Android renderscript documentation - android

I am starting getting to know android renderscript and i've read everything that is on the android developer site, but it seems that there is not enough documentation, examples.. I was wondering if there is maybe a book that also has a part with explanation and some renderscript examples. I want to learn about it in depth, so if someone can provide links for books, examples, tutorials (anything would be of great help) i will appreciate it. Thank u in advance!!!

We are working on this documentation gap and plan to have updated docs within the next few weeks; however, it will still be a work in progress. If you have specific things that you want to do, let us know. In the meantime, there are samples packaged with the SDK that might help you get started: http://developer.android.com/resources/samples/RenderScript/index.html

I've posted a couple of RenderScript articles/tutorials on my blog. If they're of use, let me know. I've been debating whether I should make more, but it's tough to gauge interest in RenderScript.

There's very little documentation on Renderscript at this moment in time. Google has published a few posts about it, including the following on the Android Developers Blog, but apart from that, the information available is very limited.
http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2011/02/introducing-renderscript.html
http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2011/03/renderscript.html
Some documentation is also available here:
http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/renderscript/index.html
You can also find some examples here:
http://code.google.com/p/renderscript-examples/
The Android team has promised to add more documentation at some point in time, and I'm hopeful we'll get some more information when Ice Cream Sandwich launches.

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React-Native cross-platform example write once and use anywhere or DRY?

I am very new to React-Native and love it so far. Really great technology and very impressive tooling. I would like to propose it for use in my company.
However ... react-native examples demoing code-sharing btw Android and IOS platform are simply nowhere to find??? All I have found after 3-4 weeks looking into it is few excellent but only IOS examples. Below, are just few examples of articles lacking this. Although some of them claim in their title to cover both, they cover only IOS:
https://www.raywenderlich.com/165140/react-native-tutorial-building-ios-android-apps-javascript
https://mentormate.com/blog/react-native-components/
http://www.andevcon.com/news/take-a-crack-at-react-native-with-kyle-banks
https://appendto.com/2016/11/build-a-coffee-finder-app-with-react-native-and-the-yelp-api/
https://reactjs.co/react-native-convention/
https://www.lullabot.com/articles/build-native-ios-and-android-apps-with-react-native
https://code.facebook.com/posts/1189117404435352/react-native-for-android-how-we-built-the-first-cross-platform-react-native-app/
https://medium.com/#MentorMate/best-practices-for-building-an-app-with-react-native-components-7dee3b2b010f
https://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/creating-a-dictionary-app-using-react-native-for-android--cms-24969
http://facebook.github.io/react-native/docs/tutorial.html
... , this list could continue on and on but it should be enough to demonstrate the lack of good resources I'm talking about.
I understand react-native is cross platform in terms that you can write code for both Android and IOS, that is all clear and great.
But is it sharing the code? In other words, is it DRY? From what I see, it is write once for each platform rather than write once for all platforms. Again, I understand some Views (but not all) are platform specific but again, there is no example to show even that on both Android and IOS in the same project.
Where is a non-hello-world (real life) example to clearly demonstrates and teaches how to do that? React native used to have it in version 0.20 or so but it was removed and replaced with a HelloWorld example? Seriously #Facebook???
As per links above, lots of React-Native articles out-there are titled to cover both platforms but then they only talk about IOS without even mentioning any other platform? Very few talk about Android only, again, not even touching other platform in the same project. ... and lots of them are outdated!
I understand that the technology is very new (and very good from what I have seen so far, I really love it).
But assuming I have to propose React-Native as a next-gen platform to a company, I do not see any convincing cross-platform, code-sharing examples demoing this for both Android, IOS (UWP??) that I could help me learn, understand, build, and demo an example for that proposal.
I am not looking for chatty comments or links to courses but rather examples to show how to do this in more than just CRNA generated HelloWorld app.
Found the answer here https://www.codementor.io/vijayst/build-react-native-retrofitting-ios-app-to-android-gsf5uyl1q in the very 1st paragraph and it is exactly what I have been trying to get RN/Facebook answer but they ignored the question all the time.
Very disappointing!
So, ReactNative is not "build-once-use-everywhere" but rather "learn-once-use-everywhere" meaning lots of code duplication. And by everywhere, they mostly mean Android and IOS although the examples out-there are mainly IOS. If they cover both platforms, then it is with almost no code sharing but lots of code-duplication.
Although, RN claims they can achieve up to 90% of code sharing, that is not demonstrated anywhere that I could find. Documentation is very shallow in touching anything let alone topic of code-sharing and the tutorial provided by RN is a HelloWorld, ... yes, seriously. Sad! Although they used to have a better tutorial in older version (like 0.20 or so).
In terms of recommending RN to a company as a next-gen platform, I see few issues
concerning patent license, no answers no explanations, very obscure and concerning for a company that would consider moving to this, I'd rather say open-source under quotation marks. Hopefully this will change as I see it as a mayor showstopper for anyone considering adapting this technology. I would say this is no more applicable as FB made react-native licensed using MIT as per https://github.com/facebook/react-native/issues/16079
documentation that is very basic without giving depth of explanation. For example, this is react-native site with demo sample to demonstrate code-sharing cross-platform nature (I warn you, it is a HelloWorld example) https://facebook.github.io/react-native/docs/tutorial.html
React Native Community facebook page which is the page where you are supposed to find help and ask question as per react-native site will simply block you if you bring this topic on and will not let you in
even here on SO, questions like this (after extremely thorough and time consuming research) will earn you only downgrades and zero answers or even attempts
examples lack clarity and depth of explanation, it seem like whole community follow one pattern, copy / paste demonstrating code-duplication rather than code-sharing
Most examples cover (to most basic extent) only IOS although most claim cross-platform nature on both Android and IOS with Android being mentioned in the title only and the body covering only IOS
Impossible to ask for help on react-native site
Impossible to suggest improvement on react-native site other than create pull request. In other words, they want you to work for them for free
The framework is cross-platform, that is great but it is more of a copy/paste (copy from IOS into Android, then modify what needs modification) rather than code-sharing strategy. Every example I was able to find and it took me a month, was a violation of DRY principle in its best form
Although I mentioned things that bothered me at most during my research, I have to say that I hope this technology will thrive and become clear open source platform in future. I really like it and hope someone at #Facebook / #ReactNative will consider these suggestions, or at least provide improvements in the documentation, examples, access to community, place to ask questions and get help, clear licensing, ... all of which I was not able to get after spending a month researching RN.
Perhaps the technology is still not mature enough, which makes sense, it is very new.
Would I recommend it?
To developers yes, definitely. I really like it myself and will spend more time studying it.
To a company? Not really for the reason explained above.
UPDATES - Getting Better :):
... and to add my 2c to anyone who faced the same problem and contribute to community (at least in terms of finding tutorials that talk about both IOS and Android), I will keep posting links I have managed to find so far:
https://differential.com/insights/sharing-code-between-android-and-ios-in-react-native/ is very basic example. Not really code sharing but rather code duplication but at least something
https://www.codementor.io/vijayst/build-react-native-retrofitting-ios-app-to-android-gsf5uyl1q, also more of a code copying rather than code sharing but hey... going somewhere
https://hackernoon.com/getting-started-with-react-navigation-the-navigation-solution-for-react-native-ea3f4bd786a4 another good one
This document explains that RN philosophy is "learn once, write anywhere" rather than "write once, run anywhere" http://makeitopen.com/tutorials/building-the-f8-app/design/

Deprecated getTabHost() in HelloTabWidget tutorial

I was doing the HelloTabWidget tutorial
http://developer.android.com/resources/tutorials/views/hello-tabwidget.html
and getting errors on the "TabHost tabHost = getTabHost();" statement. I thumbed threw the stackOverflow notes and it seems a few people were having the same problem, and a few received responses along the lines of "Note: Tabactivitity deprecated in latest versions, consider learning Fragments" and discovered I can use ... the v4 support library which provides a version of the Fragment API that is compatible down to DONUT. although I haven't quiet figured out how to do this.
My question is - If the function is deprecated, and causing newbies problems, shouldn't the tutorials be updates to use the new functions? Is their a polite/politically correct way to let the people in charge of the tutorials know that an update may be in order? Or maybe new tutorials exist, and I'm just looking at an old URL?
shouldn't the tutorials be updates to use the new functions
Who exactly are you asking this to? Us? Why would we know why google hasn't updated their docs/tutorials.
is their a polite/politically correct way to let the people in charge
of the tutorials know that an update may be in order?
I'm very sure that they know. They probably have more important things to do. There are TONS of tutorials around the internet. They don't need to update all their tutorials.
Or maybe new tutorials exist, and I'm just looking at an old URL?
Search google. There's TONS of blogs that will give you lots of examples. Including here at stack overflow.

Android in app-billing implementation

I'm working on application which needs to implement In App-Billing payments and I was searching more info about it and find a library written by someone else and I'm curious about it. Is it good to be used and if anyone here already tried it. It seems like it's not so complicated to understand,but I just want to hear some information can I used it and is it stable enough. Here is the project code which I find :AndroidBillingLibrary.
So any suggestions / advices and information about that library is welcomed. Or anything else which will help me to understand more clearly in app-billing process in android (except the documentation in android.com) will be really great!
Thanks for any kind of help!
It very clearly states on the tin: 'This library is a very early release and it should not be used as production code'. So if you want to use it, you will have to understand how it works to be able to fix it when it breaks. You might as well write your own.
Read the official documentation, study the dungeons sample, try to understand and if you get stuck, post specific questions. Otherwise, just hire someone to do it for you.

Is "AndroidAnnotaions" reliable?

Is "AndroidAnnotations" reliable? I've searched it but couldn't find many articles on it(reviews or tutorials).
I've been considering using this library in my project which already has quite lots of users. Before adopting it, I need a good reputation on it. So my concerns mainly are,
Are there famous products using this library?
Can I say it's stable enough to adopt it for my big project?
Will it be maintained well? (bug fixes, etc)
Thanks in advance.
I am the lead developer of AndroidAnnotations. Let's answer your questions:
Can you rely on AndroidAnnotations?
I think so. AndroidAnnotations is a compile time framework which generates code. The generated code is readable java code, which means that if you need to understand what happens, you can. No magic happening at runtime => you are in control.
We try to maintain a list of external articles / tutorials here.
Are there famous products using this library?
Let's be honest: I don't know. Matthias Kaeppler from Qype talked about AndroidAnnotations at DroidCon London 2011. The frontpage lists the applications that we know for sure are using it. I know there are way more people using it because they ask for enhancements and report bugs, but they usually don't let us know when they publish an app. And of course, the idea of "writing clean and maintainable Android code" is not yet very common in the Android community.
Can I say it's stable enough to adopt it for my big project?
We are using it in our own apps, and we find it perfectly stable. So I would answer yes, but I think you should just try it :-) . Download the 2.2 RC2 (will be released stable soon), follow the instructions and see for yourself. You can do progressive enhancement, and start enhancing only one or two activities. See how it fits you, and let us know if anything goes wrong. And if you do release an app with AndroidAnnotations on the Android market, please let us know, we'll update the front page.
Will AndroidAnnotations be maintained?
Yes, it will. Although it started as a personal project, AndroidAnnotations is now sponsored by a company, eBusiness Information. This company employs people (including me) to work on AndroidAnnotations, with the aim of making it a major Open Source Android framework.
As you can see here and there, we are adding a lot of new features for the 2.2 release. And you won't find a lot of open Defects in the issues, because we concentrate on fixing any bug before adding new features.

How to manipulate Android classes

New to Android. Trying to find docs that show what Android classes expect to elicit changes. For example, to make a keyboard always visible, I could find some info searching Google, but not directly in the docs of the SDK. Is there a source for more comprehensive docs on how Android works not just from the individual class level, but how it boots up and what to do to make small tweaks for an app.
I don't know if this would be what you're looking for, but here's some information on packages and classes
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/inputmethodservice/package-summary.html
I've been teaching myself Android for about a month now and the best reference I've found so far is the Android Developer site, especially under the References and Resources pages.
Hopefully that helps a little bit. Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

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