Issue #85

January 18th, 2014

Articles & Tutorials

Tricks to boost performance of ListView (optimizationtricks.blogspot.in)
Abhishek Birdawade shares some nice tricks to boost the performace of a ListView.

Link Bild Handy adb commands for Android (www.growingwiththeweb.com)

Daniel Imms has written a nice post about handy adb commands. Our favorite: Make a screenshot in one line.

 

Building Complex Animations (cogitolearning.co.uk)
A nice blog post on how to develop complex animations. The tutorial will walk you through animating different properties and chaining the animations with AnimatorSet.

Link Bild How to make a chathead like Facebook messenger (androidtuts.net)

In this tutorial you will learn how to draw a chathead like Facebook does. The secret is to use a SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW together with a ChatHeadDrawerService. Let's hope that not too many application will clutter our precious homescreen.

 

BackgroundViewPager (github.com)
The BackgroundViewPager creates an effect the Launcher Background. When user switch between fragments, the background will scroll within specific ratio to cover all fragments.

TextClock Version 2 – Part 3 (blog.stylingandroid.com)
Third part of Mark Allison's updated TextClock tutorial in which he demonstrates animations possible in app and lock screen widgets.

Preserve Your Launchers: Use Activity Aliases (blog.danlew.net)
When you deploy your Android app, the launcher Activity's manifest entry should be treated as a contract. Daniel Lew shows how to not annoy your users when you need to change your launcher activity.

Introducing the Google Drive Android API (googledevelopers.blogspot.com)
With the new developer preview of the Google Drive Android API in Google Play Services 4.1, you can add the convenience of Google Drive cloud storage to your apps without breaking a sweat. While Drive integration on Android was possible in the past, the new API creates a faster, seamless experience that enables your apps to integrate with the Drive backend within minutes.

Sponsored

Link Bild WIPJam @ MWC 2014 (wip.org)

It's coming - our 7th year of WIPJam @ MWC14. WIP and GSMA have joined forces to bring you 4 days of the best and biggest DEVCON and HACKTHON during Mobile World Congress. This means: More developers. More tshirts. More code. More swag! Find out more and register now!

 
Link Bild Introducing Free Wireless from Scratch (www.scratchwireless.com)

When you buy our Android smartphone, you're never have to pay a penny for service. Learn more about Wi-Fi First and free wireless service at http://www.scratchwireless.com

 

Jobs

Mobile & Web App Development Project Manager (Arlington, VA)
The Project Manager will serve as the primary interface between the customer and our mobile/web development teams when delivering mobile development projects for iOS and Android apps, mobile websites, and responsive web applications.

Libraries & Code

Form Validation Library (github.com)
A simple library for validating user input in forms using annotations. With just a few lines of code you can validate all views and show feedback to the user. There is also an option for live validation and it's extensible so that you can write your own validations or adapters for custom views.

OpenStreetMap for Android (code.google.com)
osmdroid is a (almost) full/free replacement for Android's MapView (v1 API) class. It also includes a modular tile provider system with support for numerous online and offline tile sources and overlay support with built-in overlays for plotting icons, tracking location, and drawing shapes.

ExtendedCalendarView (github.com)
ExtendedCalendarView shows a calendar with the ability to display events on days. All events are stored in a content provider for easy access and the ability to have other app hook into your calendar if you choose.

StackBlur (github.com)
Do you want to blur some images really fast? StackBlur does exactly that leveraging several mechanisms (like RenderScript) if they are available. The library is compatible for Android versions 1.5 (so pretty much compatible with every device).

Tools

Android Image Resizer (github.com)
Android Image Resizer is a tool to resize android project image files(Drawables) with the proper sizes. It has now been updated to support xxxhdpi and xxhdpi as well.

android-apt for Gradle now supports library projects (plus.google.com)
Hugo Vissner has updated android-apt, now at version 1.2. You apply android-apt plugin to your Gradle build when you want to make use of annotation processors that generate code. It also makes sure that Android Studio will see the generated source, and that the annotation processor itself doesn't end up in your final APK...or library!

Videos

Link Bild Mastering the Android Touch System (www.youtube.com)

How does Android handle touch? This talk provides an overview of the Android touch framework, gives you an idea of how touches flow through your application, and explains how Android deals with all of these events. Dave Smith, Senior Android Developer with Double Encore and NewCircle Instructor, leads the discussion.