Develop Reference

How does android retrieve data from a website?

I'm new to android, I'm trying to build an android app that is a front for a web portal. For example, Airbnb. They have a website, but they also have an android app that, using it's own layout, will show listings from their website.
There are many websites that teach how to or even directly convert your website to android apps. However, this will result in an app that loads too slowly and is unresponsive due to CPU usage.
Could anyone share any tutorial/guide to learn how to do this myself?
Million thanks.

To actually load data from a web server you're gonna need and API which usually delivers the proper date using JSON or XML format so that you can properly parse and display that data. Building this API is in it self a complete course on its own.
But connecting to and requesting data from the API is usually done using some networking libraries. These are some of the better know libraries for this purpose.
OkHttp: A complete library with a set of tools for handling network connections and HTTP requests.
RetroFit:Type-safe HTTP client for Android and Java by Square, Inc. which is built on top of OkHttp.
Async-Http-Client:
The Async Http Client library's purpose is to allow Java applications
to easily execute HTTP requests and asynchronously process the HTTP
responses. The library also supports the WebSocket Protocol. The Async
HTTP Client library is simple to use.
There tons of other good libraries.

its called webservices
Through android you get data in form of json from a web server and then return in custom view as you want.
Follow this link hope it will help
Step by Step Method to Access Webservice from Android

you would have to write an API/Web service or use if already exits to fetch data from web server. Basically the concept is that, the website itself must be pulling data from some database, so write an API which would fetch the data from same API and return JSON data and consume the API from your android app.
If you know PHP refere to this for the help :http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/267023/Send-and-receive-json-between-android-and-php

You can write WebService, in programming it generally refers to a web page(ex. Airbnb), that can be called from your android application which can pass in data to it, or receive data from it.
WebService is basically like a 'method' or 'function' in a normal programming language; except you're calling it over the internet.

The first thing is you have to create a Web Service. The Web Service will be your "bridge" to consume the data from other Website like airbnb or others and return the data to your android through json format for example.
You can create a Web Service using many languages like C#, Java, PHP, etc. I would like to recommend you to use the language that you know the most.
You can try to google this
Cheers

Socket.io and node.js example in android

I am new to socket programming i have to use socket.io and node.js to connect with my server host in android so can anyone please just describe me the programming example of how to connect to server in android. And if possible please give some help regarding node.js and socket.io. As i have searched everywhere on google but not able to find out the proper example.
Thanks

You can just have your web service be REST base.
Your Android application can just talk to your web server via REST and receive data json or xml whatever you fancy.
So with node.js you should set up routes.
An example would of a route would be
www.example.com/users via GET post would return a list of users either in JSON/XML
For your android application you need a library, I believe there's a built in one already, to make request for certain routes such as www.example.com/users via GET method and write the logic to expect JSON or XML and parse that.
I just googled this:
Android: https://github.com/koush/ion
As for node.js you just have to build route...
I think is would be better:
websocket api to replace rest api?
It actually invalidate my answers sorry, REST and websocket api are different.
I have no clue what problem exactly you have. But you should break your problems down to small part. And google and search for answer for each smaller part which would make your life easier to google.
Get your webservice up first so that your android software can consume stuff, build a prototype and then build a prototype of android app that consume data from that webservice.

How to connect android to python web services and MySQL database

I'm new to Android and to web services in general.
This is what i gotta do: My company has a back end website(for the client to monitor the sales) that's used to manage/monitor sales on some stores and it connects to a MySQL db to store data about sales and users(usernames and passwords).
What I want to do is to get data from that database and to add (sync operations) new rows, all of this from my android app.
I googled this many times and it came up with some similar projects but using another languages.
I would like to see some code samples if possible and some how-to theory, what theory should I follow when developing this, how and what ways of communicating between android and python web services and from the web services to the MySQL database.
Thank you in advance.

You will need a working API, that allows you to communicate to the web service from the android application. I would read into how to write an API and how to build a RESTful service using JSON as a way of communicating between server and android app. There are alternatives to JSON, but JSON is better suited for Android than perhaps AJAX and soap is being used less and less. (Can ajax call be done in Android? It can but has limitations)
(I could only post two full hyper links as i don't have enough reputation yet to do so, you may have to remove the spaces)
API:
http://sharismlab.com/blog/2012/07/21/how-to-write-an-api-for-your-web-app/
REST:
www .restapitutorial. com/lessons/whatisrest.html/
JSON:
htt p:// www.r evillweb.co m/article s/why-use-j son/

You may want to check out restjee. It allows you to define and implement RESTful data access APIs without having to write any server side code. Works with just about any database.

android application with server as j2ee

I am new to android, and i m working on an app dat needs some server side code.For that i m thinking to use J2ee, now tell me(the concept n requirement only) so that i can send the data like log in form details to server from sqlite of android, and after some processing i want to send notifications to client devices.( i know for that i have to use google C2Dm).
But the actual problem is how do i test these things on my pc,before publishing the app.
also tell me the tools dat i need to install beside android sdk , and the language that i need to learn that can synchronize or simply send android data to server.
I have seen that when we register in websites they send us message for conformation. which technology is used here.
and last after my app is ready how to publish it, the whole process(including where i will be putting my server database and server code).

Hi I would like to suggest you to implementing a REST based web service in Java EE server. You can use JSONObject to consume this restful service.
An example for using the JSONObject with REST is given in the link:
https://blogs.oracle.com/enterprisetechtips/entry/implementing_restful_web_services_in
http://javapostsforlearning.blogspot.in/2013/04/restful-web-service-tutorial.html
and to call Web Services from Android
http://java.dzone.com/articles/invoke-webservices-android
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/112381/Step-by-Step-Method-to-Access-Webservice-from-Andr
beside this lot of stuff you can find out through google!!
for needed tools visit
http://developer.android.com/tools/index.html
http://developer.android.com/tools/help/index.html

Creating Web Service for Android Application

I've been reading some info about Web Services for Android using SOAP or REST but I've never created a web service so I have many questions about this.
I'm developing an Android App where the users answer some questions and for each user an XML file is generated and saved in the device.
Here are my queries:
What I would like to do is to send these XML files from the devices to the Web Service and also sometimes to retrieve all the files to any
device.
Do I need to convert these files into Byte or just send the XML?
Are these actions possible with the Web Service or will you use Java Sockets? In case you prefer the Web Service, what would you use:
REST, SOAP.
I would appreciate some links to tutorials and piece of advise.

Use SQL Server to manage the data on your desktop and create a web-service in .NET on Visual Studio.
Then connect to the web-service in your application and set/get data from the DB, using web-services. You can use either XML or JSON to transfer your data between the phone and the server.
There is no need for the use of Java Socket API for this.
Links which might be useful :
How to make a web-service in .NET (does not include the implementation in Android) : http://srikanthtechnologies.com/blog/dotnet/wsdaljava.aspx
How to connect your service with Android :
http://seesharpgears.blogspot.in/2010/11/basic-ksoap-android-tutorial.html
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/304302/Calling-Asp-Net-Webservice-ASMX-From-an-Android-Ap
http://adrianandroid.blogspot.in/2012/05/access-c-net-web-service-in.html
Note: I have never worked on RESTful services. My work has always been on SOAP and hence it remains my preference.

Your final choice of how, exactly, to architect your app, is going to be based on all sorts of things that you haven't included in your questions: your experience, the experience of the other developers in the project, so on and so on.
I will say this, however. REST is deep in the heart of Android. If you decide to go with REST and, possibly, JSON instead of XML (there is, almost certainly, no reason to use byte arrays), you will find that Android's architecture supports you. SOAP and such and you are on your own.