NUTS AND BOLTS OF ANDROID DEVELOPMENT

Starting With the Basics of Android development:

In order to start with your first android application, you need to set-up the Android SDK with Android Studio or Eclipse.

• Download Android SDK and Android Studio from here.

OR

• Download Eclipse from here, and choose Eclipse IDE for Java Developers.

When you download android studio, it comes pre-loaded with the Android SDK, so no need of downloading the Android SDK.

Let us familiarise with some of the basics of Android Development,

• UNDERSTANDING PROJECT STRUCTURE

After you create a new project, by a certain name (here app), expand app, you may see a no. of files. Let's understand what those means.

These are the folders which will be seen after its expanded:

• src
• gen
• The Android Version, such as Android 4.1
• assets
• res

Two important files in the project are AndroidManifest.xml and project.properties.

Now let us Discuss these folders one by one:

• src folder : This contains your stub MainActivity.java. You write your coding in this file.
• gen folder : It contains Java files generated by ADT. The ADT creates an R.java file. It contains items generated from the res folder. (You will learn more about R.java as soon as we come to the coding part).
• assets folder : The assets folder is empty by default. This folder is used to store raw asset files.
• res folder : The res folder contains the various resources that your application can consume. Basically this folder designs your User Interface(UI).

Main Subdirectories of the res folder:

• anim/                   : XML file that define animations.
• color/                   : XML file that defines a list of colors.
• drawable/            : Bitmap files or XML files that are compiled into the following drawable resources: drawable-xhdpi/ : All bitmap or XML files are compiled into eXtra High resolution Drawable resources.

1. drawable-hdpi/    : All bitmap or XML files are compiled into High resolution Drawable resources.
2. drawable-ldpi       : All bitmap or XML files are compiled into Low resolution Drawable resources.
3. drawable-mdpi     : All bitmap or XML files are compiled into Medium resolution Drawable resources.

• layout/                 : XML files that define the layout or UI.

THAT'S FOR THE BASICS OF ANDROID DEVELOPMENT. KEEP VISITING FREQUENTLY FOR THE CODING PART.

-THANK YOU