I am trying to use these cool set of add-ins that Google provides in the link below
http://developer.android.com/design/downloads/index.html
But I cannot understand how to integrate it with eclipse so that they are available directly as a drag and drop. Do you have any idea how to use it?
You cannot integrate into eclipse, because it only allows valid Views "linked" to your project (directly or from a library). These are just sources to make drawables. You have to create your own drawables from it. But if you're interested in holo theme, you should check the sources of android (API 11+). If you've installed, you can find it at /platforms/android-11/data/res/ . Maybe you find useful the HoloEverywhere project. But you can use the Action Bar Icon Pack, you have to copy the appropriate drawables to your project and when you drag an ImageView into the layout editor, you can choose the source from a dialog or you can enter path in xml.
EDIT
Forgot to mention, there is a very great online tool which will generate holo drawables with custom colors here.
After some digging up and watching Google IO 2012 videos on Design, the Design pack is actually a template for designers to create a UI before actually developing it. It contains a pack of action bar icons (These can be imported into your project), bunch of stencils that can be used with Adobe products to create an initial mock ups of your applications. Though, they cannot be directly imported into eclipse and used (as they are actually available already with the SDK), its a good guide to start design instead of actually coding and re-inventing afterwards.
Related
Is there any way to add widgets provided by Design Support Library in android studio design palette to drag & drop them in screen?
I am referring to android.support.design.widget.TextInputLayout, android.support.design.widget.TextInputEditText etc... in here:
I use some of them in my app and it compiles/runs on kitkat fine but I have to copy/paste them after googling or from old projects each time.
Am I doing something wrong on including them in my project or there is no way to display them there?
I'm trying to use Android's material icons in a View from within my app. I can't seem to find an example anywhere of how to reference them. I can't imagine, for this standard set of icons, that I'm required to copy and paste them into my actual app under the res directory. Surely there must be a simpler way since 90% of Android apps are using the same drawables! What I'm looking for is something like:
<TextView
...
android:drawableLeft="???" />
Is it possible to do this and reference the drawable from some package that I import? Or do I actually have to copy all the icons I want to use into my application resources? That seems completely unnecessary to me.
The developer guide says they're named */drawable-{{density}}/ic_{{name}}_{{color}}_{{size}}dp.png but it's precisely the * which I would like to know (and I hope it's not myapp/res/drawable!).
You can try Android Material Design Icon Generator plugin for Android Studio, If you are using Android Studio. Link to the plugin development Git repo is here
It is Easy and convenient. You can go through the image set and get the name from the google material design official website and then, you search for it and you can add that one to your project without any hassel.
Yes, you have to copy all your icons to your res folder. It's been said by Google somewhere. The "Material Icons" website clearly is oriented towards that and it makes it easier. One important reason to do this is that you'll want the icons to work not only in Lollipop, but also in previous Android versions.
In the cast resources page, a link to a icons set is available:
Nevertheless, this one is completely different to the provided by the v7 mediarouter library although is supposed to be the same as the included there:
What's the point of that? Any use guidelines for this zip?
On the other hand, this zip contains two different image sizes (24dp and 48dp). There's no clue of what it should be used for.
As told by a Google guy:
Please use the new cast icon from https://developers.google.com/cast/docs/downloads for the iOS app.
The icon in the mediarouter library will be updated alongside the new upcoming Google Play Services API release and will be therefore included automatically in your Android app.
...So lets stick with the latest version of Android library icons.
We are going to build a android library which will provide a API for developers to build applications which can embed certain charts easily (the charts would display specific contents particular to the API).
Since there are no charting libraries that are dominant in the market, what library would be ideal for this. Some of the chart types need to be developed for this that are currently not supported by any native libraries( like heatmaps). Keeping this in mind would you guys advice going in for a native lib or with webview embedded HTML/JS.
The problem with webview is that you cannot package assets(html/js) on a library project like resources. So its again a additional step for the developers using the library to copy the assets to the project.
Additional Info:
My API should allow the developer to easily embed a chart. Something like
<org.example.customPieChart
android:id="#+id=chart"
android:width="150dip"
android:height="150dip"
/>
And the API should take care of everything else. Only if the developer wants to change color, customize the stuff then possibly he will use the other parts of the API and do that.
I have used aChartEngine Library for the chart and its working fine. So I am suggesting you aChartEngine.
Is there a easy way to have our application look like ICS or JB?
Mainly the slider and the radio button. They look old when displayed in green.
Any hint about this?
There's a nice package available on github called HoloEverywhere.
One thing though, do not try pass it off as a ICS/JB Application, just because it "looks" like the user interface one would expect to see in a native ICS/JB Android set up.
Best that can be done with the project, is to target the latest SDK to guarantee your wide-market of Android usage, including GB.
Aim high, not low ;)
The best way is to use the Android Library 'Actionbar Sherlock'. This Library uses all native ICS Themes, etc for older devices.
ActionBarSherlock is an extension of the compatibility library designed to facilitate the use of the action bar design pattern across all versions of Android with a single API.