResource (R.raw. mydatafile).
Using SQLite Databases

Android supports a SQLite database system and exposes database management functions that let you store complex collections of data wrapped into useful objects. For example, Android defines a Contact data type that consists of many fields including string first and last names, string address and phone numbers, a bitmap image, and much other information describing the person. To create a database, use Context.createDatabase() and Context.openDatabase(), and read and write this data as appropriate. (Note that file data such as a bitmap is typically stored as a string file path value in the database, with the location of the local file.) Android ships with the sqlite3 database tool, which enables you to browse table contents, run SQL commands, and perform other useful functions on SQLite databases. See Examine databases (sqlite3) to learn how to run this program. All databases, SQLite and others, are stored on the device in /data/data/<package_name>/databases Discussion of how many tables to create, what fields they contain, and how they are linked, is beyond the scope of this document, but Android does not impose any limitations beyond the standard SQLite concepts. We do recommend including an autoincrement value key field that can be used as a unique ID to quickly find a record. This is not required for private data, but if you implement a content provider, you must include such a unique ID field. See the sample class NotePadProvider.java in the NotePad sample project for an example of creating and populating a new database. Any databases you create will be accessible by name to any other class in the application, but not outside the application.
Accessing Content Providers

If you want to make your data public, you can create (or call) a content provider. This is an object that can store and retrieve data accessible by all applications. This is the only way to share data across packages; there is no common storage area that all packages can share. Android ships with a number of content providers for common data types (audio, video, images, personal contact information, and so on). You can see some of Android's native content providers in the provider package. How a content provider actually stores its data under the covers is up to the implementation of the content provider, but all content providers must implement a common convention to query for data, and a common convention to return results. However, a content provider can implement custom helper functions to make data storage/retrieval simpler for the specific data that it exposes. This document covers two topics related to Content Providers: Using a Content Provider Creating a Content Provider
Using a Content Provider to Store and Retrieve Data

This section describes how to store and retrieve data using a content provider implemented by you or anyone else. Android exposes a number of content providers for a wide range of data types, from music and image files to phone numbers. You can see a list of content providers exposed through the convenience classes in the android.provider package. Android's content providers are loosely linked to their clients. Each content provider exposes a unique string (a URI) identifying the type of data that it will handle, and the client must use that string to store or retrieve data of that type. We'll explain this more in Querying for Data. This section describes the following activities: Querying for Data Making the query What the query returns Querying for files Reading retrieved data
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Modifying Data Adding a Record Deleting a Record
Querying for Data

Each contact provider exposes a unique public URI (wrapped by ContentURI) that is used by a client to query/add/update/delete data on that content provider. This URI has two forms: one to indicate all values of that type (e.g., all personal contacts), and one form to indicate a specific record of that type (e.g., Joe Smith's contact information). content://contacts/people/ is the URI that would return a list of all contact names on the device. content://contacts/people/23 is the URI string that would return a single result row, the contact with ID = 23. . An application sends a query to the device that specifies a general type of item (all phone numbers), or a specific item (Bob's phone number), to retrieve. Android then returns a Cursor over a recordset of results, with a specific set of columns. Let's look at a hypothetical query string and a result set (the results have been trimmed a bit for clarity): query = content://contacts/people/ Results: _ID 13 44 45 53 _COUNT 4 4 4 4 NUMBER (425) 555 6677 (212) 555-1234 (212) 555-6657 201.555.4433 NUMBER_KEY 425 555 6677 212 555 1234 212 555 6657 201 555 4433 LABEL California office NY apartment Downtown office Love Nest NAME Bully Pulpit Alan Vain Alan Vain Rex Cars TYPE Work Home Work Home
Note that the query string isn't a standard SQL query string, but instead a URI string that describes the type of data to return. This URI consists of three parts: the string "content://"; a segment that describes what kind of data to retrieve; and finally an optional ID of a specific item of the specified content type. Here are a few more example query strings: content://media/images is the URI string that would return a list of all images on the device. content://contacts/people/ is the URI that would return a list of all contact names on the device. content://contacts/people/23 is the URI string that would return a single result row, the contact with ID = 23. Although there is a general form, query URIs are somewhat arbitrary and confusing. Therefore, Android provides a list of helper classes in the android.provider package that define these query strings so you should not need to know the actual URI value for different data types. These helper classes define a string (actually, a wrapper class called ContentURI) called CONTENT_URI for a specific data type. For instance, android.provider.contacts.People.CONTENT_URI defines the query string used to search for people in Android's built-in people content provider. Typically you will use the defined CONTENT_URI object to make a query. The only time you should need to examine or modify this string is to add an ID value to the end of the URI to retrieve a specific record. So, for example, if you were looking for record 23 in the people contacts, you might run a query as shown here: // Get the base URI for contacts. ContentURI myPerson = new ContentURI(android.provider.Contacts.People.CONTENT_URI.toURI()); // Add the ID of the record I'm looking for (I'd have to know this somehow). myPerson.addId(23); // Query for this record. Cursor cur = managedQuery(myPerson, null, null, null); This query returns a cursor over a database query result set. What columns are returned, what they're called, and what they are named are discussed next. For now, though, know that you can specify that only certain columns be returned, the sort order, and a SQL WHERE clause.
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You should use the Activity.managedQuery() method to retrieve a managed cursor. A managed cursor handles all the niceties such as unloading itself when the application pauses, and requerying itself when the application restarts. You can ask Android to manage an unmanaged cursor for you by calling Activity.startManagingCursor(). Let's look at an example query to retrieve a list of contact names, phone numbers, and photos. // An array specifying which columns to return. // The provider exposes a list of column names it returns for a specific // query, or you can get all columns and iterate through them. string[] projection = new string[] { android.provider.BaseColumns._ID, android.provider.Contacts.PeopleColumns.NAME, android.provider.Contacts.PhonesColumns.NUMBER, android.provider.Contacts.PeopleColumns.PHOTO }; // Best way to retrieve a query; returns a managed query. Cursor managedCursor = managedQuery( android.provider.Contacts.Phones.CONTENT_URI, projection, //Which columns to return. null, // WHERE clause--we won't specify. android.provider.Contacts.PeopleColumns.NAME + " ASC"); // Order-by clause. This query will retrieve all the phone numbers stored in the phone number contacts provider. It will retrieve the name, number, and unique record ID for each contact. We can then scroll through the result set forward or backward, delete records, add records, and modify records, as described in the next sections. What the query returns A query returns a set of zero or more database records. The column names, order, and type are specific to the content provider, but every query includes a column called _id, which is the ID of the item in that row. If a query can return binary data, such as a bitmap or audio file, it will have a column with any name that holds a content:// URI that you can use to get this data (more information on how to get the file will be given later). Here is a tiresome example result set for the previous query: _id 44 13 53 name Alan Vain Bully Pulpit Rex Cars number 212 555 1234 425 555 6677 201 555 4433 photo content://images/media/123 content://images/media/128 content://images/media/332
This result set demonstrates what is returned when we specified a subset of columns to return. The optional subset list is passed in the projection parameter of the query. A content manager should list which columns it supports either by implementing a set of interfaces describing each column (see Contacts.People.Phones, which extends BaseColumns, PhonesColumns, and PeopleColumns), or by listing the column names as constants. Note that you need to know the data type of a column exposed by a content provider in order to be able to read it; the field reading method is specific to the data type, and a column's data type is not exposed programmatically. The retrieved data is exposed by a Cursor object that can be used to iterate backward or forward through the result set. You can use this cursor to read, modify, or delete rows. Adding new rows requires a different object described later. Note that by convention, every recordset includes a field named _id, which is the ID of a specific record, and a _count field, which is a count of records in the current result set. These field names are defined by BaseColumns. Querying for Files The previous query result demonstrates how a file is returned in a data set. The file field is typically (but not required to be) a string path to the file. However, the caller should never try to read and open the file directly (permissions problems for one thing can make this fail). Instead, you should call ContentResolver.openInputStream() / ContentResolver.openOutputStream() , or one of the helper functions from a content provider.
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Reading Retrieved Data The Cursor object retrieved by the query provides access to a recordset of results. If you have queried for a specific record by ID, this set will contain only one value; otherwise, it can contain multiple values. You can read data from specific fields in the record, but you must know the data type of the field, because reading data requires a specialized method for each type of data. (If you call the string reading method on most types of columns, Android will give you the String representation of the data.) The Cursor lets you request the column name from the index, or the index number from the column name. If you are reading binary data, such as an image file, you should call ContentResolver.openOutputStream() on the string content:// URI stored in a column name. The following snippet demonstrates reading the name and phone number from our phone number query: private void getColumnData(Cursor cur){ if(!cur.first()) return; String name; String phoneNumber; int nameColumn = cur.getColumnIndex(android.provider.Contacts.PeopleColumns.NAME); int phoneColumn = cur.getColumnIndex(android.provider.Contacts.PhonesColumns.NUMBER); int pathColumn = cur.getColumnIndex(android.provider.Contacts.PeopleColumns.PHOTO); String imagePath; while (cur.next()) { // Get the field values name = cur.getString(nameColumn); phoneNumber = cur.getString(phoneColumn); imagePath = cur.getString(stringColumn); InputStream is = getContentResolver().openInputStream(imagePath); ... read the file stream into something... is.close() // Do something with the values. ... } } Note that the image field is actually a string path value. Some content provider convenience classes provide helper methods to get specific field values such as files more easily. Remember, whenever calling updating methods on the Cursor class, you must call commitUpdates() to send the changes to the database.
Modifying Data
To update an individual record, set the Cursor to the appropriate object, call the appropriate update... method, and then call commitUpdates(). To batch update a group of records (for example, to change "NY" to "New York" in all contact fields), call the ContentResolver.update() method with the columns and values to change. Remember, whenever calling updating methods on the Cursor class, you must call commitUpdates() to send the changes to the database.
Adding a New Record

To add a new record, call ContentResolver.insert() with the URI of the type of item to add, and a Map of any values you want to set immediately on the new record. This will return the full URI of the new record, including record number, which you can then use to query and get a Cursor over the new record. Remember, whenever calling updating methods on the Cursor class, you must call commitUpdates() to send the changes to the database.
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To save a file, you can call ContentResolver().openOutputStream() with the URI as shown in the next snippet, or android.provider.Media.Images.insertImage(), in the snippet after that. // Save the name and description in a map. Key is the content provider's // column name, value is the value to save in that record field. HashMap<String, Object> values = new HashMap<String, Object>(); values.put(Media.Images.NAME, "road_trip_1"); values.put(Media.Images.DESCRIPTION, "Day 1, trip to Los Angeles"); // Add a new record without the bitmap, but with the values. // It returns the URI of the new record. ContentURI uri = getContentResolver().insert(Media.Images.CONTENT_URI, values); // Now get a handle to the file for that record, and save the data into it. // sourceBitmap is a Bitmap object representing the file to save to the database. OutputStream outStream = getContentResolver.openOutputStream(uri); sourceBitmap.compress(Bitmap.CompressFormat.JPEG, 50, outStream); outStream.close(); Or, using a convenience class: android.provider.Media.Images.insertImage( getContentResolver(), sourceBitmap, "road_trip_1", "Day 1, trip to Los Angeles");
Deleting a Record
To delete a single record, call ContentResolver.delete() with the URI of a specific row, or call Cursor.deleteRow(). To delete multiple rows, call ContentResolver.delete() with the URI of the type of record to delete (for example, android.provider.Contacts.People.CONTENT_URI) and a SQL WHERE clause defining which rows to delete ( Warning: be sure to include a valid WHERE clause if deleting a general type using ContentResolver.delete(), or else you risk deleting more records than you intended!). Remember, whenever calling updating methods on the Cursor class, you must call commitUpdates() to send the changes to the database.
Creating a Content Provider

Here is how to create your own content provider to act as a public source for reading and writing a new data type: 1. Extend ContentProvider. 2. Define a public static final ContentURI named CONTENT_URI. This is the string that represents the full "content://" URI that your content provider handles. You must define a unique string for this value; the best solution is to use the fully-qualified class name of your content provider (lowercase). So, for example: public static final ContentURI CONTENT_URI = ContentURI.create( "content://com.google.codelab.rssprovider"); 3. Create your system for storing your data. Most content providers store their data using Android's file storage methods and SQLite databases, but you can store your data any way you want, so long as you follow the calling and return value conventions. 4. Define the column names that you will return to your clients. If you are using an underlying database, these column names are typically are identical to the SQL database column names they represent. You should also include an integer column named _id to define a specific record number. If using the SQLite database, this should be type INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT. The AUTOINCREMENT descriptor is optional, but by default, SQLite autoincrements an ID counter field to the next number above the largest existing number in the table. If you delete the last row, the next row added will have the same ID as the deleted row. To avoid this by having SQLite increment to the next largest value whether deleted or not, then assign your ID column the following type: INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT. (Note You should have a unique _id field whether or not you have another field (such as a URL) that is also unique among all records.) Android provides the ContentProviderDatabaseHelper class to help you create and manage versions of your database.
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5. If you are exposing byte data, such as a bitmap file, the field that stores this data should actually be a string field with a content:// URI for that specific file. This is the field that clients will call to retrieve this data. The content provider for that content type (it can be the same content provider or another content provider for example, if you're storing a photo you would use the media content provider) should implement a field named _data for that record. The _data field lists the exact file path on the device for that file. This field is not intended to be read by the client, but by the ContentResolver. The client will call ContentResolver.openOutputStream() on the user-facing field holding the URI for the item (for example, the column named photo might have a value content://media/images/4453). The ContentResolver will request the _data field for that record, and because it has higher permissions than a client, it should be able to access that file directly and return a read wrapper for that file to the client. 6. Declare public static Strings that clients can use to specify which columns to return, or to specify field values from the cursor. Carefully document the data type of each field. Remember that file fields, such as audio or bitmap fields, are typically returned as string path values 7. Return a Cursor object over a recordset in reply to a query. This means implementing the query(), update(), insert(), and delete() methods. As a courtesy, you might want to call ContentResolver.notifyChange() to notify listeners about updated information. 8. Add a <provider> tag to AndroidManifest.xml, and use its authorities attribute to define the authority part of the content type it should handle. For example, if your content type is content://com.example.autos/auto to request a list of all autos, then authorities would be com.example.autos. Set the multiprocess attribute to true if data does not need to be synchronized between multiple running versions of the content provider. 9. If you are handling a new data type, you must define a new MIME type to return for your implementation of android.ContentProvider.getType(url). This type corresponds to the content:// URI submitted to getType(), which will be one of the content types handled by the provider. The MIME type for each content type has two forms: one for a specific record, and one for multiple records. Use the ContentURI methods to help determine what is being requested. Here is the general format for each: vnd.<yourcompanyname>.cursor.item/<contenttype> for a single row. For example: a request for train record 122, using content://com.example.transportationprovider/trains/122, might return the MIME type vnd.example.cursor.item/rail vnd.<yourcompanyname>.cursor.dir/<contenttype> for multiple rows. So, for example, a request for all train records, using content://com.example.transportationprovider/trains might return the MIME type vnd.example.cursor.dir/rail. For an example of a private content provider implementation, see the NodePadProvider class in the notepad sample application that ships with the SDK. Here is a recap of the important parts of a content URI:
A. Standard required prefix. Never modified. B. Authority part. For third-party applications, this should be a fully-qualified class to ensure uniqueness. This corresponds to the value in the <provider> element's authorities attribute: <provider class="TransportationProvider" authorities="com.example.transportationprovider" /> C. The path that the content provider uses to determine what kind of data is being requested. This can be zero or more segments: if the content provider exposes only one type of data (only trains, for example), this can be absent. If it provides several types, including subtypes, this can be several elements long: e.g., "land/bus, land/train, sea/ship, and sea/submarine" to give four possibilities. D. A specific record being requested, if any. This is the _id value of a specific record being requested. If all records of a specific type are being requested, omit this and the trailing slash: content://com.example.transportationprovider/trains
Network Accesses with Android

In addition to all the on-device storage options, you can also store and retrieve data from the network (when available). To do network operations, you'll want to use the following packages: java.net.* android.net.*
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Security and Permissions in Android

Android is a multi-process system, where each application (and parts of the system) runs in its own process. Most security between applications and the system is enforced at the process level through standard Linux facilities, such as user and group IDs that are assigned to applications. Additional finer-grained security features are provided through a "permission" mechanism that enforces restrictions on the specific operations that a particular process can perform.
Contents
User IDs and File Access Using Permissions Declaring and Enforcing Permissions Enforcing Permissions in AndroidManifest.xml Enforcing Permissions when Broadcasting Intents Other Permission Enforcement
User IDs and File Access

Each Android package (.apk) file installed on the device is given its own unique Linux user ID, creating a sandbox for it and preventing it from touching other applications (or other applications from touching it). This user ID is assigned to it when the application is installed on the device, and generally remains constant for the duration of its life on that device. Because security enforcement happens at the process level, the code of any two packages can not normally run in the same process, since they need to run as different Linux users. You can use the sharedUserId attribute in the AndroidManifest.xml's manifest tag of each package to have them assigned the same user ID. By doing this, for purposes of security the two packages are then treated as being the same application, with the same user ID and file permissions. Note that in order to retain security, only two applications signed with the same signature (and requesting the same sharedUserId) will be given the same user ID. Any files created by an application will be assigned that application's user ID, and not normally accessible to other packages. When creating a new file with getSharedPreferences(String, int), openFileOutput(String, int), or createDatabase(String, int, int, SQLiteDatabase.CursorFactory), you can use the MODE_WORLD_READABLE and/or MODE_WORLD_WRITEABLE flags to allow any other package to read/write the file. When setting these flags, the file is still owned by your application, but its global read and/or write permissions have been set appropriately so any other application can see it.
Using Permissions
A basic Android application has no permissions associated with it, meaning it can not do anything that would adversely impact the user experience or any data on the device. To make use of protected features of the device, you must include in your AndroidManifest.xml one or more <uses-permission> tags declaring the permissions that your application needs. For example, an application that needs to monitor incoming SMS messages would specify: <manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" package="com.google.android.app.myapp" > <uses-permission id="android.permission.RECEIVE_SMS" /> </manifest>
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At application install time, permissions requested by the application are granted to it by the package installer, based on checks with trusted authorities and interaction with the user. No checks with the user are done while an application is running: it either was granted a particular permission when installed, and can use that feature as desired, or the permission was not granted and any attempt to use the feature will fail without prompting the user. Often times a permission failure will result in a SecurityException being thrown back to the application. However, this is not guaranteed to occur everywhere. For example, the broadcastIntent(Intent) method checks permissions as data is being delivered to each receiver, after the method call has returned, so you will not receive an exception if there are permission failures. In almost all cases, however, a permission failure will be printed to the system log. The permissions provided by the Android system can be found at Manifest.permission. Any application may also define and enforce its own permissions, so this is not a comprehensive list of all possible permissions. A particular permission may be enforced at a number of places during your program's operation: At the time of a call into the system, to prevent an application from executing certain functions. When starting an activity, to prevent applications from launching activities of other applications. Both sending and receiving Intent broadcasts, to control who can receive your broadcast or who can send a broadcast to you. When accessing and operating on a content provider. Binding or starting a service.
Declaring and Enforcing Permissions

To enforce your own permissions, you must first declare them in your AndroidManifest.xml using one or more <permission> tags. For example, an application that wants to control who can start one of its activities could declare a permission for this operation as follows: <manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" package="com.google.android.app.myapp" > <permission id="com.google.android.app.myapp.permission.DEADLY_ACTIVITY" android:label="@string/permlab_deadlyActivity" android:description="@string/permdesc_deadlyActivity" /> </manifest> Note that both a label and description should be supplied for the permission. These are string resources that can be displayed to the user when they are viewing a list of permissions (android:label) or details on a single permission ( android:description). The label should be short, a few words describing the key piece of functionality the permission is protecting. The description should be a couple sentences describing what the permission allows a holder to do. Our convention for the description is two sentences, the first describing the permission, the second warning the user of what bad things can happen if an application is granted the permission. Here is an example of a label and description for the CALL_PHONE permission: <string name="permlab_callPhone">Call Phone Numbers</string> <string name="permdesc_callPhone">Allows application to call phone numbers without your intervention. Bad applications may cause unexpected calls on your phone bill.</string>
Enforcing Permissions in AndroidManifest.xml

High-level permissions restricting access to entire components of the system or application can be applied through your AndroidManifest.xml All that this requires is including an android:permission attribute on the desired component, naming the permission that will be used to control access to it. Activity permissions (applied to the <activity> tag) restrict who can start the associated activity. The permission is checked during Context.startActivity() and Activity.startSubActivity(); if the caller does not have the required permission then SecurityException is thrown from the call.
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Service permissions (applied to the <service> tag) restrict who can start or bind to the associated service. The permission is checked during Context.startService(), Context.stopService() and Context.bindService(); if the caller does not have the required permission then SecurityException is thrown from the call. IntentReceiver permissions (applied to the <receiver> tag) restrict who can broadcast Intent objects to the associated receiver. The permission is checked after Context.broadcastIntent() returns, as the system tries to deliver the submitted Intent to the given receiver. As a result, a permission failure will not result in an exception being thrown back to the caller; it will just not deliver the intent. In the same way, a permission can be supplied to Context.registerReceiver() to control who can broadcast to a programmatically registered receiver. Going the other way, a permission can be supplied when calling Context.broadcastIntent() to restrict which IntentReceiver objects are allowed to receive the broadcast (see below). ContentProvider permissions (applied to the <provider> tag) restrict who can access the data in a ContentProvider. Unlike the other components, there are two separate permission attributes you can set: android:readPermission restricts who can read from the provider, and android:writePermission restricts who can write to it. Note that if a provider is protected with both a read and write permission, holding only the write permission does not mean you can read from a provider. The permissions are checked when you first retrieve a provider (if you don't have either permission, a SecurityException will be thrown), and as you perform operations on the provider. Using ContentResolver.query() requires holding the read permission; using ContentResolver.insert(), ContentResolver.update(), ContentResolver.delete(), or Cursor.commitUpdates() requires the write permission. In all of these cases, not holding the required permission results in a SecurityException being thrown from the call.
Enforcing Permissions when Broadcasting Intents

In addition to the permission enforcing who can send Intents to a registered IntentReceiver (as described above), you can also specify an permission when broadcasting an Intent. By calling Context.broadcastIntent() with a permission string, you require that a receiver's application must hold that permission in order to receive your Intent. Note that both a receiver and a broadcaster can require a permission. When this happens, both permission checks must pass for the Intent to be delivered to the associated target.
Other Permission Enforcement

Arbitrarily fine-grained permissions can be enforced at any call into a service. This is accomplished with the Context.checkCallingPermission() method. Call with a desired permission string and it will return an integer indicating whether that permission has been granted to the current calling process. Note that this can only be used as you are executing a call coming in from another process, usually through an IDL interface published from a service or in some other way given to another process. There are a number of other useful ways to check permissions. If you have the pid of another process, you can use the Context method Context.checkPermission(String, int, int) to check a permission against that pid. If you have the package name of another application, you can use the direct PackageManager method Context.checkPermission(String, String) to find out whether that particular package has been granted a specific permission.
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Resources and Internationalization

Resources are external files (that is, non-code files) that are used by your code and compiled into your application at build time. Android supports a number of different kinds of resource files, including XML, PNG, and JPEG files. The XML files have very different formats depending on what they describe. This document describes what kinds of files are supported, and the syntax or format of each. Resources are externalized from source code, and XML files are compiled into a binary, fast loading format for efficiency reasons. Strings, likewise are compressed into a more efficient storage form. It is for these reasons that we have these different resource types in the Android platform. This document contains the following sections: Resources Creating Resources Using Resources Using Resources in Code References to Resources References to Theme Attributes Using System Resources Alternate Resources Resource Reference Terminology Internationalization (I18N) This is a fairly technically dense document, and together with the Resource Reference document, they cover a lot of information about resources. It is not necessary to know this document by heart to use Android, but rather to know that the information is here when you need it.
Resources
This topic includes a terminology list associated with resources, and a series of examples of using resources in code. For a complete guide to the supported Android resource types, see Resources. The Android resource system keeps track of all non-code assets associated with an application. You use the Resources class to access your application's resources; the Resources instance associated with your application can generally be found through Context.getResources(). An application's resources are compiled into the application binary at build time for you by the build system. To use a resource, you must install it correctly in the source tree and build your application. As part of the build process, symbols for each of the resources are generated that you can use in your source code -- this allows the compiler to verify that your application code matches up with the resources you defined. The rest of this section is organized as a tutorial on how to use resources in an application.
Creating Resources
Android supports string, bitmap, and many other types of resource. The syntax and format of each, and where they're stored, depends upon the type of object. In general, though, you create resources from three types of files: XML files (everything but bitmaps and raw), bitmap files(for images) and Raw files (anything else, for example sound files, etc.). In fact, there are two different types of XML file as well, those that get compiled as-is into the package, and those that are used to generate resources by aapt. Here is a list of each resource
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type, the format of the file, a description of the file, and details of any XML files. You will create and store your resource files under the appropriate subdirectory under the res/ directory in your project. Android has a resource compiler (aapt) that compiles resources according to which subfolder they are in, and the format of the file. Here is a list of the file types for each resource. See the resource reference for descriptions of each type of object, the syntax, and the format or syntax of the containing file. Directory res/anim/ Resource Types XML files that are compiled into frame by frame animation or tweened animation objects .png, .9.png, .jpg files that are compiled into the following Drawable resource subtypes: To get a resource of this type, use Resource.getDrawable( id) bitmap files 9-patches (resizable bitmaps) res/layout/ res/values/ XML files that are compiled into screen layouts (or part of a screen). See layouts XML files that can be compiled into many kinds of resource. Note: unlike the other res/ folders, this one can hold any number of files that hold descriptions of resources to create rather than the resources themselves. The XML element types control where these resources are placed under the R class. While the files can be named anything, these are the typical files in this folder (the convention is to name the file after the type of elements defined within): arrays.xml to define arrays colors.xml to define color drawables and color string values. Use Resources.getDrawable() and Resources.getColor(), respectively, to get these resources. dimens.xml to define dimension value. Use Resources.getDimension() to get these resources. strings.xml to define string values (use either Resources.getString or preferably Resources.getText() to get these resources. getText() will retain any rich text styling which is usually desirable for UI strings. styles.xml to define style objects. res/xml/ Arbitrary XML files that are compiled and can be read at run time by calling Resources.getXML().
res/drawable/
Resources are compiled into the final APK file. Android creates a wrapper class, called R, that you can use to refer to these resources in your code. R contains subclasses named according to the path and file name of the source file
Global Resource Notes

Several resources allow you to define colors. Android accepts color values written in various web-style formats -- a hexadecimal constant in any of the following forms: #RGB, #ARGB, #RRGGBB, #AARRGGBB. All color values support setting an alpha channel value, where the first two hexadecimal numbers specify the transparency. Zero in the alpha channel means transparent. The default value is opaque.
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Using Resources
This section describes how to use the resources you've created. It includes the following topics: Using resources in code - How to call resources in your code to instantiate them. Referring to resources from other resources - You can reference resources from other resources. This lets you reuse common resource values inside resources. Supporting Alternate Resources for Alternate Configurations - You can specify different resources to load, depending on the language or display configuration of the host hardware. At compile time, Android generates a class named R that contains resource identifiers to all the resources in your program. This class contains several subclasses, one for each type of resource supported by Android, and for which you provided a resource file. Each class contains one or more identifiers for the compiled resources, that you use in your code to load the resource. Here is a small resource file that contains string, layout (screens or parts of screens), and image resources. Note: the R class is an auto-generated file and is not designed to be edited by hand. It will be automatically re-created as needed when the resources are updated.
package com.google.android.samples; public final class R { public static final class string { public static final int greeting=0x0204000e; public static final int start_button_text =0x02040001; public static final int submit_button_text =0x02040008; public static final int main_screen_title =0x0204000a; }; public static final class layout { public static final int start_screen=0x02070000; public static final int new_user_pane=0x02070001; public static final int select_user_list =0x02070002; }; public static final class drawable { public static final int company_logo=0x02020005; public static final int smiling_cat=0x02020006; public static final int yellow_fade_background =0x02020007; public static final int stretch_button_1 =0x02020008; }; };
Using Resources in Code

Using resources in code is just a matter of knowing the full resource ID and what type of object your resource has been compiled into. Here is the syntax for referring to a resource: R.resource_type.resource_name or android.R.resource_type.resource_name Where resource_type is the R subclass that holds a specific type of resource. resource_name is the name attribute for resources defined in XML files, or the file name (without the extension) for resources defined by other file types. Each type of resource will be added to a specific R subclass, depending on the type of resource it is; to learn which R subclass hosts your compiled resource type, consult the resource reference document. Resources compiled by your own application can be referred to without a package name (simply as R.resource_type.resource_name). Android contains a number of standard resources, such as screen styles and button backgrounds. To refer to these in code, you must qualify them with android, as in android.R.drawable.button_background .
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Where resource_type is the R subclass that holds a specific type of resource. resource_name is the name attribute for resources defined in XML files, or the file name (without the extension) for resources defined by other file types. Each type of resource will be added to a specific R subclass, depending on the type of resource it is; to learn which R subclass hosts your compiled resource type, consult the resource reference document. Resources compiled by your own application can be referred to without a package name (simply as R.resource_type.resource_name). Android contains a number of standard resources, such as screen styles and button backgrounds. To refer to these in code, you must qualify them with android, as in android.R.drawable.button_background . Here are some good and bad examples of using compiled resources in code: // Load a background for the current screen from a drawable resource. this.getWindow().setBackgroundDrawableResource (R.drawable.my_background_image ); // WRONG Sending a string resource reference into a // method that expects a string. this.getWindow().setTitle(R.string.main_title); // RIGHT Need to get the title from the Resources wrapper. this.getWindow().setTitle(Resources.getText(R.string.main_title)); // Load a custom layout for the current screen. setContentView(R.layout.main_screen); // Set a slide in animation for a ViewFlipper object. mFlipper.setInAnimation(AnimationUtils.loadAnimation(this, R.anim.hyperspace_in)); // Set the text on a TextView object. TextView msgTextView = (TextView)findViewByID(R.id.msg); msgTextView.setText(R.string.hello_message);
References to Resources
A value supplied in an attribute (or resource) can also be a reference to a resource. This is often used in layout files to supply strings (so they can be localized) and images (which exist in another file), though a reference can be any resource type including colors and integers. For example, if we have color resources, we can write a layout file that sets the text color size to be the value contained in one of those resources: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <EditText id="text" xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="fill_parent" android:textColor="@color/opaque_red" android:text="Hello, World!" /> Note here the use of the '@' prefix to introduce a resource reference -- the text following that is the name of a resource in the form of @[package:]type/name . In this case we didn't need to specify the package because we are referencing a resource in our own package. To reference a system resource, you would need to write:
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <EditText id="text" xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="fill_parent" android:textColor="@ android:color/opaque_red" android:text="Hello, World!" /> As another example, you should always use resource references when supplying strings in a layout file so that they can be localized: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <EditText id="text" xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="fill_parent" android:textColor="@android:color/opaque_red" android:text="@string/hello_world" /> This facility can also be used to create references between resources. For example, we can create new drawable resources that are aliases for existing images: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <resources> <drawable id="my_background">@android:drawable/theme2_background</drawable> </resources>
References to Theme Attributes

Another kind of resource value allows you to reference the value of an attribute in the current theme. This attribute reference can only be used in style resources and XML attributes; it allows you to customize the look of UI elements by changing them to standard variations supplied by the current theme, instead of supplying more concrete values. As an example, we can use this in our layout to set the text color to one of the standard colors defined in the base system theme: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <EditText id="text" xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="fill_parent" android:textColor="?android:textDisabledColor" android:text="@string/hello_world" /> Note that this is very similar to a resource reference, except we are using an '?' prefix instead of '@'. When you use this markup, you are supplying the name of an attribute resource that will be looked up in the theme -because the resource tool knows that an attribute resource is expected, you do not need to explicitly state the type (which would be ?android:attr/android:textDisabledColor ). Other than using this resource identifier to find the value in the theme instead of raw resources, the name syntax is identical to the '@' format: ?[namespace:]type/name with the type here being optional.
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Using System Resources

Many resources included with the system are available to applications. All such resources are defined under the class "android.R". For example, you can display the standard application icon in a screen with the following code: public class MyActivity extends Activity { public void onStart() { requestScreenFeatures (FEATURE_BADGE_IMAGE ); super.onStart(); setBadgeResource (android.R.drawable.sym_def_app_icon ); } } In a similar way, this code will apply to your screen the standard "green background" visual treatment defined by the system: public class MyActivity extends Activity { public void onStart() { super.onStart(); setTheme (android.R.style.Theme_Black); } }
Supporting Alternate Resources for Alternate Languages and Configurations

You can supply different resources for your product according to the UI language or hardware configuration on the device. Note that although you can include different string, layout, and other resources, the SDK does not expose methods to let you specify which alternate resource set to load. Android detects the proper set for the hardware and location, and loads them as appropriate. Users can select alternate language settings using the settings panel on the device. To include alternate resources, create parallel resource folders with qualifiers appended to the folder names, indicating the configuration it applies to (language, screen orientation, and so on). For example, here is a project that holds one string resource file for English, and another for French:
MyApp/ res/ values-en/ strings.xml values-fr/ strings.xml
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Android supports several types of qualifiers, with various values for each. Append these to the end of the resource folder name, separated by dashes. You can add multiple qualifiers to each folder name, but they must appear in the order they are listed here. For example, a folder containing drawable resources for a fully specified configuration would look like: MyApp/ res/ drawable-en-rUS-port-160dpi-finger-qwerty-dpad-480x320/ More typically, you will only specify a few specific configuration options that a resource is defined for. You may drop any of the values from the complete list, as long as the remaining values are still in the same order: MyApp/ res/ drawable-en-rUS-finger/ drawable-port/ drawable-port-160dpi/ drawable-qwerty/
Qualifier Language Region
Values The two letter ISO 639-1 language code in lowercase. For example: en, fr, es The two letter ISO 3166-1-alpha-2 language code in uppercase preceded by a lowercase "r". For example: rUS, rFR, rES port, land, square 92dpi, 108dpi, etc. notouch, stylus, finger qwerty, 12key
Screen orientation Screen pixel density Touchscreen type Primary text input method Primary non-touchscreen navigation method Screen dimensions
dpad, trackball, wheel
320x240, 640x480, etc. The larger dimension must be specified first.
This list does not include device-specific parameters such as carrier, branding, device/hardware, or manufacturer. Everything that an application needs to know about the device that it is running on is encoded via the resource qualifiers in the table above. Here are some general guidelines on qualified resource directory names: Values are separated by a dash (as well as a dash after the base directory name) Values are case-sensitive (even though they must be unique across all folder names in a case-insensitive way) For example, A portrait-specific drawable directory must be named drawable-port, not drawable-PORT. You may not have two directories named drawable-port and drawable-PORT, even if you had intended "port" and "PORT" to refer to different parameter values.
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Only one value for each qualifier type is supported (that is, you cannot specify drawable-rEN-rFR/ ) You can specify multiple parameters in any order to define specific configurations. For example, drawable-land-en-rUS will apply to landscape view, US-English devices. Android will try to find the most specific matching directory for the current configuration, as described below The order of parameters listed in this table is used to break a tie in case of multiple qualified directories (see the example given below) All directories, both qualified and unqualified, live under the res/ folder. Qualified directories cannot be nested (you cannot have res/drawable/drawable-en ) All resources will be referenced in code or resource reference syntax by their simple, undecorated name. So if a resource is named this: MyApp/res/drawable-port-92dp/myimage.png It would be referenced as this: R.drawable.myimage (code) @drawable/myimage (XML)
How Android finds the best matching directory

Android will pick which of the various underlying resource files should be used at runtime, depending on the current configuration. The selection process is as follows: 1. Eliminate any resources whose configuration does not match the current device configuration. For example, if the screen pixel density is 108dpi, this would eliminate only MyApp/res/drawable-port-92dpi/ .
MyApp/res/drawable/myimage.png MyApp/res/drawable-en/myimage.png MyApp/res/drawable-port/myimage.png MyApp/res/drawable-port-92dpi/myimage.png 2. Pick the resources with the highest number of matching configurations. For example, if our locale is en-GB and orientation is port, then we have two candidates with one matching configuration each: MyApp/res/drawable-en/ and MyApp/res/drawable-port/ . The directory MyApp/res/drawable/ is eliminated because it has zero matching configurations, while the others have one matching configuration.
MyApp/res/drawable/myimage.png MyApp/res/drawable-en/myimage.png MyApp/res/drawable-port/myimage.png 3. Pick the final matching file based on configuration precedence, which is the order of parameters listed in the table above. That is, it is more important to match the language than the orientation, so we break the tie by picking the language-specific file, MyApp/res/drawable-en/ .
MyApp/res/drawable-en/myimage.png MyApp/res/drawable-port/myimage.png
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Terminology
The resource system brings a number of different pieces together to form the final complete resource functionality. To help understand the overall system, here are some brief definitions of the core concepts and components you will encounter in using it: Asset: A single blob of data associated with an application. This includes object files compiled from the Java source code, graphics (such as PNG images), XML files, etc. These files are organized in a directory hierarchy that, during final packaging of the application, is bundled together into a single ZIP file. aapt: Android Asset Packaging Tool. The tool that generates the final ZIP file of application assets. In addition to collecting raw assets together, it also parses resource definitions into binary asset data. Resource Table: A special asset that aapt generates for you, describing all of the resources contained in an application/package. This file is accessed for you by the Resources class; it is not touched directly by applications. Resource: An entry in the Resource Table describing a single named value. Broadly, there are two types of resources: primitives and bags. Resource Identifier: In the Resource Table all resources are identified by a unique integer number. In source code (resource descriptions, XML files, Java source code) you can use symbolic names that stand as constants for the actual resource identifier integer. Primitive Resource: All primitive resources can be written as a simple string, using formatting to describe a variety of primitive types included in the resource system: integers, colors, strings, references to other resources, etc. Complex resources, such as bitmaps and XML describes, are stored as a primitive string resource whose value is the path of the underlying Asset holding its actual data. Bag Resource: A special kind of resource entry that, instead of a simple string, holds an arbitrary list of name/value pairs. Each name is itself a resource identifier, and each value can hold the same kinds of string formatted data as a normal resource. Bags also support inheritance: a bag can inherit the values from another bag, selectively replacing or extending them to generate its own contents. Kind: The resource kind is a way to organize resource identifiers for various purposes. For example, drawable resources are used to instantiate Drawable objects, so their data is a primitive resource containing either a color constant or string path to a bitmap or XML asset. Other common resource kinds are string (localized string primitives), color (color primitives), layout (a string path to an XML asset describing a view layout), and style (a bag resource describing user interface attributes). There is also a standard "attr" resource kind, which defines the resource identifiers to be used for naming bag items and XML attributes Style: The name of the resource kind containing bags that are used to supply a set of user interface attributes. For example, a TextView class may be given a style resource that defines its text size, color, and alignment. In a layout XML file, you associate a style with a bag using the "style" attribute, whose value is the name of the style resource. Style Class: Specifies a related set of attribute resources. This data is not placed in the resource table itself, but used to generate constants in the source code that make it easier for you to retrieve values out of a style resource and/or XML tag's attributes. For example, the Android platform defines a "View" style class that contains all of the standard view attributes: padding, visibility, background, etc.; when View is inflated it uses this style class to retrieve those values from the XML file (at which point style and theme information is applied as approriate) and load them into its instance. Configuration: For any particular resource identifier, there may be multiple different available values depending on the current configuration. The configuration includes the locale (language and country), screen orientation, screen density, etc. The current configuration is used to select which resource values are in effect when the resource table is loaded.
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Theme: A standard style resource that supplies global attribute values for a particular context. For example, when writing an Activity the application developer can select a standard theme to use, such as the Theme.White or Theme.Black styles; this style supplies information such as the screen background image/color, default text color, button style, text editor style, text size, etc. When inflating a layout resource, most values for widgets (the text color, selector, background) if not explicitly set will come from the current theme; style and attribute values supplied in the layout can also assign their value from explicitly named values in the theme attributes if desired. Overlay: A resource table that does not define a new set of resources, but instead replaces the values of resources that are in another resource table. Like a configuration, this is applied at load time to the resource data; it can add new configuration values (for example strings in a new locale), replace existing values (for example change the standard white background image to a "Hello Kitty" background image), and modify resource bags (for example change the font size of the Theme.White style to have an 18 pt font size). This is the facility that allows the user to select between different global appearances of their device, or download files with new appearances.
Resource Reference
The Resource Reference document provides a detailed list of the various types of resource and how to use them from within the Java source code, or from other references.
Internationalization and Localization

Coming Soon: Internationalization and Localization are critical, but are also not quite ready yet in this early look at the SDK. As the SDK matures, this section will contain information on the Internationalization and Localization features of the Android platform. In the meantime, it is a good idea to start by externalizing all strings, and practicing good structure in creating and using resources.
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Android Developer Toolbox

If you've read Getting Started and Developing Apps, then you know how to build an Android application. (If you haven't read those sections you should now.) Android is a large system though, and there's a lot to learn. The best apps always make the most of the system's features. The links below tell you how to write code that bends the system to your will, allowing you to create cool custom components and do amazing things with the many available APIs. Design Philosophy A manifesto explaining a technical philosophy and perspective that Android developers will find useful. By reading this page, you'll learn how to write applications that perform well on embedded devices (such as phone handsets), and that play nicely with other parts of the system. Building Custom Components Explains how to create custom Android components, such as Views, Services, and Content Providers. Read this, and you'll soon be knocking out great-looking, efficient, and useful components. You can use these to make your own application great, or you can share them with other applications. Optional APIs Describes the APIs that provide access to optional Android components, such as GPS and BlueTooth. Android aims to be more than just another OS, and so the system supports all the features you could hope for in a phone. This section will show you how to use the Location-Based Services (such as GPS, compass, etc.), OpenGL 3D graphics, Bluetooth, and accelerometer. Note that the APIs described in this section are all optional; if your application truly requires one of these APIs, you should be sure that it fails gracefully if the features are not present on a given phone. Google APIs and Services Describes how to use the APIs for accessing Google services that are installed on many Android devices.
Android Application Design Philosophy

The process of learning how to build applications for a new API is pretty similar, even if the platforms themselves are wildly different. Generally, there are two phases: first, you learn how to use the APIs to do what you want to do; later, you learn the nuances of the platform. Put another way, first you learn how you can build applications; later, you learn how you should build them. That second phase learning the right way to build applications can often take a long time, and frequently means "paying your dues", making mistakes, and learning from them. Well, that's not a very efficient process, so this page and the links below aim to give you a helping hand. Before we dive into it, a quick word. Successful applications will offer an outstanding end-user experience. While the Android team has built a robust core system, the vast majority of the user experience will come from users interacting with your applications. As a result, we encourage you to take the time to build an outstanding user experience. An outstanding user experience has three key characteristics: it is fast; it is responsive; and it is seamless. Of course every platform since the dawn of computing has probably cited those same three qualities at one time or another. However, each platform achieves them in different ways; the information below explains how your apps can achieve them on Android.
Fast
An Android application should be fast. Well, it's probably more accurate to say that it should be efficient. There is a tendency in the computing world these days to assume that Moore's Law will solve all our problems eventually. When it comes to embedded applications, though, Moore's Law is a bit more complicated. Moore's Law doesn't really apply to mobile devices in the same way as to desktop and server applications. Moore's Law is actually a law about transistor density that is, it says that you can pack more circuitry into a given chip size, over time. For desktop and server applications, this means you can pack more "speed" into a chip of roughly the same size, resulting in the well-known performance increases. For embedded applications like cell phones, however, Moore's Law is usually exploited to make chips smaller. That is, the tendency is to use the increased density to make the same chip smaller and consume less power, to make phones smaller and make batteries last longer. As a result, embedded devices like phones are increasing in actual, raw speed much more slowly than desktop systems. For embedded devices, Moore's Law means more features and better battery life; increased speed is only an afterthought.
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That's why it's important to write efficient code: you can't assume that phones will see the same speed increases as desktops and servers. Generally speaking, writing fast code means keeping memory allocations to a minimum, writing tight code, and avoiding certain language and programming idioms that can subtly cripple performance. In object-oriented terms, most of this work takes place at the method level, on the order of actual lines of code, loops, and so on. The article on Writing Efficient Android Code will give you all the detail you need to write fast, efficient code for Android.
Responsive
It's possible to write code that wins every performance test in the world, but that still sends users in a fiery rage when they try to use it. These are the applications that aren't responsive enough the ones that feel sluggish, hang or freeze for significant periods, or take too long to process input. In Android terms, applications that are insufficiently responsive will frequently cause the system to pop up the dreaded "Application Not Responding" (ANR) message. Generally, this happens if your application cannot respond to user input. For example, if your application blocks on some I/O operation (frequently a network access), then the main application thread won't be able to process incoming user input events. After a time the system will conclude that your application has hung, and give the user the option to kill it. Similarly, if your application spends too much time building an elaborate in-memory structure, or perhaps computing the next move in a game, then again the system will conclude that your application has hung. It's always important to make sure these computations are efficient using the techniques above, but even the most efficient code still takes time to run. In both of these cases, the fix is usually to create a child thread, and do most of your work there. This keeps the main thread (which drives the user interface event loop) running, and prevents the system from concluding your code has frozen. Since such threading usually is accomplished at the class level, you can think of responsiveness as a class problem. (Compare this with basic performance, which was described above as a method-level concern.) The article on Building Responsive Android Applications discusses responsiveness in detail.
Seamless
Even if your application is fast and responsive, it can still annoy users. A common example is a background process (such as an Android Service or IntentReceiver) that pops up a UI in response to some event. This may seem harmless, and frequently developers assume that this is okay because they spend most of their time testing and using their own application. However, Android's application model is constructed explicitly to allow users to fluidly switch between applications. This means that when your background process actually fires up that UI, the user could be way over in another part of the system, doing something else such as taking a phone call. Imagine if the SMS service popped up a dialog box every time a text message came in; this would annoy users in no time. That's why the Android standard is to use Notifications for such events; this leaves the user in control. That's just one example; there are many more. For example, if Activities don't correctly implement the onPause() and other lifecycle methods, this will frequently result in data loss. Or, if your application exposes data intended to be used by other applications, you should expose it via a ContentProvider, rather than (for example) using a world-readable raw file or database. What those examples have in common is that they involve cooperating nicely with the system and other applications. The Android system is designed to treat applications as a sort of federation of loosely-coupled components, rather than chunks of black-box code. This allows you as the developer to view the entire system as just an even-larger federation of these components. This benefits you by allowing you to integrate cleanly and seamlessly with other applications, and so you should design your own code to return the favor. This is a component-level concept (as opposed to the class- and method-level concepts of performance and responsiveness, described above.) The article on Integrating with the System provides tips and best practices for writing code that cooperates nicely with the rest of the system.
Developing Responsive Applications

In this article, we'll cover how Android determines if an application is not responding (hereafter called ANR), the causes of ANR, and guidelines for ensuring that your application is responsive. There are a set of best practices in addition to writing efficient Android code that will help ensure that your application's user interface is responsive. But before delving into the details, here's a screenshot of what the dialog box created by Android when an application is not responding looks like:
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When Good Applications Go Bad

In Android, application responsiveness is monitored by the Activity Manager and Window Manager system services. Android will display the ANR dialog for a particular application when it detects one of the following conditions: no response to an input event (e.g. key press, screen touch) within 5 seconds an IntentReceiver hasn't finished executing within 10 seconds
Avoiding ANR
Given the above definition for ANR, let's examine why this can occur in Android applications and how best to structure your application to avoid ANR. Android applications normally run entirely on a single (i.e. main) thread. This means that anything your application is doing in the main thread that takes a long time to complete can trigger the ANR dialog because your application is not giving itself a chance to handle the input event or Intent broadcast. Therefore any method that runs in the main thread should do as little work as possible. In particular, Activities should do as little as possible to set up in key lifecycle methods such as onCreate() and onResume(). Potentially long running operations such as network or database operations, or computationally expensive calculations such as resizing bitmaps should be done in a child thread (or in the case of databases operations, via an asynchronous request). However, this does not mean that your main thread should block while waiting for the child thread to complete nor should you call Thread.wait() or Thread.sleep(). Instead of blocking while waiting for a child thread to complete, your main thread should provide a Handler for child threads to post back to upon completion. Designing your application in this way will allow your main thread to remain responsive to input and thus avoid ANR dialogs caused by the 5 second input event timeout. These same practices should be followed for any other threads that display UI, as they are also subject to the same timeouts. The specific constraint on IntentReciever execution time emphasizes what they were meant to do: small, discrete amounts of work in the background such as saving a setting or registering a Notification. So as with other methods called in the main thread, applications should avoid potentially long-running operations or calculations in IntentReceivers. But instead of doing intensive tasks via child threads (as the life of an IntentReceiver is short), your application should start a Service if a potentially long running action needs to be taken in response to an Intent broadcast. As a side note, you should also avoid starting an Activity from an Intent Receiver, as it will spawn a new screen that will steal focus from whatever application the user is currently has running. If your application has something to show the user in response to an Intent broadcast, it should do so using the Notification Manager.
Reinforcing Responsiveness
Generally, 100 to 200ms is the threshold beyond which users will perceive lag (or lack of "snappiness," if you will) in an application. As such, here are some additional tips beyond what you should do to avoid ANR that will help make your application seem responsive to users. If your application is doing work in the background in response to user input, show that progress is being made (ProgressBar and ProgressDialog are useful for this). For games specifically, do calculations for moves in a child thread. If your application has a time-consuming initial setup phase, consider showing a splash screen or rendering the main view as quickly as possible and filling in the information asynchronously. In either case, you should indicate somehow that progress is being made, lest the user perceive that the application is frozen.
Writing Efficient Android Code

There's no way around it: Android devices are embedded devices. Modern handsets may be more like small handheld computers than mere phones these days, but even the fastest, highest-end handset doesn't even come close to the capabilities of even a modest desktop system. That's why it's very important to consider performance when you write Android applications. These systems are not that fast to begin with and they are also constrained by their battery life. This means that there's not a lot of horsepower to spare, so when you write Android code it's important to write it as efficiently as possible. This page describes a number of things that developers can do to make their Android code run more efficiently. By following the tips on this page, you can help make sure your code runs as efficiently as possible.
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Introduction
There are two basic rules for resource-constrained systems: Don't do work that you don't need to do. Don't allocate memory if you can avoid it. All the tips below follow from these two basic tenets. Some would argue that much of the advice on this page amounts to "premature optimization." While it's true that micro-optimizations sometimes make it harder to develop efficient data structures and algorithms, on embedded devices like handsets you often simply have no choice. For instance, if you bring your assumptions about VM performance on desktop machines to Android, you're quite likely to write code that exhausts system memory. This will bring your application to a crawl let alone what it will do to other programs running on the system! That's why these guidelines are important. Android's success depends on the user experience that your applications provide, and that user experience depends in part on whether your code is responsive and snappy, or slow and aggravating. Since all our applications will run on the same devices, we're all in this together, in a way. Think of this document as like the rules of the road you had to learn when you got your driver's license: things run smoothly when everybody follows them, but when you don't, you get your car smashed up. Before we get down to brass tacks, a brief observation: nearly all issues described below are valid whether or not the VM features a JIT compiler. If I have two methods that accomplish the same thing, and the interpreted execution of foo() is faster than bar(), then the compiled version of foo() will probably be as fast or faster than compiled bar(). It is unwise to rely on a compiler to "save" you and make your code fast enough.
Avoid Creating Objects

Object creation is never free. A generational GC with per-thread allocation pools for temporary objects can make allocation cheaper, but allocating memory is always more expensive than not allocating memory. If you allocate objects in a user interface loop, you will force a periodic garbage collection, creating little "hiccups" in the user experience. Thus, you should avoid creating object instances you don't need to. Some examples of things that can help: When extracting strings from a set of input data, try to return a substring of the original data, instead of creating a copy. You will create a new String object, but it will share the char[] with the data. If you have a method returning a string, and you know that its result will always be appended to a StringBuffer anyway, change your signature and implementation so that the function does the append directly, instead of creating a short-lived temporary object. A somewhat more radical idea is to slice up multidimensional arrays into parallel single one-dimension arrays: An array of ints is a much better than an array of Integers, but this also generalizes to the fact that two parallel arrays of ints are also a lot more efficient than an array of (int,int) objects. The same goes for any combination of primitive types. If you need to implement a container that stores tuples of (Foo,Bar) objects, try to remember that two parallel Foo[] and Bar[] arrays are generally much better than a single array of custom (Foo,Bar) objects. (The exception to this, of course, is when you're designing an API for other code to access; in those cases, it's usually better to trade correct API design for a small hit in speed. But in your own internal code, you should try and be as efficient as possible.) Generally speaking, avoid creating short-term temporary objects if you can. Fewer objects created mean less-frequent garbage collection, which has a direct impact on user experience.
Use Native Methods

When processing strings, don't hesitate to use specialty methods like String.indexOf(), String.lastIndexOf(), and their cousins. These are typically implemented in C/C++ code that easily runs 10-100x faster than doing the same thing in a Java loop. The flip side of that advice is that calling punching through to a native method is more expensive than calling an interpreted method. Don't use native methods for trivial computation, if you can avoid it.
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Prefer Virtual Over Interface

Suppose you have a HashMap object. You can declare it as a HashMap or as a generic Map: Map myMap1 = new HashMap(); HashMap myMap2 = new HashMap(); Which is better? Conventional wisdom says that you should prefer Map, because it allows you to change the underlying implementation to anything that implements the Map interface. Conventional wisdom is correct for conventional programming, but isn't so great for embedded systems. Calling through an interface reference can take 2x longer than a virtual method call through a concrete reference. If you have chosen a HashMap because it fits what you're doing, there is little value in calling it a Map. Given the availability of IDEs that refactor your code for you, there's not much value in calling it a Map even if you're not sure where the code is headed. (Again, though, public APIs are an exception: a good API usually trumps small performance concerns.)
Prefer Static Over Virtual

If you don't need to access an object's fields, make your method static. It can be called faster, because it doesn't require a virtual method table indirection. It's also good practice, because you can tell from the method signature that calling the method can't alter the object's state.
Avoid Internal Getters/Setters

In native languages like C++ it's common practice to use getters (e.g. i = getCount()) instead of accessing the field directly (i = mCount). This is an excellent habit for C++, because the compiler can usually inline the access, and if you need to restrict or debug field access you can add the code at any time. On Android, this is a bad idea. Virtual method calls are expensive, much more so than instance field lookups. It's reasonable to follow common object-oriented programming practices and have getters and setters in the public interface, but within a class you should always access fields directly.
Cache Field Lookups

Accessing object fields is much slower than accessing local variables. Instead of writing: for (int i = 0; i < this.mCount; i++) dumpItem(this.mItems[i]); You should write: int count = this.mCount; Item[] items = this.mItems; for (int i = 0; i < count; i++) dumpItems(items[i]); (We're using an explicit "this" to make it clear that these are member variables.) A similar guideline is never call a method in the second clause of a "for" statement. For example, the following code will execute the getCount() method once per iteration, which is a huge waste when you could have simply cached the value as an int: for (int i = 0; i < this.getCount(); i++) dumpItems(this.getItem(i));
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It's also usually a good idea to create a local variable if you're going to be accessing an instance field more than once. For example: protected void drawHorizontalScrollBar(Canvas canvas, int width, int height) { if (isHorizontalScrollBarEnabled()) { int size = mScrollBar.getSize(false); if (size <= 0) { size = mScrollBarSize; } mScrollBar.setBounds(0, height - size, width, height); mScrollBar.setParams( computeHorizontalScrollRange(), computeHorizontalScrollOffset(), computeHorizontalScrollExtent(), false); } mScrollBar.draw(canvas); } That's four separate lookups of the member field mScrollBar. By caching mScrollBar in a local stack variable, the four member field lookups become four stack variable references, which are much more efficient. Incidentally, method arguments have the same performance characteristics as local variables.
Declare Constants Final

Consider the following declaration at the top of a class: static int intVal = 42; static String strVal = "Hello, world!"; The compiler generates a class initializer method, called <clinit>, that is executed when the class is first used. The method stores the value 42 into intVal, and extracts a reference from the classfile string constant table for strVal. When these values are referenced later on, they are accessed with field lookups. We can improve matters with the "final" keyword: static final int intVal = 42; static final String strVal = "Hello, world!"; The class no longer requires a <clinit> method, because the constants go into classfile static field initializers, which are handled directly by the VM. Code accessing intVal will use the integer value 42 directly, and accesses to strVal will use a relatively inexpensive "string constant" instruction instead of a field lookup. Declaring a method or class "final" does not confer any immediate performance benefits, but it does allow certain optimizations. For example, if the compiler knows that a "getter" method can't be overridden by a sub-class, it can inline the method call. You can also declare local variables final. However, this has no definitive performance benefits. For local variables, only use "final" if it makes the code clearer (or you have to, e.g. for use in an anonymous inner class).
Use foreach Syntax With Caution

foreach can be used for collections that implement the Iterable interface. With these objects, foreach allocates an iterator, and makes interface calls to hasNext() and next(). With an ArrayList, you're better off walking through it directly, but for other collections the foreach syntax will be equivalent to explicit iterator usage.
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However, the following code shows an acceptable use of foreach: public class Foo { int mSplat; static Foo mArray[] = new Foo[27]; public static void zero() { int sum = 0; for (int i = 0; i < mArray.length; i++) { sum += mArray[i].mSplat; } } public static void one() { int sum = 0; Foo[] localArray = mArray; int len = localArray.length; for (int i = 0; i < len; i++) { sum += localArray[i].mSplat; } } public static void two() { int sum = 0; for (Foo a: mArray) { sum += a.mSplat; } } } zero() retrieves the static field twice and gets the array length once for every iteration through the loop. one() pulls everything out into local variables, avoiding the lookups. two() uses the foreach syntax introduced in version 1.5 of the Java programming language. The code generated by the compiler takes care of copying the array reference and the array length to local variables, making it a good choice for walking through all elements of an array. It does generate an extra local load/store in the main loop (apparently preserving "a"), making it a teensy bit slower and 4 bytes longer than one(). To summarize all that a bit more clearly: "foreach" syntax performs well with arrays, but be cautious when using it with Iterable objects since there is additional object creation.
Avoid Enums
Enums are very convenient, but unfortunately can be painful when size and speed matter. For example, this: public class Foo { public enum Shrubbery { GROUND, CRAWLING, HANGING } } turns into a 900 byte .class file (Foo$Shubbery.class). On first use, the class initializer invokes the <init> method on objects representing each of the enumerated values. Each object gets its own static field, and the full set is stored in an array (a static field called "$VALUES"). That's a lot of code and data, just for three integers. This: Shrubbery shrub = Shrubbery.GROUND; causes a static field lookup. If "GROUND" were a static final int, the compiler would treat it as a known constant and inline it.
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The flip side, of course, is that with enums you get nicer APIs and some compile-time value checking. So, the usual trade-off applies: you should by all means use enums for public APIs, but try to avoid them when performance matters. In some circumstances it can be helpful to get enum integer values through the ordinal() method. For example, replace: for (int n = 0; n < list.size(); n++) { if (list.items[n].e == MyEnum.VAL_X) // do stuff 1 else if (list.items[n].e == MyEnum.VAL_Y) // do stuff 2 } with: int valX = MyEnum.VAL_X.ordinal(); int valY = MyEnum.VAL_Y.ordinal(); int count = list.size(); MyItem items = list.items(); for (int { int n = 0; n < count; n++) valItem = items[n].e.ordinal();
if (valItem == valX) // do stuff 1 else if (valItem == valY) // do stuff 2 } In some cases, this will be faster, though this is not guaranteed.
Use Package Scope with Inner Classes

Consider the following class definition: public class Foo { private int mValue; public void run() { Inner in = new Inner(); mValue = 27; in.stuff(); } private void doStuff(int value) { System.out.println("Value is " + value); } private class Inner { void stuff() { Foo.this.doStuff(Foo.this.mValue); } } } The key things to note here are that we define an inner class (Foo$Inner) that directly accesses a private method and a private instance field in the outer class. This is legal, and the code prints "Value is 27" as expected. The problem is that Foo$Inner is technically (behind the scenes) a totally separate class, which makes direct access to Foo's private members illegal. To bridge that gap, the compiler generates a couple of synthetic methods:
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/*package*/ static int Foo.access$100(Foo foo) { return foo.mValue; } /*package*/ static void Foo.access$200(Foo foo, int value) { foo.doStuff(value); } The inner-class code calls these static methods whenever it needs to access the "mValue" field or invoke the "doStuff" method in the outer class. What this means is that the code above really boils down to a case where you're accessing member fields through accessor methods instead of directly. Earlier we talked about how accessors are slower than direct field accesses, so this is an example of a certain language idiom resulting in an "invisible" performance hit. We can avoid this problem by declaring fields and methods accessed by inner classes to have package scope, rather than private scope. This runs faster and removes the overhead of the generated methods. (Unfortunately it also means the fields could be accessed directly by other classes in the same package, which runs counter to the standard OO practice of making all fields private. Once again, if you're designing a public API you might want to carefully consider using this optimization.)
Avoid Float
Before the release of the Pentium CPU, it was common for game authors to do as much as possible with integer math. With the Pentium, the floating point math co-processor became a built-in feature, and by interleaving integer and floating-point operations your game would actually go faster than it would with purely integer math. The common practice on desktop systems is to use floating point freely. Unfortunately, embedded processors frequently do not have hardware floating point support, so all operations on "float" and "double" are performed in software. Some basic floating point operations can take on the order of a millisecond to complete. Also, even for integers, some chips have hardware multiply but lack hardware divide. In such cases, integer division and modulus operations are performed in software something to think about if you're designing a hash table or doing lots of math.
Some Sample Performance Numbers

To illustrate some of our ideas, here is a table listing the approximate run times for a few basic actions. Note that these values should NOT be taken as absolute numbers: they are a combination of CPU and wall clock time, and will change as improvements are made to the system. However, it is worth noting how these values apply relative to each other for example, adding a member variable currently takes about four times as long as adding a local variable. Action Add a local variable Add a member variable Call String.length() Call empty static native method Call empty static method Call empty virtual method Call empty interface method Call Iterator:next() on a HashMap Call put() on a HashMap Inflate 1 View from XML Inflate 1 LinearLayout containing 1 TextView Inflate 1 LinearLayout containing 6 View objects Inflate 1 LinearLayout containing 6 TextView objects Launch an empty activity
Time 1 4 5 5 12 12.5 15 165 600 22,000 25,000 100,000 135,000 3,000,000
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Closing Notes
The best way to write good, efficient code for embedded systems is to understand what the code you write really does. If you really want to allocate an iterator, by all means use foreach syntax on a List; just make it a deliberate choice, not an inadvertent side-effect. Forewarned is forearmed! Know what you're getting into! Insert your favorite maxim here, but always think carefully about what your code is doing, and be on the lookout for ways to speed it up.
Writing Seamless Android Applications

Don't Drop Data
Always keep in mind that Android is a phone platform. It may seem obvious to say it, but it's important to remember that another Activity (such as the "Incoming Phone Call" app) can pop up over your own Activity at any moment. This will fire the onFreeze() and onPause() methods, and will likely result in your application being killed. If the user was editing data in your application when the other Activity appeared, your application will likely lose that data when your application is killed. Unless, of course, you save the work in progress first. The "Android Way" is to do just that: Android applications that accept or edit input should override the onFreeze() method and save their state in some appropriate fashion. When the user revisits the application, she should be able to retrieve her data. A classic example of a good use of this behavior is a mail application. If the user was composing an email when another Activity started up, the application should save the in-process email as a draft.
No One Wants to See Your Data Naked

If you wouldn't walk down the street in your underwear, neither should your data. While it's possible to expose certain kinds of application to the world to read, this is usually not the best idea. Exposing raw data requires other applications to understand your data format; if you change that format, you'll break any other applications that aren't similarly updated. The "Android Way" is to create a ContentProvider to expose your data to other applications via a clean, well-thought-out, and maintainable API. Using a ContentProvider is much like inserting a Java language interface to split up and componentize two tightly-coupled pieces of code. This means you'll be able to modify the internal format of your data without changing the interface exposed by the ContentProvider, and this without affecting other applications.
Don't Interrupt the User When He's Talking

If the user is running an application (such as the Phone application during a call) it's a pretty safe bet he did it on purpose. That's why you should avoid spawning Activities except in direct response to user input from the current Activity. That is, don't spawn Activities from IntentReceivers or Services running in the background. Doing so will interrupt whatever application is currently running, and result in an annoyed user. Perhaps even worse, your Activity may become a "keystroke bandit" and receive some of the input the user was in the middle of providing to the previous Activity. Depending on what your application does, this could be bad news. Instead of spawning Activities directly from the background, you should instead use the NotificationManager to set Notifications. These will appear in the status bar, and the user can then click on them at his leisure, to see what your application has to show him. (Note that all this doesn't apply to cases where your own Activity is already in the foreground: in that case, the user expects to see your next Activity in response to input.)
Got a Lot to Do? Take it to a Thread

If your application needs to perform some expensive or long-running computation, you should probably move it to a thread. This will prevent the dreaded "Application Not Responding" dialog from being displayed to the user, with the ultimate result being the fiery demise of your application. By default, all code in an Activity as well as all its Views runs in the same thread. This is the same thread that also handles
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UI events. For example, when the user presses a key, a key-down event is added to the Activity's main thread's queue. The event handler system needs to dequeue and handle that event quickly; if it doesn't, the system concludes after a few seconds that the application is hung and offers to kill it for the user. If you have long-running code, running it inline in your Activity will run it on the event handler thread, effectively blocking the event handler. This will delay input processing, and result in the ANR dialogs. To avoid this, move your computations to a thread; click here to learn how.
Avoid Huge Activities

Any application worth using will probably have several different screens. When partitioning your UI, be sure to make effective use of Activities. Depending on your development background, you may interpret an Activity as similar to something like a Java Applet, in that it is the entry point for your application. However, that's not quite accurate: where an Applet subclass is the single entry point for a Java Applet, an Activity should be thought of as one of potentially several entry points to your application. The only difference between your "main" Activity and any others you might have is that the "main" one just happens to be the only one that expressed an interest in the "android.intent.action.MAIN" action in your AndroidManifest..xml file. So, when designing your application, think of your application as a federation of Activities. This will make your code a lot more maintainable in the long run, and as a nice side effect also plays nicely with Android's application history and "backstack" model.
Extend Themes
When it comes to the look-and-feel of the user interface, it's important to blend in nicely. Users are jarred by applications which contrast with the user interface they've come to expect. When designing your UIs, you should try and avoid rolling your own as much as possible. Instead, use a Theme. You can override or extend those parts of the theme that you need to, but at least you're starting from the same UI base as all the other applications. For all the details, click here.
Make Being Flexible part of your Resolutions

Different Android devices will sport different resolutions. Some will even be able to change resolutions on the fly, such as by switching to landscape mode. It's important to make sure your layouts and drawables are flexible. Fortunately, this is very easy to do. Check out Implementing a User Interface for the full details, but in brief what you must do is provide different versions of your artwork (if you use any) for the key resolutions, and then design your layout to accommodate various dimensions. (For example, avoid using hard-coded positions and instead use relative layouts.) If you do that much, the system handles the rest, and your application looks great on any device.
Assume the Network is Slow

Android devices will come with a variety of network-connectivity options. All will have some data-access provision, though some will be faster than others. The lowest common denominator, however, is GPRS, the non-3G data service for GSM networks. Even 3G-capable devices will spend lots of time on non-3G networks, so slow networks will remain a reality for quite a long time to come. That's why you should always code your applications to minimize network accesses and bandwidth. You can't assume the network is fast, so you should always plan for it to be slow. If your users happen to be on faster networks, then that's great their experience will only improve. You want to avoid the inverse case though: applications that are usable some of the time, but frustratingly slow the rest based on where the user is at any given moment are likely to be unpopular. One potential gotcha here is that it's very easy to fall into this trap if you're using the emulator, since the emulator uses your desktop computer's network connection. That's almost guaranteed to be much faster than a cell network, so you'll want to change the settings on the emulator that simulate slower network speeds. You can do this in Eclipse, in the "Emulator Settings" tab of your launch configuration or via a command line option when starting the emulator.
Different Keystrokes for Different Folks

Android will support a variety of handset form-factors. That's a fancy way of saying that some Android devices will have full "QWERTY" keyboards, while others will have 40-key, 12-key, or even other key configurations. Similarly, some devices will have touch-screens, but many won't. When building your applications, keep that in mind. Don't make assumptions about specific keyboard layouts -- unless, of course, you're really interested in restricting your application so that it can only be used on those devices.
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Don't Assault the Battery

A wireless device isn't very wireless if it's constantly plugged into the wall. Handheld devices are battery-powered, and the longer we can make that battery last on a charge, the happier everyone is -- especially the user. Two of the biggest consumers of battery power are the processor, and the radio; that's why it's important to write your applications to do as little work as possible, and use the network as infrequently as possible. Minimizing the amount of processor time your application uses really comes down to writing efficient code. To minimize the power drain from using the radio, be sure to handle error conditions gracefully, and only fetch what you need. For example, don't constantly retry a network operation if one failed. If it failed once, it's likely because the user has no reception, so it's probably going to fail again if you try right away; all you'll do is waste battery power. Users are pretty smart: if your program is power-hungry, you can count on them noticing. The only thing you can be sure of at that point is that your program won't stay installed very long.
Building Custom Android Components

Android comes with a solid collection of View components that you can use to construct your applications, e.g. Button, TextView, EditText, ListView, CheckBox, RadioButton, Gallery, Spinner, and even some much more advanced and special purpose Views like AutoCompleteTextView, ImageSwitcher, and TextSwitcher. The various layout managers like LinearLayout, FrameLayout, and so forth are also considered Views and are descendents of the View class hierarchy. You can combine these layouts and controls into a screen to display in your application, and much of the time this may be enough for you, but you should also be aware that you can create custom components by extending Views, Layouts, and even the advanced controls using inheritance. Some typical reasons for doing this might include: To create a completely custom-rendered component, for example a "volume control" knob rendered using 2D graphics, and which resembles an analog electronic control. Combine a group of View components into a new single component, perhaps to make something like a ComboBox (a combination of popup list and free entry text field), a dual-pane selector control (a left and right pane with a list in each where you can re-assign which item is in which list), and so on. To create your own kind of layout. The layouts provided in the SDK provide a good set of options for designing your own applications, but advanced developers may find the need to provide a new layout that extends one of the existing ones, or perhaps is entirely new. Override the display or behavior of an existing component; for example, change the way that an EditText component is rendered on the screen (the Notepad sample uses this to good effect to create a lined-notepad page). Capture other events like key presses and handle them in some custom way (e.g. for a game). There are many more reasons why you might want to extend an existing View to achieve some goal. This page will give you some starting points on how to do it, and back it up with some examples.
The Basic Approach

These steps provide a high level overview of what you need to know to get started in creating your own components: 1. Extend an existing View class or subclass with your own class. 2. Override some of the methods from the superclass: the superclass methods to override start with ' on', for example, onDraw(), onMeasure(), and onKeyDown(). This is similar to the on... events in Activity or ListActivity that you override for lifecycle and other functionality hooks. 3. Use your new extension class: once completed, your new extension class can be used in place of the view upon which it was based, but now with the new functionality. Extension classes can be defined as inner classes inside the activities that use them. This is useful because it controls access to them but isn't necessary (perhaps you want to create a new public component for wider use in your application).
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Fully Customized Components

Fully customized components can be used to create graphical components that appear however you wish. Perhaps a graphical VU meter that looks like an old analog gauge, or a sing-a-long text view where a bouncing ball moves along the words so you can sing along with a karaoke machine. Either way, you want something that the built-in components just won't do, no matter how you combine them. Fortunately, you can easily create components that look and behave in any way you like, limited perhaps only by your imagination, the size of the screen, and the available processing power (remember that ultimately your application might have to run on something with significantly less power than your desktop workstation). To create a fully customized component: 1. The most generic view you can extend is, unsurprisingly, View, so you will usually start by extending this to create your new super component. 2. You can supply a constructor which can take attributes and parameters from the XML, and you can also consume your own such attributes and parameters (perhaps the color and range of the VU meter, or the width and damping of the needle, etc.) 3. You will probably want to create your own event listeners, property accessors and modifiers, and possibly more sophisticated behavior in your component class as well. 4. You will almost certainly want to override onMeasure() and are also likely to need to override onDraw() if you want the component to show something. While both have default behavior, the default onDraw() will do nothing, and the default onMeasure() will always set a size of 100x100 which is probably not what you want. 5. Other on... methods may also be overridden as required.
onDraw() and onMeasure()

onDraw() delivers you a Canvas upon which you can implement anything you want: 2D graphics, other standard or custom components, styled text, or anything else you can think of. If you want to use 3D graphics, you should extend GLView instead of View, but otherwise the same concepts apply. onMeasure() is a little more involved. onMeasure() is a critical piece of the rendering contract between your component and its container. onMeasure() should be overridden to efficiently and accurately report the measurements of its contained parts. This is made slightly more complex by the requirements of limits from the parent (which are passed in to the onMeasure() method) and by the requirement to call the setMeasuredDimension() method with the measured width and height once they have been calculated. If you fail to call this method from an overridden onMeasure() method, the result will be an exception at measurement time. At a high level, implementing onMeasure() looks something like this: 1. The overridden onMeasure() method is called with width and height measure specifications (widthMeasureSpec and heighMeasureSpec parameters, both are integer codes representing dimensions) which should be treated as requirements for the restrictions on the width and height measurements you should produce. A full reference to the kind of restrictions these specifications can require can be found in the reference documentation under View.onMeasure(int, int) (this reference documentation does a pretty good job of explaining the whole measurement operation as well). 2. Your component's onMeasure() method should calculate a measurement width and height which will be required to render the component. It should try to stay within the specifications passed in, although it can choose to exceed them (in this case, the parent can choose what to do, including clipping, scrolling, throwing an exception, or asking the onMeasure() to try again, perhaps with different measurement specifications). 3. Once the width and height are calculated, the setMeasuredDimension(int width, int height) method must be called with the calculated measurements. Failure to do this will result in an exception being thrown.
A Customized Component Example

The CustomView sample in the API Demos provides an example of a customized component. The custom component is defined in the LabelView class. The LabelView sample demonstrates a number of different aspects of custom components: Extending the View class for a completely custom component. Parameterized constructor that takes the view inflation parameters (parameters defined in the XML). Some of these are passed through to the View superclass, but more importantly, there are some custom attributes defined and used for LabelView.
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Standard public methods of the type you would expect to see for a label component, for example setText(), setTextSize(), setTextColor() and so on. An overridden onMeasure method to determine and set the rendering size of the component. (Note that in LabelView, the real work is done by a private measureWidth() method.) An overridden onDraw() method to draw the label onto the provided canvas. You can see some sample usages of the LabelView custom component in custom_view_1.xml from the samples. In particular, you can see a mix of both android: namespace parameters and custom app: namespace parameters. These app: parameters are the custom ones that the LabelView recognizes and works with, and are defined in a styleable inner class inside of the samples R resources definition class.
Compound Components (or Compound Controls)

If you don't want to create a completely customized component, but instead are looking to put together a reusable component that consists of a group of existing controls, then creating a Compound Component (or Compound Control) might fit the bill. In a nutshell, this brings together a number of more atomic controls (or views) into a logical group of items that can be treated as a single thing. For example, a Combo Box can be thought of as a combination of a single line EditText field and an adjacent button with an attached PopupList. If you press the button and select something from the list, it populates the EditText field, but the user can also type something directly into the EditText if they prefer. In Android, there are actually two other Views readily available to do this: Spinner and AutoCompleteTextView, but regardless, the concept of a Combo Box makes an easy-to-understand example. To create a Compound Component: 1. The usual starting point is a Layout of some kind, so create a class that extends a Layout. Perhaps in the case of a Combo box we might use a LinearLayout with horizontal orientation. Remember that other layouts can be nested inside, so the compound component can be arbitrarily complex and structured. Note that just like with an Activity, you can use either the declarative (XML-based) approach to creating the contained components, or you can nest them programmatically from your code. 2. In the constructor for the new class, take whatever parameters the superclass expects, and pass them through to the superclass constructor first. Then you can set up the other views to use within your new component; this is where you would create the EditText field and the PopupList. Note that you also might introduce your own attributes and parameters into the XML that can be pulled out and used by your constructor. 3. You can also create listeners for events that your contained views might generate, for example, a listener method for the List Item Click Listener to update the contents of the EditText if a list selection is made. 4. You might also create your own properties with accessors and modifiers, for example, allow the EditText value to be set initially in the component and query for its contents when needed. 5. In the case of extending a Layout, you don't need to override the onDraw() and onMeasure() methods since the layout will have default behavior that will likely work just fine. However, you can still override them if you need to. 6. You might override other on... methods, like onKeyDown(), to perhaps choose certain default values from the popup list of a combo box when a certain key is pressed. To summarize, the use of a Layout as the basis for a Custom Control has a number of advantages, including: You can specify the layout using the declarative XML files just like with an activity screen, or you can create views programmatically and nest them into the layout from your code. The onDraw() and onMeasure() methods (plus most of the other on... methods) will likely have suitable behavior so you don't have to override them. In the end, you can very quickly construct arbitrarily complex compound views and re-use them as if they were a single component.
Examples of Compound Controls

In the API Demos project that comes with the SDK, there are two List examples Example 4 and Example 6 under Views/Lists demonstrate a SpeechView which extends LinearLayout to make a component for displaying Speech quotes. The corresponding classes in the sample code are List4.java and List6.java.
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Tweaking an Existing Component

There is an even easier option for creating a custom component which is useful in certain circumstances. If there is a component that is already very similar to what you want, you can simply extend that component and just override the behavior that you want to change. You can do all of the things you would do with a fully customized component, but by starting with a more specialized class in the View heirarchy, you can also get a lot of behavior for free that probably does exactly what you want. For example, the SDK includes a NotePad application in the samples. This demonstrates many aspects of using the Android platform, among them is extending an EditText View to make a lined notepad. This is not a perfect example, and the APIs for doing this might change from this early preview, but it does demonstrate the principles. If you haven't done so already, import the NotePad sample into Eclipse (or just look at the source using the link provided). In particular look at the definition of MyEditText in the NoteEditor.java file. Some points to note here 1. The Definition The class is defined with the following line: public static class MyEditText extends EditText It is defined as an inner class within the NoteEditor activity, but it is public so that it could be accessed as NoteEditor.MyEditText from outside of the NoteEditor class if desired. It is static, meaning it does not generate the so-called "synthetic methods" that allow it to access data from the parent class, which in turn means that it really behaves as a separate class rather than something strongly related to NoteEditor. This is a cleaner way to create inner classes if they do not need access to state from the outer class, keeps the generated class small, and allows it to be used easily from other classes. It extends EditText, which is the View we have chosen to customize in this case. When we are finished, the new class will be able to substitute for a normal EditText view. 2. Class Initialization As always, the super is called first. Furthermore, this is not a default constructor, but a parameterized one. The EditText is created with these parameters when it is inflated from an XML layout file, thus, our constructor needs to both take them and pass them to the superclass constructor as well. 3. Overridden Methods In this example, there is only one method to be overridden: onDraw() but there could easily be others needed when you create your own custom components. For the NotePad sample, overriding the onDraw() method allows us to paint the blue lines on the EditText view canvas (the canvas is passed into the overridden onDraw() method). The super.onDraw() method is called before the method ends. The superclass method should be invoked, but in this case, we do it at the end after we have painted the lines we want to include. 4. Use the Custom Component We now have our custom component, but how can we use it? In the NotePad example, the custom component is used directly from the declarative layout, so take a look at note_editor.xml in the res/layout folder. <view xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" class="com.google.android.notepad.NoteEditor$MyEditText" id="@+id/note" android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="fill_parent" android:background="@android:drawable/empty" android:padding="10dip" android:scrollbars="vertical" android:fadingEdge="vertical" /> The custom component is created as a generic view in the XML, and the class is specified using the full package. Note also that the inner class we defined is referenced using the NoteEditor$MyEditText notation which is a standard way to refer to inner classes in the Java programming language.
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The other attributes and parameters in the definition are the ones passed into the custom component constructor, and then passed through to the EditText constructor, so they are the same parameters that you would use for an EditText view. Note that it is possible to add your own parameters as well, and we will touch on this again below. And that's all there is to it. Admittedly this is a simple case, but that's the point creating custom components is only as complicated as you need it to be. A more sophisticated component may override even more on... methods and introduce some of its own helper methods, substantially customizing its properties and behavior. The only limit is your imagination and what you need the component to do.
Go Forth and Componentize

As you can see, Android offers a sophisticated and powerful component model where just about anything is possible, from simple tweaking of existing Views, to compound controls, to fully customized components. Combining these techniques, you should be able to achieve the exact look you want for your Android application.
Optional APIs in Android

Android is suitable for a wide variety of phones, from high-end smartphones on down. The core Android APIs will be available on every Android phone, but there are a few APIs which have special concerns: the "optional" APIs. These APIs are "optional" for two reasons. First, they're optional in the sense that you don't need to use them. For example, you can't write an application without using the Activity and Intent APIs, but your application may not need to know where the user is, and so you may not need the Location-Based Services API. In this sense, the LBS API is optional where the Activity API is not. Second, some of these are "optional" in the sense that a given handset may not support them. For instance, a given handset may not have Bluetooth or WiFi hardware. In this case, the APIs for accessing those features will still be present, but they won't work. That is, your application won't have trouble running or linking on a device that doesn't support an API you use, because the classes will be present on the device. However, the implementations may not do anything, or may throw exceptions when you actually try to use them. What exactly each API does on unsupported devices is described in the documentation for that API; you should be sure to code your application to gracefully handle such cases.
Location-Based Services
Location-Based Services (LBS) allow software to obtain the phone's current location. This includes location obtained from the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite constellation, but it's not limited to that. For instance, other location-based systems may come online in the future, and as they do, support for them can be added to this API.
Media APIs
The Media APIs are used to play media files. This includes both audio (such as playing MP3s or other music files, as well as game sound effects) and video (such as playing a video downloaded over the web.) Support is included for "playing URIs" that is, streaming media data over the network.
3D Graphics with OpenGL

Android's primary user interface framework is a typical widget-oriented class hierarchy. Don't let that fool you, though sitting underneath that is a very fast 2D and 3D compositing engine, with support for hardware acceleration. The API used to access the 3D capabilities of the platform is the OpenGL ES API.
Low-Level Hardware Access

Android will include APIs for accessing low-level hardware such as Bluetooth and WiFi. These APIs, however, are not yet available in the SDK. When they are released, this documentation will be updated.
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Google APIs and Services in Android

Since Android is an open cell phone platform, anyone will be able to build their own devices that run the core Android OS. There is no requirement that any given phone include any Google software, or even be associated with Google at all. However, some groups may choose to license a set of optional user applications from Google that provide convenient developer access to Google services. This will generally be a collection of software included in the base system image and shipped with the phone. Because many devices will include these libraries, for the convenience of developers we're including information about those APIs here. However, please be aware that any APIs you use from the list below may not be available on all Android devices. If the Google software is not present, these libraries and classes will not be present. As a result, if your application uses these APIs, it may not install or run properly on devices that lack the APIs.
MapView
The MapView is an Android View that allows third-party code to display and control a Google Map. This is a complementary offering to the MapActivity provided in the Google Maps application that other Activities can use to display maps of a specific location. The table below summarizes the differences between the two approaches. Feature Embeddable directly into your own Layout? User-controlled navigation? Navigation via code? (i.e. scroll, zoom, etc. from your application code) Can fire events into your own code? MapActivity No (can only set map display) Yes No No MapView Yes Yes Yes Yes
The advantage of using the MapView over the Activity is that it gives you tight integration with your own layout; for instance, you can wrap custom controls around it, or implement fancy input mechanisms (such as using a tilt-sensor to scroll the Map based on how the user tilts the device). The disadvantage of using the MapView is that it requires more code to set up and use; if you simply wish to display a Google Map with the standard UI, it will be much easier to use the Activity.
P2P Services Using XMPP

Applications will frequently need to communicate between devices. For instance, you might wish to send messages back and forth between two devices, to implement an interactive game of checkers. Or, you might develop a social application where you want to send a message to a buddy. One way to do this is to simply send an SMS message to the other phone. It's possible to receive notifications via an IntentReceiver of incoming SMS messages, inspect them to see if they contain data intended for your application, and then consume the message, preventing other applications (and the user) from ever seeing it directly. This works well, but it has two major down-sides: SMS messages can take several minutes to deliver, and they typically cost users money to send and receive. If you built an online game using SMS message-passing, it might very well be both slow and frustrating, and very expensive to your users. As an alternative, Google provides an API that uses the XMPP protocol to pass messages. XMPP includes presence notification, meaning that it provides a convenient way for phones to notify each other when they are online and available for message-passing. It also provides a programmatic model similar to SMS-based message-passing, in that the sender calls a method on a Service to send a message, and the receiver is notified via a broadcast Intent (which it can fetch via an IntentReceiver). However, because XMPP is a persistent socket connection, the response time is much faster than SMS, allowing for a more fluid user experience. The system currently maintains a single XMPP connection to the server, and all XMPP traffic including both standard XMPP instant messages, and this P2P message-passing system is carried on the same connection.
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Documentation Android

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ANDROID DOCUMENTATION

http://fastoponandroid.googlepages.com/ http://fastoponandroid.googlepages.com/ http://fastoponandroid.googlepag

Android - An Open Handset Alliance Project

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Getting Started with Android

Other Introductory Material

Other Notable Packages

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Create the Project

Once you've selected "Android Project", press the Next button.

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Here's what each field on this screen means:

Project Name Package Name

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Run the Code: Hello, Android

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Upgrading the UI to an XML Layout

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Debugging Your Project

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Creating the Project without Eclipse

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Anatomy of an Android Application

Intent and Intent Filters

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Tutorial: A Notepad Application

Who Should Use this Tutorial

Preparing for the Exercises

Other Resources and Further Learning

Tutorial: Notepad Exercise 1

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Solution and Next Steps

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Tutorial: Notepad Exercise 2

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Solution and Next Steps

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Tutorial: Notepad Exercise 3

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Solution and Next Steps

Tutorial: Extra Credit

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Common Tasks and How To Do Them in Android

Creating an Android Application using the Eclipse Plugin

Creating an Android Application without the Eclipse Plugin

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Implementing Activity Callbacks

Opening a New Screen

Some Intent examples

Returning a Result from a Screen