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 theGetting 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 application 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.
