android
Last week, O’Reilly started a free training Android course, I had the chance to attend it, all of it, unlike some of my friends who couldn’t stay up till late night 
I also had the chance to take notes, .. I will post the notes of the first lecture at the end of this post (its my notes, do not expect to understand everything from it because you did not write it )
the lecture started with the basic principles on how Android works, … you know .. the “useless things that is good to know” sort of things, than some tips on installations and some basic “flash light” program, .. and during that whole thing a lot of questions were made by the people watching the course, .. some questions are really irrelevant and useless, while others were interesting.
Before i post my notes i would like to mention my opinion about the course from the first lecture (this opinion is merely my personal opinion). It is my first time coding Android, .. but it is NOTmy first time coding
My opinion on Tony the lecturer
He seems to know somethings on Android, more than most of us obviously, but i am afraid that I expected the lecture to be more professional, I mean during the lecture, Tony was exploring the code and how things work, i did not find him mastering the language, … but in my opinion as long as he is ahead of us at least one step, than praise him
My humble opinion about the Android programming language
Android relies heavily on user-defined XML tags (or that is what i saw from the first lecture). its not a good or bad thing, .. it is just … different i guess.
It is a very interesting course and i would like to encourage anyone who has the slightest interest in developing mobile applications to attend this course
Anyways .. without further dues, … here are my notes
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linux>Native Libraries > Run time + Dalvik VM > andriod framework (activity manager, content Provider, Location manager, Notification manager,..) > System apps (contacts, Phone Dialer, Email, Web Browser)
app: code + R resources (movie, xml, pic)
Activity: single screen. app have many activities
intent: code to accomplish a verb (call number, open contacts)
developer.andriod.com/sdk/eclipse-adt.html
package name > unique
min SDK Version, "API LEVEL", Andriod 1.5 > 3
manifest (Like in J2ME, configuration file)
main.XML have app configuration (like orientation, gravity position of the test")
String.XML
"@String/Hello" > Macros, u can use it for localization
"@String/Red" >> you can set Red= "Red hat" in String.XML
Color.XML
#FFFF0000
android:background="@color/red"
activity > screen > .java
R class generated automatically, each new resource will be added automaticallyin the R class
you can add new elements in main.xml like "button" and you can set its attributes (via XML Tags)
the @+id adds unique ID by default
in JAVA (RefFlashActivity.Java)
Button greenButton = (Button)findViewById(R.id.green_button);
greenButton.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener(){...})
Intent intent = new intent(activ.this, act2.class);
startActivity(intent);
the above will change from one screen to another.
Here is answer to right to left: Google tracks issues and feature requests at Google Code's site. As of January 2010[update], the most requested ("starred") feature is the support for right-to-left languages such as Arabic and Hebrew.[90][91]
http://developer.android.com/reference/java/text/Bidi.html
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Thank you very much Arkan, I admit i was one of those who slept before the lecture went to the coding part
:p (not saying that it was boring, it was very interesting , but i was very tiered that day)
thanks for your notes i was trying to do the flashScreen application on my own the whole day today and the trickest thing that i couldnt get the easy way was as you mentioned in your notes
“R class generated automatically, each new resource will be added automatically in the R class”
R class gets refereshed automatically !! thats greate i never thought that could happen automatically so i was searching for a logical way to add a new layout and its information in R class
thanks and hopefully i will be able to attend the next class, i will try (if got time ) to create any small usefull thing with what ever we have learned now about android (even a calculator :p)
Glad that you could understand something from my notes, Lol … and glad that you actually started developing and utilizing the fact that you have an android phone, .. I missed the second lecture, maybe you or Hassan could make a post about it and share your notes and thoughts
hi there..
am interested in mobile applications..i want to join the course..can u please tell me name and place of the institutes where this course is available.
am from hyderabad.
thank you
madhu
-91+9866974806
its a webinar (web seminar). and i believe its over.
good news is that you can just google “android tutorials” and you will find tones of them