Android is currently one of the most popular platforms for building mobile apps. It is the platform that Google has singled out for itself and has been heavily working on since its inception on mobile platforms.

An open source platform that is linux based, Android has the potential of creating and enhancing the mobile app world for the end consumers. It has come with a user interface that is both desirable and absolutely connected for the consumers. There is no limitation to innovation Android platform as it can be customized to your OS hardware. Android uses Java programming language, familiarity with which can help you develop great many apps for this platform.

If you are just about to get started with android application development, this tutorial would be of great help to you. Normally people believe that app development is one difficult affair. This is what this tutorial will help you understand that it is not really a great deal when working with the world’s best app platform which is Android. 

The Prerequisites for App Development

The first prerequisite for developing an Android app is a PC that runs on Windows or Linux or a Mac. Let’s begin with a Windows based PC for this tutorial.

You need to Android SDK kit to get started with your app development process. Make sure you have the latest version of the kit installed on your PC. You will also need the Eclipse IDE for android application development. Basically you need to follow these steps in order to set the pace for android app development.

• Firstly you need to download and then install the Eclipse IDE in order to get started
• Once the IDE has been installed, your next step is to download and extract the SDK contents from the zip folder
• Now you will need plugins to conduct proper android app development. For this you need to download and install ADT plugin for Eclipse
• Now you will need to configure Eclipse such that it points to SDK
• Once these prerequisites are installed you are ready to get started with your first app development process

Developing your First App

You are now Eclipse and SDK powered! This is enough for you to get started with the android application development process.

Your first step is to open Eclipse and create a new android project. You can give it a name of your choice. A great example of the same would be “TestProject”

When you are creating a new android project, you will need to fill in the following details. Let’s understand what all you need to fill out in these given spaces.

Project Name: Here you will have to give a name to your application. Let’s say the name you have given it “TestProject”

Package Name: Package name is how your app will be named in Java files. The normal way to name your package is to write your domain name in reverse order

Activity Name: What does your android app do? The activity that your app will perform on the screen is what activity name denotes

Application Name: the name that will be shown in the UI is your application name and it is pretty important

Once you have created the project, you can view the same in the package explorer of your Eclipse.

The main screen folder contains all the Java source files you will need as part of the application. Testproject.javafile is the source file for the testproject that you just mentioned in the box. R.java is the file that tracks names of view, constant etc. android.jar will contain all the classes that you will probably use in the application development process and this is included in the java library. The res folder contains the resources needed for android application development. The androidmanifest.xml is the app configuration file that contains all the details necessary for android application development.

Modifying the User Interface

It’s time to get started with the actual development process. Remember the activity file test project? Now you need to double click on your source file in the package explorer. It would be named testproject.java

The testproject class extends to activity class. Once the activity is loaded, you will see that the oncreate() event handler is called. This will then load the default UI from the main.xml file. You would see that this main.xml is represented using namedR.layout.main. To bring change in the UI you will need to change the file named Views.

The UI is generally represented by an XML file. The toast class in the package will deal with the help and provide you with the necessary help.

Once you have modified the user interface to help serve your purpose, you need to test the app and finally load your app to Google play.

Author Bio:

Juned Ahmed is an enthusiast of mobile app development India and working at IndianAppDevelopers company as consultant, he like to share his idea about mobile technology, web development technology through blog and articles.