I'm not looking for a mock up tool, I'm looking for a reasonable GUI design tool for the final product in the style of Apple's Interface Builder. Droid Draw is buggy, out of date and inaccurate in my experience. Using the Eclipse plug in to do a complex layout makes going to the dentist seem fun. I'd even settle for hand-coding CSS pixel coordinates over the current model. Is the solution found here: http://andrdev.blogspot.com/2010/01/gui-designer.html the best, or have one of you ninjas found something else? If there is an actively developed project that isn't ready for show yet, I'd like to know that as well.
I don't see why you'd want something like this (especially the tool you posted a link to). That would mean learning a whole new language just to use that tool. Why not learn the XML definitions directly? Yes, it's a relatively steep learning curve but once you're up to speed you'll see it's great. Also, doing XML by hand will allow you to optimize your layouts a lot (there are a few articles out there on how to do that).
As to the Eclipse plugin, I find it quite awesome, although I never use it directly. I don't add/remove/edit elements with it. I write my XML code and then test it with the plugin so I don't have to recompile the app > upload it on the emulator > run the app > go through all the activities to get to the one I'm editing right now, just to see that I need to add a little more padding.
Also, in general, it's best to use the tools you are given. Third party tools are very likely to become outdated, discontinued, deprecated, ...
In conclusion: do it the right way. Write your XML by hand. Use the Eclipse plugin as a convenience tool.
Related
The fact that Flutter heavily uses the word widget makes it difficult to find documentation on this topic.
On Android (I believe this isn't possible on iOS), we can add widgets on our home dashboard, allowing us to see app-related information or to trigger one-click actions without needing to open the app in question.
Is it possible to build such "widgets" in Dart & Flutter? Or should I do that in java and somehow plug it with my flutter app?
Can you share an example of a resource containing one?
EDIT: I have no android development experience, but it sounds like using a drawable canvas might do the trick.
I could find some canvas flutter code, but I can't connect the dots yet.
EDIT 2: From this Github issue, it looks like writing android home widgets in flutter is a no go since Flutter has its own rendering engine. I'm keen on learning kotlin to get this done, but if someone knew of nice tutorials to help me with that, that would be immensely helpful.
As the OP mentioned in an edit, this isn't currently possible because Flutter uses a custom rendering engine.
Widgets are quite limited in what they can render; the documentation explains that only certain layouts may be used. You could theoretically use Flutter's software renderer to render to an image in a seperate instance from the main one and display that, but that would be very technical, likely not very performant, and not straightforward at all!
Here is a quite detailed tutorial for widgets that guides you through creating a few examples although in Java. The same logic applies with just a few syntactical changes for Kotlin as the classes are pretty much interchangeable. However, realistically, most of the work is in the layout with some wiring in android; if you're already familiar with Android & Java, keep in mind that Kotlin does add a bit to your app size (The Kotlin runtime adds about 7,000 methods and ~1MB to your debug APK from the kotlin on android FAQ) and since most of your logic should be in flutter you probably won't have all that much Kotlin/Java code if this is all you're using it for (although if you're new to both Java & Kotlin, Kotlin is arguably more friendly in some ways).
Also, to be able to communicate between your flutter app and the java/kotlin backend, you'll need to use platform channels as described in the flutter documentation.
What I'm Trying to Do
I'm trying to create something that will allow customers to customize how our android application will be set up. This should be a UI editor that sits on our web server and, upon save, will communicate with our android project so that it can set itself up.
What I've Done So Far
I've been looking into something like a Business Project Management tool that can export itself as an XML (or equivalent). For example : https://demo.bpmn.io/new ... The file that even a simple diagram produces (BPMN) seems far more complicated than what we need, though.
What I Need
We can create something on our own or customize an open source project like this to better fit our needs, but I'm not sure if BPMN is the best approach and I've been having trouble finding sources to learn more about it. Is there a better approach I can take?
My project is still in its very early stages and I would like to make sure I'm at least starting off on a good path.
I'm writing a Android app for encrypting texts, and I wonder if I can use a extension language to write additional algorithms outside the app instead of writing them inside the app and recompile the source. After doing some researches, Lisp seems to be a good language to use, and I've come up with a few choices:
Write my own lisp. This seems to be viable, but I always have trouble with writing a new program, and debugging is very time-consuming. It won't be my first choice.
Use lisp written by others. I've been searching Java-lisp repos on Github, and I found some small projects that may be useful, but lack some important features I want to include. I can add more to others' projects and use, but because of the reason above, this is not a good choice either.
Use Clojure. This seems to be a good choice, because Clojure is a well maintained and supported language. The only problem left is how to integrate it into my app.
Number 3 is my preferred choice now, but I want to ask you to help me choose. Other solutions are also welcome. Thanks!
I am new to Android but not to programming. I have taken C++ in school and we have been taught how to create objects, but not how to build robust programs using multiple objects. So you can see that using java to build Android apps leaves me with questions.....
thinking like an object oriented programmer, do i just shop through a list of classes until i find ones that i think would suite my app
is there a definite method of choosing the best classes for your project
do i find an app similar to the one i am trying to create and try to find what classes they used
any thoughts appreciated!!!!!!
The best way to learn (for me, at least) is by making small incremental changes to an example so I can how all the various elements of it work.
Download the examples (listed here) - but accessible from your AVD and SDK manager tool from within Eclipse (Window -> Android SDK and AVD Manager).
Start by modifying those examples. They are the best possible examples you can get for much of what you will want to do.
I'd recommend you start with Tutorials and also read about Application Fundamentals - they should get you started. Also browsing Classes is useful if you like wading through lots of technical docs (I do). Those three links are definitely worth looking at.
Well first when building Android applications you need to:
Figure out what your application will be, and how it would work.
Next you would need to find out how you will implement the android classes.
i would recommend first reading a book on Android development. One that really helped me and made me an advance developer was CommonsWare
You should really get these books. When you finish you will be well on your way.
I was using DroidDraw, working through the tutorials. Looking at the resulting XML and the Java code to tie them together, I was thinking that I could build a program to automate that process, so I started noodling something together. But before I go off and totally remake the wheel, I was wondering if something like this hasn't already been made before?
I'm thinking of something that takes the layout XML from DroidDraw, and outputs a Java application that works, and is ready for you to add your own code.
It seems pretty basic, has it been done and I've just not spotted it? I've tried Google searches, but I don't see anything similar.
The built-in UI editor that comes with Eclipse used to be pretty crappy - however, it's now getting better and better. Rev 11, which is coming out soon will a lot of new and useful features also.
Give it a try - I think you'll find this is the best tool.
The resulting XML file you can take from DroidDraw requires no Java code.. you simply setContentView(R.layout.name) and that's it!
Just use IntelliJ or Eclipse to set up a skeleton project for you, and import the XML you created via DroidDraw.
There is App Inventor. I have not tried it myself but it sounds pretty much like what you want.
As far as I know it is a very visual approach to develop an application.