To create a serious banking program or a mobile cab ordering service, you need knowledge of programming languages and development tools. To create a simple mobile application, you only need development tools and the desire to develop.
All you need is to learn how to use the standard templates built into the software. Let’s break down in detail what specific tools and programs we need to do this.
The development environment is the program in which applications are created. The closest analogy is a shipyard, where ships are built, repaired and modernized. The most popular development environments for mobile are Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA and the Android Studio (AS) based on it. The latter was purchased by Google in 2005 and became the official development environment for android. So we chose Android Studio as the main one and will continue to talk about it.
Java development kit is a set of tools that greatly simplify the process of creating an application and greatly extends the capabilities of the development environment. Simple projects can be created without it.
The Java development kit includes:
Template libraries – these are used to assemble application blocks;
interpreter – translates code into machine-understandable signals;
debugger – eliminates errors in the code;
instructions and user manuals – help to understand the technological details;
utilities – small auxiliary programs.
Test device – this can be a phone or any android gadget: a tablet, watch, TV, vacuum cleaner or even a refrigerator. If you don’t have anything like that at hand and the equipment in your house is not “smart”, it’s okay: AS has a built-in emulator that allows you to test the created project directly in the program. You can also use other free emulators to run android applications: Bluestacks 3, Andy, Genymotion, etc.
Mobile development software is free, freely distributed and available on official websites. This means that you will not incur any additional costs when learning.
Components of android apps
Any mobile application, like a sandwich, consists of several layers. Just like in a real sandwich – the component layers have different compositions and do not mix with each other.
This architecture is necessary for the Android system to clearly understand which file in the application structure to refer to, depending on the event that has occurred in its field. If the phone runs out of power during a game, the system understands “aha, that’s for the receivers”; if we decide to listen to an audiobook in the subway, that’s for the services.
There are four main elements of the mobile android applications:
Activity, activity – everything that the user clicks on and directly interacts with: sliders, buttons, all sorts of notification boxes and any available interfaces.
Broadcast receivers – these are reactions to system events: loss of connection, network recovery, low battery, system upgrade notifications, etc.
Services, service – components that run in the background, out of the user’s sight. They perform tasks that last longer than clicking a button or swiping to flip through a feed. This includes playing video and music or launching one application through the interface of another.
Sync adapters, sync adapters – synchronize your device’s data with various cloud services. This includes synchronizing your contacts and calendar with your account storage.