INTRODUCTION xvii CHAPTER 1: GETTING STARTED WITH ANDROID PROGRAMMING 1 What Is Android? 2 Android Versions 2 Features of Android 3 Architecture of Android 4 Android Devices in the Market 4 The Android Market 7 Obtaining the Required Tools 8 Android Studio 8 Android SDK 14 Creating Android Virtual Devices (AVDs) 15 The Android Developer Community 24 Launching Your First Android Application 24 Summary 26 CHAPTER 2: USING ANDROID STUDIO FOR ANDROID DEVELOPMENT 29 Exploring the IDE 30 Using Code Completion 38 Debugging Your Application 39 Setting Breakpoints 39 Navigating Paused Code 43 Publishing Your Application 44 Generating a Signed APK 44 Summary 45 CHAPTER 3: ACTIVITIES, FRAGMENTS, AND INTENTS 47 Understanding Activities 48 Applying Styles and Themes to an Activity 53 Hiding the Activity Title 54 Displaying a Dialog Window 56 Displaying a Progress Dialog 59 Linking Activities Using Intents 61 Returning Results from an Intent 66 Passing Data Using an Intent Object 70 Fragments 75 Adding Fragments Dynamically 81 Life Cycle of a Fragment 84 Interactions Between Fragments 88 Understanding the Intent Object 92 Using Intent Filters 93 Displaying Notifi cations 94 Summary 98 CHAPTER 4: GETTING TO KNOW THE ANDROID USER INTERFACE 101 Understanding the Components of a Screen 102 Views and ViewGroups 103 FrameLayout 104 LinearLayout (Horizontal) and LinearLayout (Vertical) 104 TableLayout 114 RelativeLayout 116 FrameLayout 117 ScrollView 121 Adapting to Display Orientation 124 Anchoring Views 125 Managing Changes to Screen Orientation 127 Persisting State Information During Changes in Configuration 131 Detecting Orientation Changes 132 Controlling the Orientation of the Activity 132 Utilizing the Action Bar 133 Adding Action Items to the Action Bar 136 Creating the User Interface Programmatically 142 Listening for UI Notifi cations 145 Summary 145 CHAPTER 5: DESIGNING YOUR USER INTERFACE WITH VIEWS 147 Using Basic Views 148 TextView View 148 Button, ImageButton, EditText, CheckBox, ToggleButton, RadioButton, and RadioGroup Views 149 ProgressBar View 158 AutoCompleteTextView View 164 Using Picker Views 167 TimePicker View 167 DatePicker View 172 Using List Views to Display Long Lists 175 ListView View 175 Using the Spinner View 184 Understanding Specialized Fragments 186 Using a ListFragment 187 Using a DialogFragment 191 Using a PreferenceFragment 194 Summary 199 CHAPTER 6: DISPLAYING PICTURES AND MENUS WITH VIEWS 203 Using Image Views to Display Pictures 203 ImageView View 204 ImageSwitcher 206 GridView 211 Using Menus with Views 215 Creating the Helper Methods 215 Options Menu 217 Context Menu 220 Using WebView 225 WebView 225 Summary 228 CHAPTER 7: DATA PERSISTENCE 231 Saving and Loading User Preferences 232 Accessing Preferences Using an Activity 232 Programmatically Retrieving and Modifying the Preferences Values 242 Persisting Data to Files 246 Saving to Internal Storage 246 Saving to External Storage (SD Card) 250 Choosing the Best Storage Option 253 Creating and Using Databases 254 Creating the DBAdapter Helper Class 254 Using the Database Programmatically 260 Summary 266 CHAPTER 8: CONTENT PROVIDERS 269 Sharing Data in Android 270 Using a Content Provider 271 Predefined Query String Constants 278 Projections 279 Filtering 280 Sorting 280 Creating Your Own Content Providers 281 Using the Content Provider 289 Summary 294 CHAPTER 9: MESSAGING 297 SMS Messaging 298 Sending SMS Messages Programmatically 298 Sending SMS Messages Using Intent 302 Receiving SMS Messages 302 Caveats and Warnings 318 Sending Email 319 Summary 322 CHAPTER 10: LOCATION-BASED SERVICES 325 Displaying Maps 326 Creating the Project 326 Obtaining the Maps API Key 326 Displaying the Map 327 Displaying the Zoom Control 329 Changing Views 332 Navigating to a Specifi c Location 333 Getting the Location That Was Touched 335 Geocoding and Reverse Geocoding 337 Getting Location Data 340 Monitoring a Location 348 Summary 348 CHAPTER 11: NETWORKING 351 Consuming Web Services Using HTTP 352 Downloading Binary Data 354 Downloading Text Content 361 Accessing Web Services Using the GET Method 364 Consuming JSON Services 370 Summary 377 CHAPTER 12: DEVELOPING ANDROID SERVICES 381 Creating Your Own Services 382 Performing Long-Running Tasks in a Service 386 Performing Repeated Tasks in a Service 391 Executing Asynchronous Tasks on Separate Threads Using IntentService 394 Establishing Communication Between a Service and an Activity 397 Binding Activities to Services 401 Understanding Threading 406 Summary 411 APPENDIX: ANSWERS TO EXERCISES 415 INDEX 421.