I've recently started programming my first android app in eclipse using java and xml and I'm relatively new to both languages.
My App will contain mostly static information for students in university which I plan to simply save as text in the xml itself but the clients wish to have a few pages on the app with content that they will be able to change regularly without having to look at or understand any code.
Basically what I'm looking to do is have a basic content management system that can only be accessed by the client and they can use it easily enough to change the content of those specific pages.
Any help would be great on this thanks!
If the information allows it you could integrate it inside a webview that the clients can update through an web content management system.
You need a web server from where you can send the updated info as push notifications.
Related
Suppose , i have a website and its running well . Now i want to make an android apps using website information or My apps will contain all the information of that website already contain or how can i connect an android apps with any website.
Some solution :
1. convert website into android apps (i don't need this).
2. JSON API (i think this is best option for me ).
May be there has so many option but this time i can't remember. option is best for me if it is possible . but i don't how to create a JSON API from website .
but i don't know how to do it. please let me know share something for better understand.
or if has any other better solution for this problem please let me know .
You could create a web app, using android native web view or some technologies like ionic, etc..., or create a comprehensive API endpoint in your backend/website and start build an android app from scratch.
creating a web app is a simpler approach but has so many shortcomings in design, functioning and flexibility aspect, so if you want a competitive app with a fine extendibility feature the best option is native android development. but it could be more costly as it needs both backend and android development.
If your website is already implemented and running, you can just create an Application using a https://developer.android.com/reference/android/webkit/WebView. Basically, this is an injected Browser, allowing the user to access your Website without actually open chrome/firefox etc. on the smartphone.
To improve the usability, the layout of your website should be able to dynamically resize the content.
If you wish to actually implement an application (Activities/Fragmets...) you need to connect to your backend server the same way your website is retrieving the information.
I am new to android app developing, I just wanna know the basic tools required to make an app.
Also please tell me how some apps like flipboard etc. update their contents without updating the whole app itself.
how some apps like flipboard etc. update their contents without updating the whole app itself.
They get their data from the internet, so their main database is in the server on the internet not in the apps. Hence, the applicaton it self is not updated, because the code is still same, only the data (taken from internet) changed.
To get the data from internet, you will need a web service (using REST or SOAP) and a server/hosting. For beginning, i suggest you to use XAMPP (apache + mySql) and using REST as web service.
For developing android app you can use android-studio, It is google recommended IDE for android development. Also you can checkout this link for tips android cliffnotes.
I have a website which is already created in Drupal. In one section it consists of a form with different fields which on submit returns you the result from the database.
I want to create an android application to access this search functionality by the form created in Android and also display the results there. Is there a way by which I can write some sort of web service which doesn't change any code for the website and give me desired results.
Can somebody guide me what can I do here? I don't have much knowledge of Drupal but I am familiar with PHP.
You will want to look at using the Services module. Sumit Kataria gave a good presentation on how one would go about developing android/iphone apps using Drupal as a base at DrupalCon Chicago 2011 (there is a video of the session). He covers more then what you are looking for, but does provides a good introduction on how to go about using services.
I'm trying to code a native android application that takes certain parts of a webpage and displays it. Basically I would want a search bar and several other things, so that I can have a clean fitted display on a mobile device. It is the same idea as the Facebook application, I am trying to create a stripped down version of a webpage.
I know how to download a full webpage using a WebView, but how can I take only certain parts of that webpage and display that instead?
EDIT: Is there any way to do this using just java and java-based api's?
(I am writing the application in native JAVA)
Best,
Aneem
It sounds to me like you effectively want to do 'web-scraping'.
I've done this by using an HTTPClient to pull a web-page which I then processed with HTMLCleaner to produce an XML document. I could then drill down through it to extract the various elements I needed (tables mostly).
You'll need to reverse-engineer the web page using the 'view source' capabilities of a web browser.
Be aware though that unless you have total control of the web page source, web-scraping is generally not a great way of producing a stable and extensible app. All it takes is for a re-design of the web page by whoever maintains it and it will potentially break your app completely forcing you to rewrite your HTML processing code.
EDIT: Actually, on the subject of the Facebook app - this isn't the same thing. There are published APIs for accessing Facebook which don't involve accessing the normal Facebook pages. The Facebook app is a 'native' Android app not a web app.
Its not sure from your question if your back-end has web api's implemented via REST, SOAP, whatever. If it does then you'd just use the necessary pieces widgets and all to implement your android application.
If it doesn't then there may not be a direct way to implement what you want. So I'd suggest looking into the back end first before looking at this aspect.
However, you might want to look at PhoneGap if you want to implement a cross platform solution.
I'm developing an app for a company that will include profiles of some clients. The company wants the clients to be able to update information on their profile from the company's website through a secure log-in. I want to do this in a way that the content could be updated without the application users needing to update the .APK.
I'm relatively new to Android development and I'm not quite sure how to do this. Would love the simplest way of doing this. If simple isn't the best way to go about it, I'm open to other suggestions.
Thank you.
The website should have a webservice backend.
Your Android app needs to implement the protocol for that
webservice.
See for example this link http://fahmirahman.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/connection-between-php-server-and-android-client-using-http-and-json/ for a tutorial or search for others.