ESSENTIAL SKILLS FOR ANDROID DEVELOPERS
by Kundan Jha kuldeep
Mobile apps have changed our way of life, from the way we run our
businesses, educate, recreate and find entertainment! This has made mobile app
development one of the most fascinating and coolest jobs around. Android is
indeed, the indisputable leader of global mobile market share. This market
leadership implies high job security for Android developers.
As Android apps continue to connect people across the globe and enable
users to engage in more innovative and interesting ways, a career in Android
development has become ever more enriching, fulfilling and in demand to the
global economy. To become a successful Android developer, you need to develop
several skills and apply them at the right place and time to provide the best
experience to your users
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Here are the 10 essential skills you need to succeed as an Android
developer.
1. Android foundations
The most basic building block of Android development is a programming
language. The most preferred languages to create Android apps are Java and
Kotlin. You can use either Java or Kotlin—or even both at the same time—to
develop apps. You need to be familiar with core concepts of one or both of
these two programming languages, including basics and syntaxes, collection
framework, concurrency and multithreading, generics and functional programming.
To design layouts (user interface) in Android, we use XML. Much like HTML,
XML is also a markup language and stands for eXtensible Markup Language. After
creation of these XML Layouts, they are linked to Kotlin/Java files where
business logic is written.
To design seamless XML layouts and write business logic in an integrated
environment, there exists a handy tool known as Android Studio. Android Studio
uses Gradle, an advance build toolkit, to automate and manage your build
process. To integrate Gradle in Android studio there exists a plugin known as
Android plugin for Gradle. Before you get started, you need to understand what
Gradle is and how to use it specifically for managing external dependencies.
Gradle and Android plugin run independently of Android Studio. This means
you can build your Android apps from within Android Studio, the command line on
your machine, or on machines where Android Studio is not installed (such as
continuous integration servers). If you are not using Android Studio, you can
learn how to build and run your app from the command line.
2. Android interactivity
User interaction with Android apps should be considered with utmost
priority. Responding to events by using callbacks, implementing appropriate
gestures such as drag and drop, providing right keyboard for user input, and
using pan and zoom in the right place plays a crucial role in providing the
seamless user experience. These are really small but very useful in improving
user interaction. Above all, these user interactivity takes place in an Android
component known as Activity.
An Activity is a single, focused thing that the user can do. Almost all
Activities interact with the user, so the Activity class takes care of creating
a window for you in which you can place your user interface.
The Android device comes with various screen configurations. Screen
orientation is one of them. It can be either portrait or landscape. Each
Activity can exist in either portrait or landscape mode. When the screen is
rotated the current activity is destroyed and recreated in a new orientation.
The stability of an Activity should always be maintained when screen
orientation changes.
3. Android UI
An application is incomplete if it lacks modern UI. An application may
contain useful functionalities but if it fails to adapt to modern UI guidelines
then it is ultimately doomed to fail.
Using RecyclerView to implement lists and grids, using ConstraintLayout for
designing complex layouts, applying animations to enhance user experience,
using appropriate menus, following Material design guidelines and using vector
drawables instead of raster graphics are few of the basic rules that every
developer must follow in their apps.
While designing layouts one must not forget to consider the multiple screen
type devices. The same app should look different for different devices. For
example, the screen on a tablet should show dual-pane layouts to effectively
utilize a widescreen. While on a smartphone it should use single pane. This
behavior can be achieved by using Fragments. Additionally, in several cases,
you might need to customize Views that suit your need. This can be achieved by
designing custom components for your Views.
4. Implementing navigation
Navigation refers to the interactions that allow users to navigate across,
into and back out from the different pieces of content within your app. There
are various UI elements that allow you to implement effective UI navigation.
The most basic one is the app bar which is popularly known as Toolbar. On
your Toolbar, you can add a popup menu, menu icons and add navigation drawer
icon. This navigation drawer icon helps you to open and close the navigation
drawer which is another element to implement effective navigation. The
navigation drawer allows you to add additional menu items which can help you to
swap fragments in your current Activity or perform some other relevant actions.
Another navigation element is a BottomNavigationView which allows you to
switch between different Fragments in the same Activity by using tabs at the
bottom of the screen. If you need to use tabs attached to the Toolbar and swipe
between Fragments (different pages), then ViewPager should be your choice.
User intention is the most important aspect of navigation. The user might
want to launch new Activity, move back to the previous Activity, or even share
data to some other app. These intentions can be achieved by using Intents in
Android. If you know your target Activity use Explicit Intent otherwise use
Implicit Intents. You are always allowed to configure your intents.
Above all, Android Jetpack's Navigation component helps you implement
navigation, from simple button clicks to more complex patterns, such as app
bars and the navigation drawer. You might want to take a look at this component
before you start implementing navigation in Android.
5. Android testing
Users interact with your app on a variety of levels, from pressing a Submit
button to downloading information onto their device. Accordingly, you should
test a variety of use cases and interactions as you iteratively develop your
app. Most commonly used testing libraries are Expresso, Junit, Mockito,
Robolectric and UI Automator.
6. Working with data
Data is an important part of your application and must not be ignored. You
may need to fetch data from the server, query data from the local database,
save user preferences and do file handling.
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To use local database prefer using Room database which is the part of
Android Jetpack's architecture component. You might want to share your database
outside your app securely using ContentProvider.
To save a small amount of data or save user preferences in the form of
key-value pair you can use Preferences API, which is based on SharedPreferences
API.
If you want to bind your UI components in your layouts to a data source in
your app using a declarative format use Data Binding Library.
To handle files in your app you can take advantage of massive file system
APIs provided to you.
Above all, to access data over network (i.e. while consuming REST APIs) use
Retrofit 2 library which is a blessing to all Android developers by Jake
Wharton.
7. Notifications
Notifications are one of the best ways to increase user engagement. It
appears outside of your app's UI to provide the user with reminders,
communication from other people or other timely information from your app.
Users can tap the notification to open your app or take an action directly from
the notification. You can create a notification, customize its layout, add
action to it and even group multiple Notifications using Notification channels.
8. Firebase on Android
If you hate being a backend developer, Firebase is the way for you.
Firebase is a mobile platform that helps you quickly develop high-quality apps,
grow your user base and earn more money. Firebase provides several utility
features to make the life of an Android developer easy.
To make your app visible in Google search you can use Firebase App Indexing
API. You can use cloud storage and cloud firestore to store data in your
server. If you need to automatically run backend code in response to events
triggered by Firebase features and HTTPS requests, use Cloud Functions. Next is
the Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) that lets you push notifications to your
clients. Using FCM, you can notify a client app that new email or other data is
available to sync. Use Firebase Crashlytics, which is a lightweight, real-time
crash reporter that helps you prioritize and fix stability issues. If you have
ever used deep links in your app, try Dynamic links. With Dynamic Links, your
users get the best available experience for the platform they open your link
on.
You might want to take a look at other Firebase features such as Firebase
Invites, Firebase Performance Monitoring and Firebase Remote Config.
9. Android security
Android has built-in security features that significantly reduce the
frequency and impact of application security issues. You can protect the user's
privacy by using permissions. Share data securely by using signature-based
permissions. Handle data security by using internal storage, external storage
and ContentProviders very cautiously. By default, never export your Android
component such as ContentProvider, Service or BroadcastReceiver unless you need
to.
Android has limited the capability of WebView to minimum functionality to
avoid web security issues such as cross-site scripting (JavaScript injection).
But still you need to be cautious and minimize the frequency of asking your
user's credential. Instead, use an authorization token and refresh it at
regular intervals.
10. Git: Version control system
Git is free and open-source software used for version control. Git lets you
experiment with new application features and coding techniques with confidence.
You can work on new crazy ideas for your project while your previous working
copy stays safe and secure. The moment you may realize you are evolving your
project in the wrong direction, you can restore your previous version,
hassle-free, and course correct.
As the world moves ever more into the mobile landscape, Android app
developers can be sure to find an audience for their creations, or bring great
value to companies in need of mobile app development skills.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sriyank Siddhartha is a passionate software developer and loves to share
his knowledge through his blogs and video courses. He follows "share and
gain" principle which led him to publish many courses online. Though he
has a deep love for Android he also specializes in other mobile app platforms
such as iOS and also web development frameworks such as Laravel. He started his
journey of sharing knowledge by holding hands-on workshops in various top level
Indian Institutes such as NITs and IITs which eventually made him the speaker
of one of the Google Developers Groups India which further supported his
workshops in many more institutions. Currently Sriyank is working as freelance
software developer and a proud online trainer. Apart from this, he loves to
travel and explore new places.
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Created on Jun 10th 2020 08:32. Viewed 302 times.