How to Build Android Apps with Kotlin: A practical guide to developing, testing, and publishing your first Android apps, 2nd Edition

by Alex Forrester, Alexandru Dumbravan, Eran Boudjnah, Jomar Tigcal

Length: 704 pages
Edition: 2
Language: English
Publisher: Packt Publishing
Publication Date: 2023-05-02
ISBN-10: 1837634939
ISBN-13: 9781837634934
Sales Rank: #0 (See Top 100 Books)

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Print Book Look Inside

Unleash the power of Android programming to build scalable and reliable apps using industry best practices

Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook

Key Features

Build apps with Kotlin, Google’s preferred programming language for Android development
Unlock solutions to development challenges with guidance from experienced Android professionals
Improve your apps by adding valuable features that make use of advanced functionality

Book Description

Looking to kick-start your app development journey with Android 13, but don’t know where to start? How to Build Android Apps with Kotlin is a comprehensive guide that will help jump-start your Android development practice.

This book starts with the fundamentals of app development, enabling you to utilize Android Studio and Kotlin to get started with building Android projects. You’ll learn how to create apps and run them on virtual devices through guided exercises. Progressing through the chapters, you’ll delve into Android’s RecyclerView to make the most of lists, images, and maps, and see how to fetch data from a web service.

You’ll also get to grips with testing, learning how to keep your architecture clean, understanding how to persist data, and gaining basic knowledge of the dependency injection pattern. Finally, you’ll see how to publish your apps on the Google Play store.

You’ll work on realistic projects that are split up into bitesize exercises and activities, allowing you to challenge yourself in an enjoyable and attainable way. You’ll build apps to create quizzes, read news articles, check weather reports, store recipes, retrieve movie information, and remind you where you parked your car.

By the end of this book, you’ll have the skills and confidence to build your own creative Android applications using Kotlin.

What you will learn

Create maintainable and scalable apps using Kotlin
Understand the Android app development lifecycle
Simplify app development with Google architecture components
Use standard libraries for dependency injection and data parsing
Apply the repository pattern to retrieve data from outside sources
Build user interfaces using Jetpack Compose
Explore Android asynchronous programming with Coroutines and the Flow API
Publish your app on the Google Play store

Who this book is for

If you want to build Android applications using Kotlin but are unsure of how and where to begin, then this book is for you. To easily grasp the concepts in this book, a basic understanding of Kotlin, or experience in a similar programming language is a must.

How to Build Android Apps with Kotlin
Contributors
About the authors
About the reviewers
Preface
    Who this book is for
    What this book covers
    To get the most out of this book
        Minimum hardware requirements
        Software requirements
        Installation and setup
    Download the example code files
    Download the color images
    Conventions used
    Get in touch
    Share your thoughts
    Download a free PDF copy of this book
Part 1: Android Foundation
Chapter 1: Creating Your First App
    Technical requirements
    Creating an Android project with Android Studio
        Exercise 1.01 – creating an Android Studio project for your app
    Setting up a virtual device and running your app
        Exercise 1.02 – setting up a virtual device and running your app on it
    The Android manifest
        Exercise 1.03 – configuring the Android manifest internet permission
    Using Gradle to build, configure, and manage app dependencies
        The project-level build.gradle file
        The app-level build.gradle file
        Exercise 1.04 – exploring how Material Design is used to theme an app
    Android application structure
        Exercise 1.05 – adding interactive UI elements to display a bespoke greeting to the user
        Accessing Views in layout files
        Further input validation
        Activity 1.01 – producing an app to create RGB colors
    Summary
Chapter 2: Building User Screen Flows
    Technical requirements
    The Activity lifecycle
        Exercise 2.01 – logging the Activity Callbacks
    Saving and restoring the Activity state
        Exercise 2.02 – saving and restoring the state in layouts
        Exercise 2.03 – saving and restoring the state with Callbacks
    Activity interaction with Intents
        Exercise 2.04 – an introduction to Intents
        Exercise 2.05 – retrieving a result from an Activity
    Intents, Tasks, and Launch Modes
        Exercise 2.06 – setting the Launch Mode of an Activity
        Activity 2.01 – creating a login form
    Summary
Chapter 3: Developing the UI with Fragments
    Technical requirements
    The fragment lifecycle
        onAttach
        onCreate
        onCreateView
        onViewCreated
        onActivityCreated
        onStart
        onResume
        onPause
        onStop
        onDestroyView
        onDestroy
        onDetach
        Exercise 3.01 – adding a basic fragment and the fragment lifecycle
        Exercise 3.02 – adding fragments statically to an activity
    Static fragments and dual-pane layouts
        Exercise 3.03 – dual-pane layouts with static fragments
    Dynamic fragments
        Exercise 3.04 – adding fragments dynamically to an activity
    Jetpack Navigation
        Exercise 3.05 – adding a Jetpack navigation graph
        Activity 3.01 – creating a quiz on the planets
    Summary
Chapter 4: Building App Navigation
    Technical requirements
    Navigation overview
    Navigation drawer
        Exercise 4.01 – creating an App with a navigation drawer
    Bottom navigation
        Exercise 4.02 – adding bottom navigation to your app
    Tabbed navigation
        Exercise 4.03 – using tabs for app navigation
        Activity 4.01 – building primary and secondary app navigation
    Summary
Part 2: Displaying Network Calls
Chapter 5: Essential Libraries: Retrofit, Moshi, and Glide
    Technical requirements
    Introducing REST, API, JSON, and XML
    Fetching data from a network endpoint
        Exercise 5.01 – reading data from an API
    Parsing a JSON response
        Exercise 5.02 – extracting the image URL from the API response
    Loading images from a remote URL
        Exercise 5.03 – loading the image from the obtained URL
        Activity 5.01 – displaying the current weather
    Summary
Chapter 6: Adding and Interacting with RecyclerView
    Technical requirements
    Adding RecyclerView to our layout
        Exercise 6.01 – adding an empty RecyclerView to your main activity
    Populating RecyclerView
        Exercise 6.02 – populating your RecyclerView
    Responding to clicks in RecyclerView
        Exercise 6.03 – responding to clicks
    Supporting different Item types
        Exercise 6.04 – adding titles to RecyclerView
    Swiping to remove Items
        Exercise 6.05 – adding swipe to delete functionality
    Adding items interactively
        Exercise 6.06 – implementing an Add A Cat button
        Activity 6.01 – managing a list of Items
    Summary
Chapter 7: Android Permissions and Google Maps
    Technical requirements
    Requesting permission from the user
        Exercise 7.01 – requesting the location permission
    Showing a map of the user’s location
        Exercise 7.02 – obtaining the user’s current location
    Map clicks and custom markers
        Exercise 7.03 – adding a custom marker where the map was clicked
        Activity 7.01 – creating an app to find the location of a parked car
    Summary
Chapter 8: Services, WorkManager, and Notifications
    Technical requirements
    Starting a background task using WorkManager
        Exercise 8.01 – executing background work with the WorkManager class
    Background operations noticeable to the user – using a Foreground Service
        Exercise 8.02 – tracking your SCA’s work with a Foreground Service
        Activity 8.01 – reminder to drink water
    Summary
Chapter 9: Building User Interfaces Using Jetpack Compose
    Technical requirements
    What is Jetpack Compose?
        Exercise 9.01 – first Compose screen
    Handling user actions
        Exercise 9.02 – handling user inputs
    Theming in Compose
        Exercise 9.03 – applying themes
    Adding Compose to existing projects
        Activity 9.01 – first Compose app
    Summary
Part 3: Testing and Code Structure
Chapter 10: Unit Tests and Integration Tests with JUnit, Mockito, and Espresso
    Technical requirements
    Types of testing
    JUnit
    Android Studio testing tips
    Mockito
        Exercise 10.01 – testing the sum of numbers
    Integration tests
        Robolectric
        Espresso
        Exercise 10.02 – double integration
    UI tests
        Testing in Jetpack Compose
        Exercise 10.03 – random waiting times
    TDD
        Exercise 10.04 – using TDD to calculate the sum of numbers
        Activity 10.01 – developing with TDD
    Summary
Chapter 11: Android Architecture Components
    Technical requirements
    Android components background
    ViewModel
        Exercise 11.01 – shared ViewModel
    Data streams
        LiveData
        Additional data streams
    Room
        Entities
        DAO
        Setting up the database
        Third-party frameworks
        Exercise 11.03 – making a little room
        Activity 11.01 – a shopping notes app
    Summary
Chapter 12: Persisting Data
    Technical requirements
    Preferences and DataStore
        SharedPreferences
        Exercise 12.01 – wrapping SharedPreferences
        DataStore
        Exercise 12.02 – Preference DataStore
    Files
        Internal storage
        External storage
        FileProvider
        The Storage Access Framework (SAF)
        Asset files
        Exercise 12.03 – copying files
    Scoped storage
        Camera and media storage
        Exercise 12.04 – taking photos
        Activity 12.01 – dog downloader
    Summary
Chapter 13: Dependency Injection with Dagger, Hilt, and Koin
    Technical requirements
    The necessity of dependency injection
    Manual DI
        Exercise 13.01 – manual injection
    Dagger 2
        Consumers
        Providers
        Connectors
        Qualifiers
        Scopes
        Subcomponents
        Exercise 13.02 – Dagger injection
    Hilt
        Exercise 13.03 – Hilt injection
    Koin
        Exercise 13.04 – Koin injection
        Activity 13.01 – injected repositories
    Summary
Part 4: Polishing and Publishing an App
Chapter 14: Coroutines and Flow
    Technical requirements
    Using Coroutines on Android
        Creating coroutines
        Adding coroutines to your project
        Exercise 14.01 – using coroutines in an Android app
    Transforming LiveData
        Exercise 14.02 – LiveData transformations
    Using Flow on Android
        Collecting Flows on Android
        Creating Flows with Flow Builders
        Using operators with Flows
        Exercise 14.03 – using Flow in an Android application
        Activity 14.01 – creating a TV Guide app
    Summary
Chapter 15: Architecture Patterns
    Technical requirements
    Getting started with MVVM
        Binding data on Android with data binding
        Exercise 15.01– using data binding in an Android project
    Using Retrofit and Moshi
        Implementing the Repository pattern
        Exercise 15.02 – using Repository with Room in an Android project
    Using WorkManager
        Exercise 15.03 – adding WorkManager to an Android Project
        Activity 15.01 – revisiting the TV Guide app
    Summary
Chapter 16: Animations and Transitions with CoordinatorLayout and MotionLayout
    Technical requirements
    Activity transitions
        Adding activity transitions through XML
        Adding activity transitions through code
        Starting an activity with an activity transition
        Exercise 16.01 – creating activity transitions in an app
        Adding a shared element transition
        Starting an activity with the shared element transition
        Exercise 16.02 – creating the shared element transition
    Animations with CoordinatorLayout
    Animations with MotionLayout
        Adding MotionLayout
        Creating animations with MotionLayout
        Exercise 16.03 – adding animations with MotionLayout
        The Motion Editor
        Debugging MotionLayout
        Modifying the MotionLayout path
        Exercise 16.04 – modifying the animation path with keyframes
        Activity 16.01 – Password Generator
    Summary
Chapter 17: Launching Your App on Google Play
    Preparing your apps for release
        Versioning apps
        Creating a keystore
        Exercise 17.01 – creating a keystore in Android Studio
        Storing the keystore and passwords
        Signing your apps for release
        Exercise 17.02 – creating a signed APK
        Android app bundle
        Exercise 17.03 – creating a signed app bundle
        App signing by Google Play
    Creating a developer account
    Uploading an app to Google Play
        Creating a store listing
        Preparing the release
        Rolling out a release
    Managing app releases
        Release tracks
        Staged rollouts
        Managed publishing
        Activity 17.01 – publishing an app
    Summary
Index
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