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Android App Development

Android is an open source operating system for mobile devices based on Linux. It offers a unified approach to application development allowing developers to write applications that run on different Android devices. Android applications are built using common application components like activities, services, broadcast receivers, and content providers along with additional components like fragments, views, layouts, intents, and resources. The applications are written in Java and run on the Dalvik virtual machine.

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Android App Development

Uploaded by

Mallikarjun Rao

Available Formats

Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

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Android is an open source and Linux-based Operating System for mobile devices such as smart phones

and tablet computers. Android was developed by the Open Handset Alliance, led by Google, and other
companies.

Android offers a unified approach to application development for mobile devices which means developers
need only develop for Android, and their applications should be able to run on different devices powered
by Android.

Features of Android
Android is a powerful operating system competing with Apple 4GS and supports great features. Few of
them are listed below

Sr.No. Feature & Description

1 Beautiful UI
Android OS basic screen provides a beautiful and intuitive user interface.

2 Connectivity
GSM/EDGE, IDEN, CDMA, EV-DO, UMTS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, LTE, NFC and WiMAX.

3 Storage
SQLite, a lightweight relational database, is used for data storage purposes.

4 Media support
H.263, H.264, MPEG-4 SP, AMR, AMR-WB, AAC, HE-AAC, AAC 5.1, MP3, MIDI, Ogg
Vorbis, WAV, JPEG, PNG, GIF, and BMP.

5 Messaging
SMS and MMS

6 Web browser
Based on the open-source WebKit layout engine, coupled with Chrome's V8 JavaScript
engine supporting HTML5 and CSS3.

7 Multi-touch
Android has native support for multi-touch which was initially made available in handsets
such as the HTC Hero.

8 Multi-tasking
User can jump from one task to another and same time various application can run
simultaneously.

9 Resizable widgets
Widgets are resizable, so users can expand them to show more content or shrink them to
save space.
10 Multi-Language
Supports single direction and bi-directional text.

11 GCM
Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) is a service that lets developers send short message data to
their users on Android devices, without needing a proprietary sync solution.

12 Wi-Fi Direct
A technology that lets apps discover and pair directly, over a high-bandwidth peer-to-peer
connection.

13 Android Beam
A popular NFC-based technology that lets users instantly share, just by touching two NFC-
enabled phones together.

Android applications are usually developed in the Java language using the Android Software Development
Kit.

Once developed, Android applications can be packaged easily and sold out either through a store such
as Google Play, SlideME, Opera Mobile Store, Mobango, F-droid and the Amazon Appstore.

This tutorial teaches you how to develop and package Android application.

You can start your Android application development on either of the following operating systems

Microsoft Windows XP or later version.

Mac OS X 10.5.8 or later version with Intel chip.

Linux including GNU C Library 2.7 or later.

The list of software's you will need before you start your Android application programming.

Java JDK5 or later version

Android Studio

Download the latest version of Java JDK from Oracle's Java site Java SE Downloads.

Finally set PATH and JAVA_HOME environment variables to refer to the directory that
contains java and javac, typically java_install_dir/bin and java_install_dir respectively.

Android operating system is a stack of software components which is roughly divided into five sections and
four main layers as shown below in the architecture diagram.
Libraries
Android Libraries
Some key Java-based core Android libraries available to the Android developer is as
follows

android.app Provides access to the application model and is the cornerstone of all
Android applications.

android.content Facilitates content access, publishing and messaging between

applications and application components.

android.database Used to access data published by content providers and includes

SQLite database management classes.

android.opengl A Java interface to the OpenGL ES 3D graphics rendering API.

android.os Provides applications with access to standard operating system services

including messages, system services and inter-process communication.

android.text Used to render and manipulate text on a device display.

android.view The fundamental building blocks of application user interfaces.

android.widget A rich collection of pre-built user interface components such as

buttons, labels, list views, layout managers, radio buttons etc.

android.webkit A set of classes intended to allow web-browsing capabilities to be built

into applications.

Dalvik Virtual Machine which is a kind of Java Virtual Machine specially designed and optimized for
Android.

The Dalvik VM makes use of Linux core features like memory management and multi-threading, which is
intrinsic in the Java language. The Dalvik VM enables every Android application to run in its own process,
with its own instance of the Dalvik virtual machine.

The Android runtime also provides a set of core libraries which enable Android application developers to
write Android applications using standard Java programming language.

The Application Framework layer provides many higher-level services to applications

in the form of Java classes. Application developers are allowed to make use of these
services in their applications.

The Android framework includes the following key services

Activity Manager Controls all aspects of the application lifecycle and activity stack.
Content Providers Allows applications to publish and share data with other
applications.

Resource Manager Provides access to non-code embedded resources such as strings,

color settings and user interface layouts.

Notifications Manager Allows applications to display alerts and notifications to the

user.

View System An extensible set of views used to create application user interfaces.

All the Android applications are at the top layer. You will write your application to be installed on this layer
only. Examples of such applications are Contacts Books, Browser, Games etc.

Application components are the essential building blocks of an Android application. These components are
loosely coupled by the application manifest file AndroidManifest.xml that describes each component of the
application and how they interact.

There are following four main components that can be used within an Android application

Sr.No Components & Description

Activities
1
They dictate the UI and handle the user interaction to the smart phone screen.

Services
2
They handle background processing associated with an application.

Broadcast Receivers
3
They handle communication between Android OS and applications.

Content Providers
4
They handle data and database management issues.

An activity represents a single screen with a user interface,in-short Activity performs actions on the screen.
For example, an email application might have one activity that shows a list of new emails, another activity
to compose an email, and another activity for reading emails. If an application has more than one activity,
then one of them should be marked as the activity that is presented when the application is launched.

An activity is implemented as a subclass of Activity class as follows

public class MainActivity extends Activity

{
}
A service is a component that runs in the background to perform long-running operations. For example, a
service might play music in the background while the user is in a different application, or it might fetch
data over the network without blocking user interaction with an activity.

A service is implemented as a subclass of Service class as follows

public class MyService extends Service

{
}

Broadcast Receivers simply respond to broadcast messages from other applications

or from the system. For example, applications can also initiate broadcasts to let
other applications know that some data has been downloaded to the device and is
available for them to use, so this is broadcast receiver who will intercept this
communication and will initiate appropriate action.

A broadcast receiver is implemented as a subclass of BroadcastReceiver class and each message is

broadcaster as an Intent object.

public class MyReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver

{
public void onReceive(context,intent){}
}

A content provider component supplies data from one application to others on request. Such requests are
handled by the methods of the ContentResolver class. The data may be stored in the file system, the
database or somewhere else entirely.

A content provider is implemented as a subclass of ContentProvider class and must implement a standard
set of APIs that enable other applications to perform transactions.

public class MyContentProvider extends ContentProvider

{
public void onCreate(){}
}

There are additional components which will be used in the construction of above
mentioned entities, their logic, and wiring between them.
These components are

S.No Components & Description

Fragments
1
Represents a portion of user interface in an Activity.

Views
2
UI elements that are drawn on-screen including buttons, lists forms etc.

Layouts
3
View hierarchies that control screen format and appearance of the views.

Intents
4
Messages wiring components together.

Resources
5
External elements, such as strings, constants and drawable pictures.

Manifest
6
Configuration file for the application.

Let us start actual programming with Android Framework. Make sure that you have set-up your Android
development environment properly and should have a little bit working knowledge with Android studio.

Write a simple Android Application which will print "Hello World!"

The first step is to create a simple Android Application using Android studio. When you click on Android
studio icon, it will show screen as shown below
You can start your application development by calling start a new android studio project. in a new
installation frame should ask Application name, package information and location of the project.

After entered application name, it going to be called select the form factors your application runs on, here
need to specify Minimum SDK, I have declared as API23: Android 6.0(Mashmallow)

The next level of installation should contain selecting the activity to mobile, it specifies the default layout
for Applications.
At the final stage it going to be open development tool to write the application code.

Before you run your app, you should be aware of a few directories and files in the Android project
Sr.No. Folder, File & Description

Java
This contains the .java source files for your project. By default, it includes
1
an MainActivity.java source file having an activity class that runs when your app is launched
using the app icon.

res/drawable-hdpi
2
This is a directory for drawable objects that are designed for high-density screens.

res/layout
3
This is a directory for files that define your app's user interface.

res/values
4
This is a directory for other various XML files that contain a collection of resources, such as
strings and colours definitions.

AndroidManifest.xml

5 This is the manifest file which describes the fundamental characteristics of the app and
defines each of its components.

Build.gradle

6 This is an auto generated file which contains compileSdkVersion, buildToolsVersion,

applicationId, minSdkVersion, targetSdkVersion, versionCode and versionName

The Main Activity File

The main activity code is a Java file MainActivity.java. This is the actual application file which ultimately
gets converted to a Dalvik executable and runs your application. Following is the default code generated by
the application wizard for Hello World! application

package com.example.helloworld;

import android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity;

import android.os.Bundle;

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {

@Override

protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {

super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

Here, R.layout.activity_main refers to the activity_main.xml file located in the res/layout folder.
The onCreate() method is one of many methods that are figured when an activity is loaded.

The Manifest File

Whatever component you develop as a part of your application, you must declare all its components in
a manifest.xml which resides at the root of the application project directory. This file works as an interface
between Android OS and your application, so if you do not declare your component in this file, then it will
not be considered by the OS. For example, a default manifest file will look like as following file

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

Here <application>...</application> tags enclosed the components related to the application.

Attribute android:icon will point to the application icon available under res/drawable-hdpi. The application
uses the image named ic_launcher.png located in the drawable folders

The <activity> tag is used to specify an activity and android:name attribute specifies the fully qualified
class name of the Activity subclass and the android:label attributes specifies a string to use as the label for
the activity. You can specify multiple activities using <activity> tags.

The action for the intent filter is named android.intent.action.MAIN to indicate that this activity serves as
the entry point for the application. The category for the intent-filter is
named android.intent.category.LAUNCHER to indicate that the application can be launched from the
device's launcher icon.

The @string refers to the strings.xml file explained below. Hence, @string/app_name refers to
the app_name string defined in the strings.xml file, which is "HelloWorld". Similar way, other strings get
populated in the application.

Following is the list of tags which you will use in your manifest file to specify different Android
application components

<activity>elements for activities

<service> elements for services
<receiver> elements for broadcast receivers
<provider> elements for content providers

The Strings File

The strings.xml file is located in the res/values folder and it contains all the text that your application uses.
For example, the names of buttons, labels, default text, and similar types of strings go into this file. This
file is responsible for their textual content.

For example, a default strings file will look like as following file

<resources>
<string name="app_name">HelloWorld</string>
<string name="hello_world">Hello world!</string>
<string name="menu_settings">Settings</string>
<string name="title_activity_main">MainActivity</string>
</resources>

The Layout File

The activity_main.xml is a layout file available in res/layout directory that is referenced by your
application when building its interface. You will modify this file very frequently to change the layout of
your application.

For your "Hello World!" application, this file will have following content related to default layout

</RelativeLayout>

This is an example of simple RelativeLayout which we will study in a separate chapter. The TextView is an
Android control used to build the GUI and it have various attributes like
android:layout_width, android:layout_height etc
which are being used to set its width and height etc..
The @string refers to the strings.xml file located in the res/values folder. Hence, @string/hello_world
refers to the hello string defined in the strings.xml file, which is "Hello World!".
Running the Application
Create your AVD while doing environment set-up. To run the app from Android studio, open one of your
project's activity files and click Run icon from the tool bar. Android studio installs the app on your AVD
and starts it and if everything is fine with your set-up and application, it will display following Emulator
window

There are many more items which you use to build a good Android application. Apart from coding for the
application, you take care of various other resources like static content that your code uses, such as bitmaps,
colors, layout definitions, user interface strings, animation instructions, and more. These resources are
always maintained separately in various sub-directories under res/ directory of the project.

This is how you can organize your application resources, specify alternative resources and access them in
your applications.

Organize resource in Android Studio

MyProject/

app/

manifest/

AndroidManifest.xml

java/
MyActivity.java

res/

drawable/

icon.png

layout/

activity_main.xml

info.xml

values/

strings.xml

Sr.No. Directory & Resource Type

1
anim/
XML files that define property animations. They are saved in res/anim/ folder and
accessed from the R.anim class.

2 color/
XML files that define a state list of colors. They are saved in res/color/ and accessed
from the R.color class.

3
drawable/
Image files like .png, .jpg, .gif or XML files that are compiled into bitmaps, state lists,
shapes, animation drawable. They are saved in res/drawable/ and accessed from
the R.drawable class.

4 layout/
XML files that define a user interface layout. They are saved in res/layout/ and
accessed from the R.layout class.

5 menu/
XML files that define application menus, such as an Options Menu, Context Menu, or
Sub Menu. They are saved in res/menu/ and accessed from the R.menu class.

6 raw/
Arbitrary files to save in their raw form. You need to
call Resources.openRawResource() with the resource ID, which is R.raw.filename to
open such raw files.

7 values/
XML files that contain simple values, such as strings, integers, and colors. For example,
here are some filename conventions for resources you can create in this directory
arrays.xml for resource arrays, and accessed from the R.array class.
integers.xml for resource integers, and accessed from the R.integer class.
bools.xml for resource boolean, and accessed from the R.bool class.
colors.xml for color values, and accessed from the R.color class.
dimens.xml for dimension values, and accessed from the R.dimen class.
strings.xml for string values, and accessed from the R.string class.
styles.xml for styles, and accessed from the R.style class.

8
xml/
Arbitrary XML files that can be read at runtime by calling Resources.getXML(). You can
save various configuration files here which will be used at run time.

Your application should provide alternative resources to support specific device configurations. For
example, you should include alternative drawable resources ( i.e.images ) for different screen resolution
and alternative string resources for different languages. At runtime, Android detects the current device
configuration and loads the appropriate resources for your application.

To specify configuration-specific alternatives for a set of resources, follow the following steps

Create a new directory in res/ named in the form <resources_name>-<config_qualifier>.

Here resources_name will be any of the resources mentioned in the above table, like layout, drawable etc.
The qualifier will specify an individual configuration for which these resources are to be used. You can
check official documentation for a complete list of qualifiers for different type of resources.

Save the respective alternative resources in this new directory. The resource files must be named
exactly the same as the default resource files as shown in the below example, but these files will
have content specific to the alternative. For example though image file name will be same but for
high resolution screen, its resolution will be high.

Below is an example which specifies images for a default screen and alternative images for high resolution
screen.

MyProject/
app/
manifest/
AndroidManifest.xml
java/
MyActivity.java
res/
drawable/
icon.png
background.png
drawable-hdpi/
icon.png
background.png
layout/
activity_main.xml
info.xml
values/
strings.xml
Below is another example which specifies layout for a default language and alternative layout for Arabic
language.

During your application development you will need to access defined resources either in your code, or in
your layout XML files. Following section explains how to access your resources in both the scenarios

When your Android application is compiled, a R class gets generated, which contains resource IDs for all
the resources available in your res/ directory. You can use R class to access that resource using sub-
directory and resource name or directly resource ID.

Example
To access res/drawable/myimage.png and set an ImageView you will use following
code

ImageView imageView = (ImageView) findViewById(R.id.myimageview);

imageView.setImageResource(R.drawable.myimage);

Here first line of the code make use of R.id.myimageview to get ImageView defined with
id myimageview in a Layout file. Second line of code makes use of R.drawable.myimage to get an image
with name myimage available in drawable sub-directory under /res.

Example
Consider next example where res/values/strings.xml has following definition

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<resources>
<string name="hello">Hello, World!</string>
</resources>

Now you can set the text on a TextView object with ID msg using a resource ID as follows
TextView msgTextView = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.msg);
msgTextView.setText(R.string.hello);

Example
Consider a layout res/layout/activity_main.xml with the following definition

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

This application code will load this layout for an Activity, in the onCreate() method as
follows

public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState)

{
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.main_activity);
}
Consider the following resource XML res/values/strings.xml file that includes a color resource and a string
resource

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<resources>
<color name="opaque_red">#f00</color>
<string name="hello">Hello!</string>
</resources>
Now you can use these resources in the following layout file to set the text color and text string as follows
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<EditText xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:textColor="@color/opaque_red"
android:text="@string/hello" />
Android system initiates its program within an Activity starting with a call on onCreate() callback method.
There is a sequence of callback methods that start up an activity and a sequence of callback methods that
tear down an activity as shown in the below Activity life cycle diagram:

The Activity class defines the following call backs i.e. events. You don't need to implement all the
callbacks methods. However, it's important that you understand each one and implement those that ensure
your app behaves the way users expect.
Sr.No Callback & Description

onCreate()
1
This is the first callback and called when the activity is first created.

onStart()
2
This callback is called when the activity becomes visible to the user.

onResume()
3
This is called when the user starts interacting with the application.

onPause()
4 The paused activity does not receive user input and cannot execute any code and called
when the current activity is being paused and the previous activity is being resumed.

onStop()
5
This callback is called when the activity is no longer visible.

onDestroy()
6
This callback is called before the activity is destroyed by the system.

onRestart()
7
This callback is called when the activity restarts after stopping it.

This example will take you through simple steps to show Android application activity life cycle. Follow the
following steps to modify the Android application we created in Hello World Example chapter

Step Description

1 You will use Android studio to create an Android application and name it
as HelloWorld under a package com.example.helloworld as explained in the Hello World
Example chapter.

2 Modify main activity file MainActivity.java as explained below. Keep rest of the files
unchanged.

3 Run the application to launch Android emulator and verify the result of the changes done in
the application.

Following is the content of the modified main activity

file src/com.example.helloworld/MainActivity.java. This file includes each of the fundamental life cycle
methods. The Log.d() method has been used to generate log messages
package com.example.helloworld;

import android.os.Bundle;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.util.Log;

public class MainActivity extends Activity

{
String msg = "Android : ";
/** Called when the activity is first created. */
@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState)
{
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
Log.d(msg, "The onCreate() event");
}
/** Called when the activity is about to become visible. */
@Override
protected void onStart()
{
super.onStart();
Log.d(msg, "The onStart() event");
}

/** Called when the activity has become visible. */

@Override
protected void onResume()
{
super.onResume();
Log.d(msg, "The onResume() event");
}
/** Called when another activity is taking focus. */
@Override

protected void onPause()

{
super.onPause();
Log.d(msg, "The onPause() event");
}
/** Called when the activity is no longer visible. */
@Override
protected void onStop()
{
super.onStop();
Log.d(msg, "The onStop() event");
}

/** Called just before the activity is destroyed. */

@Override
public void onDestroy()
{
super.onDestroy();
Log.d(msg, "The onDestroy() event");
}
}

An activity class loads all the UI component using the XML file available in res/layout folder of the
project. Following statement loads UI components from res/layout/activity_main.xml file:

setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

An application can have one or more activities without any restrictions. Every activity you define for your
application must be declared in your AndroidManifest.xml file and the main activity for your app must be
declared in the manifest with an <intent-filter> that includes the MAIN action and LAUNCHER category
as follows:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<application
android:allowBackup="true"
android:icon="@mipmap/ic_launcher"

android:label="@string/app_name"
android:supportsRtl="true"
android:theme="@style/AppTheme">
<activity android:name=".MainActivity">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
</application>

</manifest>

If either the MAIN action or LAUNCHER category are not declared for one of your activities, then your
app icon will not appear in the Home screen's list of apps.

Run modified Hello World application and create an AVD while doing environment setup. To run the app
from Android studio, open one of your project's activity files and click Run icon from the toolbar. Android
studio installs the app on your AVD and starts it and if everything is fine with your setup and application, it
will display Emulator window and you should see log messages in LogCat window in Android studio.

A service is a component that runs in the background to perform long-running operations without needing to
interact with the user and it works even if application is destroyed. A service can essentially take two states

Sr.No. State & Description

1
Started
A service is started when an application component, such as an activity, starts it
by calling startService(). Once started, a service can run in the background
indefinitely, even if the component that started it is destroyed.

2
Bound
A service is bound when an application component binds to it by
calling bindService(). A bound service offers a client-server interface that allows
components to interact with the service, send requests, get results, and even do so
across processes with interprocess communication (IPC).

A service has life cycle callback methods that you can implement to monitor changes in
the service's state and you can perform work at the appropriate stage. The following
diagram on the left shows the life cycle when the service is created with startService()
and the diagram on the right shows the life cycle when the service is created with
bindService():
To create a service, you create a Java class that extends the Service base class or one of its existing
subclasses. The Service base class defines various callback methods and the most important are given
below. You don't need to implement all the callbacks methods. However, it's important that you understand
each one and implement those that ensure your app behaves the way users expect.

Sr.No. Callback & Description

1 onStartCommand()
The system calls this method when another component, such as an activity,
requests that the service be started, by calling startService(). If you implement this
method, it is your responsibility to stop the service when its work is done, by
calling stopSelf() or stopService() methods.

2 onBind()
The system calls this method when another component wants to bind with the
service by calling bindService(). If you implement this method, you must provide an
interface that clients use to communicate with the service, by returning
an IBinder object. You must always implement this method, but if you don't want to
allow binding, then you should return null.
3
onUnbind()
The system calls this method when all clients have disconnected from a particular
interface published by the service.

4
onRebind()
The system calls this method when new clients have connected to the service, after
it had previously been notified that all had disconnected in its onUnbind(Intent).

5 onCreate()
The system calls this method when the service is first created
using onStartCommand() or onBind(). This call is required to perform one-time set-
up.

6 onDestroy()
The system calls this method when the service is no longer used and is being
destroyed. Your service should implement this to clean up any resources such as
threads, registered listeners, receivers, etc.

The following skeleton service demonstrates each of the life cycle methods
package com.tutorialspoint;

import android.app.Service;
import android.os.IBinder;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.os.Bundle;

public class HelloService extends Service

{

/** indicates how to behave if the service is killed */

int mStartMode;

/** interface for clients that bind */

IBinder mBinder;

/** indicates whether onRebind should be used */

boolean mAllowRebind;

/** Called when the service is being created. */

@Override
public void onCreate()
{

/** The service is starting, due to a call to startService() */

@Override
public int onStartCommand(Intent intent, int flags, int startId)
{
return mStartMode;
}

/** A client is binding to the service with bindService() */

@Override
public IBinder onBind(Intent intent)
{
return mBinder;
}

/** Called when all clients have unbound with unbindService() */

@Override
public boolean onUnbind(Intent intent)
{
return mAllowRebind;
}

/** Called when a client is binding to the service with bindService()*/

@Override
public void onRebind(Intent intent)
{

/** Called when The service is no longer used and is being destroyed */
@Override
public void onDestroy()
{

}
}

This example will take you through simple steps to show how to create your own Android Service. Follow
the following steps to modify the Android application we created in Hello World Example chapter

Step Description

1 You will use Android StudioIDE to create an Android application and name it as My Application under a
package com.example.tutorialspoint7.myapplication as explained in the Hello World Example chapter.

2 Modify main activity file MainActivity.java to add startService() and stopService() methods.

3 Create a new java file MyService.java under the package com.example.My Application. This file will have
implementation of Android service related methods.

4 Define your service in AndroidManifest.xml file using <service.../> tag. An application can have one or more
services without any restrictions.
5 Modify the default content of res/layout/activity_main.xml file to include two buttons in linear layout.

6 No need to change any constants in res/values/strings.xml file. Android studio take care of string values

7 Run the application to launch Android emulator and verify the result of the changes done in the application.

Following is the content of the modified main activity file MainActivity.java. This file
can include each of the fundamental life cycle methods. We have
added startService() and stopService() methods to start and stop the service.

package com.example.tutorialspoint7.myapplication;

import android.content.Intent;
import android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity;
import android.os.Bundle;

import android.os.Bundle;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.util.Log;
import android.view.View;

public class MainActivity extends Activity {

String msg = "Android : ";

/** Called when the activity is first created. */

@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
Log.d(msg, "The onCreate() event");
}

public void startService(View view) {

startService(new Intent(getBaseContext(), MyService.class));
}
// Method to stop the service
public void stopService(View view) {
stopService(new Intent(getBaseContext(), MyService.class));
}
}

Following is the content of MyService.java. This file can have implementation of

one or more methods associated with Service based on requirements. For now we
are going to implement only two methods onStartCommand() and onDestroy()

package com.example.tutorialspoint7.myapplication;

import android.app.Service;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.os.IBinder;
import android.support.annotation.Nullable;
import android.widget.Toast;

/**
* Created by TutorialsPoint7 on 8/23/2016.
*/

public class MyService extends Service {

@Nullable
@Override
public IBinder onBind(Intent intent) {
return null;
}

@Override
public int onStartCommand(Intent intent, int flags, int startId) {
// Let it continue running until it is stopped.
Toast.makeText(this, "Service Started", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
return START_STICKY;
}

@Override
public void onDestroy() {
super.onDestroy();
Toast.makeText(this, "Service Destroyed", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
}
}

Following will the modified content of AndroidManifest.xml file. Here we have added
<service.../> tag to include our service
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
package="com.example.tutorialspoint7.myapplication">

<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />

</intent-filter>
</activity>

<service android:name=".MyService" />

</application>

</manifest>

Following will be the content of res/layout/activity_main.xml file to include two

buttons

</RelativeLayout>

Let's try to run our modified Hello World application we just modified. I assume you had created
your AVD while doing environment setup. To run the app from Android studio, open one of your project's
activity files and click Run icon from the tool bar. Android Studio installs the app on your AVD and
starts it and if everything is fine with your set-up and application, it will display following Emulator
window

Now to start your service, let's click on Start Service button, this will start the service and as per our
programming in onStartCommand() method, a message Service Started will appear on the bottom of the
simulator as follows To stop the service, you can click the Stop Service button.

Broadcast Receivers simply respond to broadcast messages from other applications or

from the system itself. These messages are sometime called events or intents. For
example, applications can also initiate broadcasts to let other applications know that
some data has been downloaded to the device and is available for them to use, so this is
broadcast receiver who will intercept this communication and will initiate appropriate
action.
There are following two important steps to make BroadcastReceiver works for the
system broadcasted intents

Creating the Broadcast Receiver.

Registering Broadcast Receiver

There is one additional steps in case you are going to implement your custom intents
then you will have to create and broadcast those intents.

Creating the Broadcast Receiver

A broadcast receiver is implemented as a subclass of BroadcastReceiver class and overriding the
onReceive() method where each message is received as a Intent object parameter.

public class MyReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver {

@Override
public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
Toast.makeText(context, "Intent Detected.", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
}
}

Registering Broadcast Receiver

An application listens for specific broadcast intents by registering a broadcast receiver
in AndroidManifest.xml file. Consider we are going to register MyReceiver for system generated event
ACTION_BOOT_COMPLETED which is fired by the system once the Android system has completed the
boot process.

BROADCAST-RECEIVER
<application
android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"
android:label="@string/app_name"
android:theme="@style/AppTheme" >
<receiver android:name="MyReceiver">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.BOOT_COMPLETED">
</action>
</intent-filter>

</receiver>
</application>

Now whenever your Android device gets booted, it will be intercepted by

BroadcastReceiver MyReceiver and implemented logic inside onReceive() will be
executed.

There are several system generated events defined as final static fields in
the Intent class. The following table lists a few important system events.

Sr.No Event Constant & Description

android.intent.action.BATTERY_CHANGED
1
Sticky broadcast containing the charging state, level, and other information about the battery.

android.intent.action.BATTERY_LOW
2
Indicates low battery condition on the device.

android.intent.action.BATTERY_OKAY
3
Indicates the battery is now okay after being low.

android.intent.action.BOOT_COMPLETED
4
This is broadcast once, after the system has finished booting.

android.intent.action.BUG_REPORT
5
Show activity for reporting a bug.

android.intent.action.CALL
6
Perform a call to someone specified by the data.

android.intent.action.CALL_BUTTON
7
The user pressed the "call" button to go to the dialer or other appropriate UI for placing a call.

android.intent.action.DATE_CHANGED
8
The date has changed.

android.intent.action.REBOOT
9
Have the device reboot.

Broadcasting Custom Intents

If you want your application itself should generate and send custom intents then you will have to create and
send those intents by using the sendBroadcast() method inside your activity class. If you use
the sendStickyBroadcast(Intent) method, the Intent is sticky, meaning the Intent you are sending stays
around after the broadcast is complete.

public void broadcastIntent(View view) {

Intent intent = new Intent();
intent.setAction("com.tutorialspoint.CUSTOM_INTENT");
sendBroadcast(intent);
}

This intent com.tutorialspoint.CUSTOM_INTENT can also be registered in similar way

as we have regsitered system generated intent.

<intent-filter>
<action android:name="com.tutorialspoint.CUSTOM_INTENT">
</action>
</intent-filter>

</receiver>
</application>

Example
This example will explain you how to create BroadcastReceiver to intercept custom
intent. Once you are familiar with custom intent, then you can program your
application to intercept system generated intents. So let's follow the following steps
to modify the Android application we created in Hello World Example chapter

Step Description

1 You will use Android studio to create an Android application and name it as My
Application under a package com.example.tutorialspoint7.myapplication as
explained in the Hello World Example chapter.

2 Modify main activity file MainActivity.java to add broadcastIntent() method.

3 Create a new java file called MyReceiver.java under the
package com.example.tutorialspoint7.myapplication to define a BroadcastReceiver.

4 An application can handle one or more custom and system intents without any
restrictions. Every intent you want to intercept must be registered in
your AndroidManifest.xml file using <receiver.../> tag

5 Modify the default content of res/layout/activity_main.xml file to include a button

to broadcast intent.

6 No need to modify the string file, Android studio take care of string.xml file.

7 Run the application to launch Android emulator and verify the result of the changes
done in the application.

Following is the content of the modified main activity file MainActivity.java. This file
can include each of the fundamental life cycle methods. We have
added broadcastIntent() method to broadcast a custom intent.

package com.example.tutorialspoint7.myapplication;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.View;

public class MainActivity extends Activity {

/** Called when the activity is first created. */

@Override

public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {

super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
}
// broadcast a custom intent.
public void broadcastIntent(View view){
Intent intent = new Intent();
intent.setAction("com.tutorialspoint.CUSTOM_INTENT"); sendBroadcast(intent);
}
}
Following is the content of MyReceiver.java:

package com.example.tutorialspoint7.myapplication;

import android.content.BroadcastReceiver;
import android.content.Context;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.widget.Toast;

/**
* Created by TutorialsPoint7 on 8/23/2016.
*/
public class MyReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver{
@Override
public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
Toast.makeText(context, "Intent Detected.", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
}
}

Following will the modified content of AndroidManifest.xml file. Here we have added
<receiver.../> tag to include our service:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />

</intent-filter>
</activity>
<receiver android:name="MyReceiver">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="com.tutorialspoint.CUSTOM_INTENT">
</action>
</intent-filter>

</receiver>
</application>

</manifest>

Following will be the content of res/layout/activity_main.xml file to include a

button to broadcast our custom intent

</RelativeLayout>

Let's try to run our modified Hello World! application we just modified. I assume you had created
your AVD while doing environment set-up. To run the app from Android studio, open one of your project's
activity files and click Run icon from the tool bar. Android Studio installs the app on your AVD and
starts it and if everything is fine with your set-up and application, it will display following Emulator
window
Now to broadcast our custom intent, let's click on Broadcast Intent button, this will broadcast our custom
intent "com.tutorialspoint.CUSTOM_INTENT" which will be intercepted by our registered
BroadcastReceiver i.e. MyReceiver and as per our implemented logic a toast will appear on the bottom of
the simulator as follows

You can try implementing other BroadcastReceiver to intercept system generated

intents like system boot up, date changed, low battery etc.
A content provider component supplies data from one application to others on request. Such
requests are handled by the methods of the ContentResolver class. A content provider can use
different ways to store its data and the data can be stored in a database, in files, or even over a
network.

CONTENTPROVIDER
sometimes it is required to share data across applications. This is where content
providers become very useful.

Content providers let you centralize content in one place and have many different
applications access it as needed. A content provider behaves very much like a
database where you can query it, edit its content, as well as add or delete content
using insert(), update(), delete(), and query() methods. In most cases this data is
stored in an SQlite database.

A content provider is implemented as a subclass of ContentProvider class and must

implement a standard set of APIs that enable other applications to perform
transactions.

public class My Application extends ContentProvider {

}

Content URIs
To query a content provider, you specify the query string in the form of a URI which
has following format

Here is the detail of various parts of the URI

Sr.No Part & Description

prefix
1
This is always set to content://

authority

2 This specifies the name of the content provider, for example contacts, browser etc.
For third-party content providers, this could be the fully qualified name, such
as com.tutorialspoint.statusprovider

data_type

3 This indicates the type of data that this particular provider provides. For example, if
you are getting all the contacts from the Contacts content provider, then the data
path would be people and URI would look like thiscontent://contacts/people

4 This specifies the specific record requested. For example, if you are looking for
contact number 5 in the Contacts content provider then URI would look like
this content://contacts/people/5.

Create Content Provider

This involves number of simple steps to create your own content provider.

First of all you need to create a Content Provider class that extends
the ContentProviderbaseclass.

Second, you need to define your content provider URI address which will be used to access
the content.

Next you will need to create your own database to keep the content. Usually, Android uses
SQLite database and framework needs to override onCreate() method which will use
SQLite Open Helper method to create or open the provider's database. When your
application is launched, the onCreate() handler of each of its Content Providers is called on
the main application thread.

Next you will have to implement Content Provider queries to perform different database
specific operations.

Finally register your Content Provider in your activity file using <provider> tag.
Here is the list of methods which you need to override in Content Provider class to
have your Content Provider working

CONTENTPROVIDER
onCreate() This method is called when the provider is started.

query() This method receives a request from a client. The result is returned as a Cursor
object.

insert()This method inserts a new record into the content provider.

delete() This method deletes an existing record from the content provider.

update() This method updates an existing record from the content provider.

getType() This method returns the MIME type of the data at the given URI.

Example
This example will explain you how to create your own ContentProvider. So let's follow
the following steps to similar to what we followed while creating Hello World
Example

Step Description

1 You will use Android StudioIDE to create an Android application and name it
as My Application under a package com.example.MyApplication, with blank
Activity.

2 Modify main activity file MainActivity.java to add two new

methods onClickAddName() and onClickRetrieveStudents().

3 Create a new java file called StudentsProvider.java under the

package com.example.MyApplication to define your actual provider and
associated methods.

4 Register your content provider in your AndroidManifest.xml file using

<provider.../> tag
5 Modify the default content of res/layout/activity_main.xml file to include a small
GUI to add students records.

6 No need to change string.xml.Android studio take care of string.xml file.

7 Run the application to launch Android emulator and verify the result of the
changes done in the application.

Following is the content of the modified main activity

file src/com.example.MyApplication/MainActivity.java. This file can include
each of the fundamental life cycle methods. We have added two new
methods onClickAddName() and onClickRetrieveStudents() to handle user interaction
with the application.
package com.example.MyApplication;

import android.net.Uri;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.app.Activity;

import android.content.ContentValues;
import android.content.CursorLoader;

import android.database.Cursor;

import android.view.Menu;
import android.view.View;

import android.widget.EditText;
import android.widget.Toast;

public class MainActivity extends Activity {

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
}
public void onClickAddName(View view) {
// Add a new student record
ContentValues values = new ContentValues();
values.put(StudentsProvider.NAME,
((EditText)findViewById(R.id.editText2)).getText().toString());
values.put(StudentsProvider.GRADE,
((EditText)findViewById(R.id.editText3)).getText().toString());

Uri uri = getContentResolver().insert(

StudentsProvider.CONTENT_URI, values);

Toast.makeText(getBaseContext(),
uri.toString(), Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
}
public void onClickRetrieveStudents(View view) {
// Retrieve student records
String URL = "content://com.example.MyApplication.StudentsProvider";

Uri students = Uri.parse(URL);

Cursor c = managedQuery(students, null, null, null, "name");

if (c.moveToFirst()) {
do{
Toast.makeText(this,
c.getString(c.getColumnIndex(StudentsProvider._ID)) +
", " + c.getString(c.getColumnIndex( StudentsProvider.NAME)) +
", " + c.getString(c.getColumnIndex( StudentsProvider.GRADE)),
Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
} while (c.moveToNext());
}
}
}

Create new file StudentsProvider.java under com.example.MyApplication package

and following is the content
of src/com.example.MyApplication/StudentsProvider.java
package com.example.MyApplication;

import java.util.HashMap;

import android.content.ContentProvider;
import android.content.ContentUris;
import android.content.ContentValues;
import android.content.Context;
import android.content.UriMatcher;

import android.database.Cursor;
import android.database.SQLException;

import android.database.sqlite.SQLiteDatabase;
import android.database.sqlite.SQLiteOpenHelper;
import android.database.sqlite.SQLiteQueryBuilder;

import android.net.Uri;
import android.text.TextUtils;

public class StudentsProvider extends ContentProvider {

static final String PROVIDER_NAME = "com.example.MyApplication.StudentsProvider";
static final String URL = "content://" + PROVIDER_NAME + "/students";
static final Uri CONTENT_URI = Uri.parse(URL);

static final String _ID = "_id";

static final String NAME = "name";
static final String GRADE = "grade";

private static HashMap<String, String> STUDENTS_PROJECTION_MAP;

static final int STUDENTS = 1;

static final int STUDENT_ID = 2;

static final UriMatcher uriMatcher;

static{
uriMatcher = new UriMatcher(UriMatcher.NO_MATCH);
uriMatcher.addURI(PROVIDER_NAME, "students", STUDENTS);
uriMatcher.addURI(PROVIDER_NAME, "students/#", STUDENT_ID);
}

/**
* Database specific constant declarations
*/

private SQLiteDatabase db;

static final String DATABASE_NAME = "College";
static final String STUDENTS_TABLE_NAME = "students";
static final int DATABASE_VERSION = 1;
static final String CREATE_DB_TABLE =
" CREATE TABLE " + STUDENTS_TABLE_NAME +
" (_id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT, " +
" name TEXT NOT NULL, " +
" grade TEXT NOT NULL);";

/**
* Helper class that actually creates and manages
* the provider's underlying data repository.
*/

private static class DatabaseHelper extends SQLiteOpenHelper {

DatabaseHelper(Context context){
super(context, DATABASE_NAME, null, DATABASE_VERSION);
}

@Override
public void onCreate(SQLiteDatabase db) {
db.execSQL(CREATE_DB_TABLE);
}

@Override
public void onUpgrade(SQLiteDatabase db, int oldVersion, int newVersion) {
db.execSQL("DROP TABLE IF EXISTS " + STUDENTS_TABLE_NAME);
onCreate(db);
}
}

@Override
public boolean onCreate() {
Context context = getContext();
DatabaseHelper dbHelper = new DatabaseHelper(context);

/**
* Create a write able database which will trigger its
* creation if it doesn't already exist.
*/
db = dbHelper.getWritableDatabase();
return (db == null)? false:true;
}

@Override
public Uri insert(Uri uri, ContentValues values) {
/**
* Add a new student record
*/
long rowID = db.insert( STUDENTS_TABLE_NAME, "", values);

/**
* If record is added successfully
*/
if (rowID > 0) {
Uri _uri = ContentUris.withAppendedId(CONTENT_URI, rowID);
getContext().getContentResolver().notifyChange(_uri, null);
return _uri;
}

throw new SQLException("Failed to add a record into " + uri);

}

@Override
public Cursor query(Uri uri, String[] projection,
String selection,String[] selectionArgs, String sortOrder) {
SQLiteQueryBuilder qb = new SQLiteQueryBuilder();
qb.setTables(STUDENTS_TABLE_NAME);

switch (uriMatcher.match(uri)) {
case STUDENTS:
qb.setProjectionMap(STUDENTS_PROJECTION_MAP);
break;

case STUDENT_ID:
qb.appendWhere( _ID + "=" + uri.getPathSegments().get(1));
break;
default:
}

if (sortOrder == null || sortOrder == ""){

/**
* By default sort on student names
*/
sortOrder = NAME;
}

Cursor c = qb.query(db, projection, selection,

selectionArgs,null, null, sortOrder);
/**
* register to watch a content URI for changes
*/
c.setNotificationUri(getContext().getContentResolver(), uri);
return c;
}

@Override
public int delete(Uri uri, String selection, String[] selectionArgs) {
int count = 0;
switch (uriMatcher.match(uri)){
case STUDENTS:
count = db.delete(STUDENTS_TABLE_NAME, selection, selectionArgs);
break;

case STUDENT_ID:
String id = uri.getPathSegments().get(1);
count = db.delete( STUDENTS_TABLE_NAME, _ID + " = " + id +
(!TextUtils.isEmpty(selection) ? "
AND (" + selection + ')' : ""), selectionArgs);
break;
default:
throw new IllegalArgumentException("Unknown URI " + uri);
}

getContext().getContentResolver().notifyChange(uri, null);
return count;
}

@Override
public int update(Uri uri, ContentValues values,
String selection, String[] selectionArgs) {
int count = 0;
switch (uriMatcher.match(uri)) {
case STUDENTS:
count = db.update(STUDENTS_TABLE_NAME, values, selection, selectionArgs);
break;

case STUDENT_ID:
count = db.update(STUDENTS_TABLE_NAME, values,
_ID + " = " + uri.getPathSegments().get(1) +
(!TextUtils.isEmpty(selection) ? "
AND (" +selection + ')' : ""), selectionArgs);
break;
default:
throw new IllegalArgumentException("Unknown URI " + uri );
}

getContext().getContentResolver().notifyChange(uri, null);
return count;
}

@Override
public String getType(Uri uri) {
switch (uriMatcher.match(uri)){
/**
* Get all student records
*/
case STUDENTS:
return "vnd.android.cursor.dir/vnd.example.students";
/**
* Get a particular student
*/
case STUDENT_ID:
return "vnd.android.cursor.item/vnd.example.students";
default:
throw new IllegalArgumentException("Unsupported URI: " + uri);
}
}
}

Following will the modified content of AndroidManifest.xml file. Here we have added
<provider.../> tag to include our content provider:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

Following will be the content of res/layout/activity_main.xml file

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

Make sure you have following content ofres/values/strings.xml file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<resources>
<string name="app_name">My Application</string>
</resources>;

Let's try to run our modified My Application application we just created. I assume you had created your AVD while doing
environment set-up. To run the app from Android Studio IDE, open one of your project's activity files and click Run icon
from the tool bar. Android Studio installs the app on your AVD and starts it and if everything is fine with your set-up and
application, it will display following Emulator window, be patience because it may take sometime based on your computer speed

Now let's enter student Name and Grade and finally click on Add Name button, this
will add student record in the database and will flash a message at the bottom
showing ContentProvider URI along with record number added in the database. This
operation makes use of our insert() method. Let's repeat this process to add few
more students in the database of our content provider.
Once you are done with adding records in the database, now its time to ask
ContentProvider to give us those records back, so let's click Retrieve
Students button which will fetch and display all the records one by one which is as
per our the implementation of our query() method.

You can write activities against update and delete operations by providing callback
functions in MainActivity.java file and then modify user interface to have buttons
for update and deleted operations in the same way as we have done for add and
read operations.

This way you can use existing Content Provider like Address Book or you can use
Content Provider concept in developing nice database oriented applications where
you can perform all sort of database operations like read, write, update and delete as
explained above in the example.

A Fragment is a piece of an activity which enable more modular activity design. It will not be
wrong if we say, a fragment is a kind of sub-activity.
Following are important points about fragment

A fragment has its own layout and its own behaviour with its own life cycle callbacks.

You can add or remove fragments in an activity while the activity is running.

You can combine multiple fragments in a single activity to build a multi-plane UI.

A fragment can be used in multiple activities.

Fragment life cycle is closely related to the life cycle of its host activity which means when
the activity is paused, all the fragments available in the activity will also be stopped.

A fragment can implement a behaviour that has no user interface component.

Fragments were added to the Android API in Honeycomb version of Android which API
version 11.

You create fragments by extending Fragment class and You can insert a fragment
into your activity layout by declaring the fragment in the activity's layout file, as
a <fragment> element.

Prior to fragment introduction, we had a limitation because we can show only a

single activity on the screen at one given point in time. So we were not able to divide
device screen and control different parts separately. But with the introduction of
fragment we got more flexibility and removed the limitation of having a single
activity on the screen at a time. Now we can have a single activity but each activity
can comprise of multiple fragments which will have their own layout, events and
complete life cycle.

Following is a typical example of how two UI modules defined by fragments can be

combined into one activity for a tablet design, but separated for a handset design.
The application can embed two fragments in Activity A, when running on a tablet-
sized device. However, on a handset-sized screen, there's not enough room for both
fragments, so Activity A includes only the fragment for the list of articles, and when
the user selects an article, it starts Activity B, which includes the second fragment to
read the article.

Fragment Life Cycle

Android fragments have their own life cycle very similar to an android activity. This
section briefs different stages of its life cycle.

FRAGMENT LIFECYCLE
Here is the list of methods which you can to override in your fragment class
onAttach()The fragment instance is associated with an activity instance.The fragment and
the activity is not fully initialized. Typically you get in this method a reference to the
activity which uses the fragment for further initialization work.

onCreate() The system calls this method when creating the fragment. You should
initialize essential components of the fragment that you want to retain when the fragment
is paused or stopped, then resumed.

onCreateView() The system calls this callback when it's time for the fragment to draw its
user interface for the first time. To draw a UI for your fragment, you must return
a View component from this method that is the root of your fragment's layout. You can
return null if the fragment does not provide a UI.

onActivityCreated()The onActivityCreated() is called after the onCreateView() method

when the host activity is created. Activity and fragment instance have been created as
well as the view hierarchy of the activity. At this point, view can be accessed with the
findViewById() method. example. In this method you can instantiate objects which require
a Context object

onStart()The onStart() method is called once the fragment gets visible.

onResume()Fragment becomes active.

onPause() The system calls this method as the first indication that the user is leaving the
fragment. This is usually where you should commit any changes that should be persisted
beyond the current user session.

onStop()Fragment going to be stopped by calling onStop()

onDestroyView()Fragment view will destroy after call this method

onDestroy()onDestroy() called to do final clean up of the fragment's state but Not

guaranteed to be called by the Android platform.

How to use Fragments?

This involves number of simple steps to create Fragments.

First of all decide how many fragments you want to use in an activity. For example let's we
want to use two fragments to handle landscape and portrait modes of the device.

Next based on number of fragments, create classes which will extend the Fragment class.
The Fragment class has above mentioned callback functions. You can override any of the
functions based on your requirements.

Corresponding to each fragment, you will need to create layout files in XML file. These files
will have layout for the defined fragments.
Finally modify activity file to define the actual logic of replacing fragments based on your
requirement.

Types of Fragments
Basically fragments are divided as three stages as shown below.

Single frame fragments Single frame fragments are using for hand hold devices like
mobiles, here we can show only one fragment as a view.

List fragments fragments having special list view is called as list fragment

Fragments transaction Using with fragment transaction. we can move one fragment to
another fragment.

An Android Intent is an abstract description of an operation to be performed. It can

be used with startActivity to launch an Activity, broadcastIntent to send it to any
interested BroadcastReceiver components,
and startService(Intent) or bindService(Intent, ServiceConnection, int) to
communicate with a background Service.

The intent itself, an Intent object, is a passive data structure holding an abstract
description of an operation to be performed.

For example, let's assume that you have an Activity that needs to launch an email
client and sends an email using your Android device. For this purpose, your Activity
would send an ACTION_SEND along with appropriate chooser, to the Android Intent
Resolver. The specified chooser gives the proper interface for the user to pick how to
send your email data.

Intent email = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SEND, Uri.parse("mailto:"));

email.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_EMAIL, recipients);
email.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT, subject.getText().toString());
email.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, body.getText().toString());
startActivity(Intent.createChooser(email, "Choose an email client from..."));

Above syntax is calling startActivity method to start an email activity and result
should be as shown below
For example, assume that you have an Activity that needs to open URL in a web
browser on your Android device. For this purpose, your Activity will send
ACTION_WEB_SEARCH Intent to the Android Intent Resolver to open given URL in
the web browser. The Intent Resolver parses through a list of Activities and chooses
the one that would best match your Intent, in this case, the Web Browser Activity.
The Intent Resolver then passes your web page to the web browser and starts the
Web Browser Activity.

String q = "tutorialspoint";
Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_WEB_SEARCH );
intent.putExtra(SearchManager.QUERY, q);
startActivity(intent);

Above example will search as tutorialspoint on android search engine and it gives
the result of tutorialspoint in your an activity

There are separate mechanisms for delivering intents to each type of component
activities, services, and broadcast receivers.

Sr.No Method & Description

Context.startActivity()
1
The Intent object is passed to this method to launch a new
activity or get an existing activity to do something new.

Context.startService()
2

The Intent object is passed to this method to initiate a

service or deliver new instructions to an ongoing service.

Context.sendBroadcast()

3
The Intent object is passed to this method to deliver the
message to all interested broadcast receivers.

Intent Objects
An Intent object is a bundle of information which is used by the component that
receives the intent as well as information used by the Android system.

An Intent object can contain the following components based on what it is

communicating or going to perform

Action
This is mandatory part of the Intent object and is a string naming the action to be
performed or, in the case of broadcast intents, the action that took place and is
being reported. The action largely determines how the rest of the intent object is
structured . The Intent class defines a number of action constants corresponding to
different intents. Here is a list of Android Intent Standard Actions

The action in an Intent object can be set by the setAction() method and read by
getAction().

Data
Adds a data specification to an intent filter. The specification can be just a data type
(the mimeType attribute), just a URI, or both a data type and a URI. A URI is
specified by separate attributes for each of its parts

These attributes that specify the URL format are optional, but also mutually
dependent

If a scheme is not specified for the intent filter, all the other URI attributes are ignored.

If a host is not specified for the filter, the port attribute and all the path attributes are
ignored.

The setData() method specifies data only as a URI, setType() specifies it only as a
MIME type, and setDataAndType() specifies it as both a URI and a MIME type. The
URI is read by getData() and the type by getType().

Some examples of action/data pairs are

Sr.No. Action/Data Pair & Description

ACTION_VIEW content://contacts/people/1
1
Display information about the person whose identifier is
"1".

ACTION_DIAL content://contacts/people/1
2
Display the phone dialer with the person filled in.

ACTION_VIEW tel:123
3
Display the phone dialer with the given number filled in.

ACTION_DIAL tel:123
4
Display the phone dialer with the given number filled in.

ACTION_EDIT content://contacts/people/1
5
Edit information about the person whose identifier is "1".

ACTION_VIEW content://contacts/people/

6
Display a list of people, which the user can browse
through.

ACTION_SET_WALLPAPER
7
Show settings for choosing wallpaper

ACTION_SYNC

8
It going to be synchronous the data,Constant Value
is android.intent.action.SYNC

ACTION_SYSTEM_TUTORIAL

9
It will start the platform-defined tutorial(Default tutorial
or start up tutorial)
ACTION_TIMEZONE_CHANGED
10
It intimates when time zone has changed

ACTION_UNINSTALL_PACKAGE
11
It is used to run default uninstaller

Category
The category is an optional part of Intent object and it's a string containing
additional information about the kind of component that should handle the intent.
The addCategory() method places a category in an Intent object, removeCategory()
deletes a category previously added, and getCategories() gets the set of all
categories currently in the object. Here is a list of Android Intent Standard
Categories.

You can check detail on Intent Filters in below section to understand how do we use
categories to choose appropriate activity corresponding to an Intent.

Extras
This will be in key-value pairs for additional information that should be delivered to
the component handling the intent. The extras can be set and read using the
putExtras() and getExtras() methods respectively. Here is a list of Android Intent
Standard Extra Data

Flags
These flags are optional part of Intent object and instruct the Android system how to
launch an activity, and how to treat it after it's launched etc.

Sr.No Flags & Description

FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TASK

If set in an Intent passed to Context.startActivity(), this

flag will cause any existing task that would be associated
1 with the activity to be cleared before the activity is started.
That is, the activity becomes the new root of an otherwise
empty task, and any old activities are finished. This can
only be used in conjunction with
FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK.
FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP

If set, and the activity being launched is already running in

2 the current task, then instead of launching a new instance
of that activity, all of the other activities on top of it will be
closed and this Intent will be delivered to the (now on top)
old activity as a new Intent.

FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK

This flag is generally used by activities that want to

3 present a "launcher" style behavior: they give the user a
list of separate things that can be done, which otherwise
run completely independently of the activity launching
them.

Component Name
This optional field is an android ComponentName object representing either
Activity, Service or BroadcastReceiver class. If it is set, the Intent object is delivered
to an instance of the designated class otherwise Android uses other information in
the Intent object to locate a suitable target.

The component name is set by setComponent(), setClass(), or setClassName() and

read by getComponent().

Types of Intents
There are following two types of intents supported by Android

Explicit Intents
Explicit intent going to be connected internal world of application,suppose if you
wants to connect one activity to another activity, we can do this quote by explicit
intent, below image is connecting first activity to second activity by clicking button.
These intents designate the target component by its name and they are typically
used for application-internal messages - such as an activity starting a subordinate
service or launching a sister activity. For example

// Explicit Intent by specifying its class name

Intent i = new Intent(FirstActivity.this, SecondActivity.class);

// Starts TargetActivity
startActivity(i);

Implicit Intents
These intents do not name a target and the field for the component name is left
blank. Implicit intents are often used to activate components in other applications.
For example

Intent read1=new Intent();

read1.setAction(android.content.Intent.ACTION_VIEW);
read1.setData(ContactsContract.Contacts.CONTENT_URI);
startActivity(read1);

Above code will give result as shown below

The target component which receives the intent can use the getExtras() method to
get the extra data sent by the source component. For example

// Get bundle object at appropriate place in your code

Bundle extras = getIntent().getExtras();

// Extract data using passed keys

String value1 = extras.getString("Key1");
String value2 = extras.getString("Key2");

Example
Following example shows the functionality of a Android Intent to launch various
Android built-in applications.

Step Description

1 You will use Android studio IDE to create an Android

application and name it as My Application under a
package com.example.saira_000.myapplication.

2 Modify src/main/java/MainActivity.java file and add the code

to define two listeners corresponding two buttons ie. Start
Browser and Start Phone.

3 Modify layout XML file res/layout/activity_main.xml to add

three buttons in linear layout.

4 Run the application to launch Android emulator and verify

the result of the changes done in the application.

Following is the content of the modified main activity file src/com.example.My

Application/MainActivity.java.

package com.example.saira_000.myapplication;

import android.content.Intent;
import android.net.Uri;
import android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.Button;

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {

Button b1,b2;

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

b1=(Button)findViewById(R.id.button);
b1.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {

@Override
public void onClick(View v) {
Intent i = new Intent(android.content.Intent.ACTION_VIEW,
Uri.parse("http://www.example.com"));
startActivity(i);
}
});

b2=(Button)findViewById(R.id.button2);
b2.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
@Override
public void onClick(View v) {
Intent i = new Intent(android.content.Intent.ACTION_VIEW,
Uri.parse("tel:9510300000"));
startActivity(i);
}
});
}
}

Following will be the content of res/layout/activity_main.xml file

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

Following will be the content of res/values/strings.xml to define two new

constants

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<resources>
<string name="app_name">My Applicaiton</string>
</resources>

Following is the default content of AndroidManifest.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

Intent Filters
You have seen how an Intent has been used to call an another activity. Android OS
uses filters to pinpoint the set of Activities, Services, and Broadcast receivers that
can handle the Intent with help of specified set of action, categories, data scheme
associated with an Intent. You will use <intent-filter> element in the manifest file
to list down actions, categories and data types associated with any activity, service,
or broadcast receiver.

Following is an example of a part of AndroidManifest.xml file to specify an

activity com.example.My Application.CustomActivity which can be invoked by
either of the two mentioned actions, one category, and one data

<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
<action android:name="com.example.My Application.LAUNCH" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
<data android:scheme="http" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>

Once this activity is defined along with above mentioned filters, other activities will
be able to invoke this activity using either the android.intent.action.VIEW, or
using the com.example.My Application.LAUNCH action provided their category
is android.intent.category.DEFAULT.

The <data> element specifies the data type expected by the activity to be called
and for above example our custom activity expects the data to start with the
"http://"

There may be a situation that an intent can pass through the filters of more than one
activity or service, the user may be asked which component to activate. An exception
is raised if no target can be found.

There are following test Android checks before invoking an activity

A filter <intent-filter> may list more than one action as shown above but this list cannot
be empty; a filter must contain at least one <action> element, otherwise it will block all
intents. If more than one actions are mentioned then Android tries to match one of the
mentioned actions before invoking the activity.

A filter <intent-filter> may list zero, one or more than one categories. if there is no
category mentioned then Android always pass this test but if more than one categories are
mentioned then for an intent to pass the category test, every category in the Intent object
must match a category in the filter.

Each <data> element can specify a URI and a data type (MIME media type). There are
separate attributes like scheme, host, port, and path for each part of the URI. An Intent
object that contains both a URI and a data type passes the data type part of the test only
if its type matches a type listed in the filter.

Example
Following example is a modification of the above example. Here we will see how Android resolves conflict
if one intent is invoking two activities defined in , next how to invoke a custom activity using a filter and
third one is an exception case if Android does not file appropriate activity defined for an intent.
Step Description

1 You will use android studio to create an Android application and name it as My
Application under a package com.example.tutorialspoint7.myapplication;.

2 Modify src/Main/Java/MainActivity.java file and add the code to define three listeners
corresponding to three buttons defined in layout file.

3 Add a new src/Main/Java/CustomActivity.java file to have one custom activity which will
be invoked by different intents.

4 Modify layout XML file res/layout/activity_main.xml to add three buttons in linear layout.

5 Add one layout XML file res/layout/custom_view.xml to add a simple <TextView> to

show the passed data through intent.

6 Modify AndroidManifest.xml to add <intent-filter> to define rules for your intent to

invoke custom activity.

7 Run the application to launch Android emulator and verify the result of the changes done
in the application.

Following is the content of the modified main activity file src/MainActivity.java.

package com.example.tutorialspoint7.myapplication;

import android.content.Intent;
import android.net.Uri;
import android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.Button;

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {

Button b1,b2,b3;
@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
b1=(Button)findViewById(R.id.button);
b1.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {

@Override
public void onClick(View v) {
Intent i = new Intent(android.content.Intent.ACTION_VIEW,
Uri.parse("http://www.example.com"));
startActivity(i);
}
});

b2 = (Button)findViewById(R.id.button2);
b2.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
@Override
public void onClick(View v) {
Intent i = new Intent("com.example.
tutorialspoint7.myapplication.
LAUNCH",Uri.parse("http://www.example.com"));
startActivity(i);
}
});

b3 = (Button)findViewById(R.id.button3);
b3.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
@Override
public void onClick(View v) {
Intent i = new Intent("com.example.
My Application.LAUNCH",
Uri.parse("https://www.example.com"));
startActivity(i);
}
});
}
}

Following is the content of the modified main activity file src/com.example.My

Application/CustomActivity.java.
package com.example.tutorialspoint7.myapplication;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.net.Uri;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.widget.TextView;

/**
* Created by TutorialsPoint7 on 8/23/2016.
*/
public class CustomActivity extends Activity {
@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.custom_view);
TextView label = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.show_data);
Uri url = getIntent().getData();
label.setText(url.toString());
}
}

Following will be the content of res/layout/activity_main.xml file

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

Following will be the content of res/layout/custom_view.xml file

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

Following will be the content of res/values/strings.xml to define two new

constants

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<resources>
<string name="app_name">My Application</string>
</resources>

Following is the default content of AndroidManifest.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
package="com.example.tutorialspoint7.myapplication">

<intent-filter>
<action android:name = "android.intent.action.VIEW" />
<action android:name = "com.example.tutorialspoint7.myapplication.LAUNCH" />
<category android:name = "android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
<data android:scheme = "http" />
</intent-filter>

</activity>
</application>

</manifest>

Let's try to run your My Application application. I assume you had created
your AVD while doing environment setup. To run the app from Android Studio, open
one of your project's activity files and click Run icon from the toolbar. Android
Studio installs the app on your AVD and starts it and if everything is fine with your
setup and application, it will display following Emulator window
Now let's start with first button "Start Browser with VIEW Action". Here we have defined our custom
activity with a filter "android.intent.action.VIEW", and there is already one default activity against VIEW
action defined by Android which is launching web browser, So android displays following two options to
select the activity you want to launch.
Now if you select Browser, then Android will launch web browser and open
example.com website but if you select IndentDemo option then Android will launch
CustomActivity which does nothing but just capture passed data and displays in a
text view as follows

Now go back using back button and click on "Start Browser with LAUNCH Action"
button, here Android applies filter to choose define activity and it simply launch your
custom activity

Again, go back using back button and click on "Exception Condition" button, here
Android tries to find out a valid filter for the given intent but it does not find a valid
activity defined because this time we have used data as https instead
of http though we are giving a correct action, so Android raises an exception and
shows following screen
The basic building block for user interface is a View object which is created from the
View class and occupies a rectangular area on the screen and is responsible for
drawing and event handling. View is the base class for widgets, which are used to
create interactive UI components like buttons, text fields, etc.

The ViewGroup is a subclass of View and provides invisible container that hold
other Views or other ViewGroups and define their layout properties.

At third level we have different layouts which are subclasses of ViewGroup class and
a typical layout defines the visual structure for an Android user interface and can be
created either at run time using View/ViewGroup objects or you can declare your
layout using simple XML file main_layout.xml which is located in the res/layout
folder of your project.

LAYOUT PARAMS
This tutorial is more about creating your GUI based on layouts defined in XML file. A
layout may contain any type of widgets such as buttons, labels, textboxes, and so
on. Following is a simple example of XML file having LinearLayout

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

</LinearLayout>

Once your layout has created, you can load the layout resource from your application
code, in your Activity.onCreate() callback implementation as shown below

public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {

super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
}

Android Layout Types

There are number of Layouts provided by Android which you will use in almost all the
Android applications to provide different view, look and feel.

Sr.No Layout & Description

1 Linear Layout

LinearLayout is a view group that aligns all children in a single direction, vertically or
horizontally.

2 Relative Layout

RelativeLayout is a view group that displays child views in relative positions.

3 Table Layout

TableLayout is a view that groups views into rows and columns.

4 Absolute Layout

AbsoluteLayout enables you to specify the exact location of its children.

5 Frame Layout

The FrameLayout is a placeholder on screen that you can use to display a single view.

6 List View

ListView is a view group that displays a list of scrollable items.

7 Grid View

GridView is a ViewGroup that displays items in a two-dimensional, scrollable grid.

Layout Attributes
Each layout has a set of attributes which define the visual properties of that layout.
There are few common attributes among all the layouts and their are other attributes
which are specific to that layout. Following are common attributes and will be applied
to all the layouts:

Sr.No Attribute & Description

1 android:id

This is the ID which uniquely identifies the view.

2
android:layout_width

This is the width of the layout.

3 android:layout_height

This is the height of the layout

4 android:layout_marginTop

This is the extra space on the top side of the layout.

5 android:layout_marginBottom

This is the extra space on the bottom side of the layout.

6 android:layout_marginLeft
This is the extra space on the left side of the layout.

7
android:layout_marginRight

This is the extra space on the right side of the layout.

8 android:layout_gravity

This specifies how child Views are positioned.

9 android:layout_weight

This specifies how much of the extra space in the layout

should be allocated to the View.

10 android:layout_x

This specifies the x-coordinate of the layout.

11
android:layout_y

This specifies the y-coordinate of the layout.

12
android:layout_width

This is the width of the layout.

13 android:layout_width

This is the width of the layout.

14 android:paddingLeft

This is the left padding filled for the layout.

15 android:paddingRight

This is the right padding filled for the layout.

16 android:paddingTop
This is the top padding filled for the layout.

17
android:paddingBottom

This is the bottom padding filled for the layout.

Here width and height are the dimension of the layout/view which can be specified in
terms of dp (Density-independent Pixels), sp ( Scale-independent Pixels), pt ( Points
which is 1/72 of an inch), px( Pixels), mm ( Millimeters) and finally in (inches).

You can specify width and height with exact measurements but more often, you will
use one of these constants to set the width or height

android:layout_width=wrap_content tells your view to size itself to the dimensions

required by its content.

android:layout_width=fill_parent tells your view to become as big as its parent view.

Gravity attribute plays important role in positioning the view object and it can take
one or more (separated by '|') of the following constant values.

Constant Value Description

top 0x30 Push object to the top of its container, not changing its size.

bottom 0x50 Push object to the bottom of its container, not changing its
size.

left 0x03 Push object to the left of its container, not changing its size.

right 0x05 Push object to the right of its container, not changing its
size.

center_vertical 0x10 Place object in the vertical center of its container, not
changing its size.

fill_vertical 0x70 Grow the vertical size of the object if needed so it

completely fills its container.

center_horizontal 0x01 Place object in the horizontal center of its container, not
changing its size.
fill_horizontal 0x07 Grow the horizontal size of the object if needed so it
completely fills its container.

center 0x11 Place the object in the center of its container in both the
vertical and horizontal axis, not changing its size.

fill 0x77 Grow the horizontal and vertical size of the object if needed
so it completely fills its container.

clip_vertical 0x80 Additional option that can be set to have the top and/or
bottom edges of the child clipped to its container's bounds.
The clip will be based on the vertical gravity: a top gravity
will clip the bottom edge, a bottom gravity will clip the top
edge, and neither will clip both edges.

clip_horizontal 0x08 Additional option that can be set to have the left and/or
right edges of the child clipped to its container's bounds.
The clip will be based on the horizontal gravity: a left
gravity will clip the right edge, a right gravity will clip the
left edge, and neither will clip both edges.

start 0x00800003 Push object to the beginning of its container, not changing
its size.

end 0x00800005 Push object to the end of its container, not changing its
size.

View Identification
A view object may have a unique ID assigned to it which will identify the View
uniquely within the tree. The syntax for an ID, inside an XML tag is

android:id="@+id/my_button"

Following is a brief description of @ and + signs

The at-symbol (@) at the beginning of the string indicates that the XML parser should
parse and expand the rest of the ID string and identify it as an ID resource.

The plus-symbol (+) means that this is a new resource name that must be created and
added to our resources. To create an instance of the view object and capture it from the
layout, use the following

Button myButton = (Button) findViewById(R.id.my_button);

Input controls are the interactive components in your app's user interface. Android provides a
wide variety of controls you can use in your UI, such as buttons, text fields, seek bars, check
box, zoom buttons, toggle buttons, and many more.

UI ELEMENTS
A View is an object that draws something on the screen that the user can interact
with and a ViewGroup is an object that holds other View (and ViewGroup) objects in
order to define the layout of the user interface.

You define your layout in an XML file which offers a human-readable structure for the
layout, similar to HTML. For example, a simple vertical layout with a text view and a
button looks like this

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

Android UI Controls
There are number of UI controls provided by Android that allow you to build the
graphical user interface for your app.
Sr.No. UI Control & Description

1 TextView

This control is used to display text to the user.

2 EditText

EditText is a predefined subclass of TextView that includes rich editing capabilities.

3 AutoCompleteTextView

The AutoCompleteTextView is a view that is similar to EditText, except that it shows a

list of completion suggestions automatically while the user is typing.

4 Button

A push-button that can be pressed, or clicked, by the user to perform an action.

5 ImageButton

An ImageButton is an AbsoluteLayout which enables you to specify the exact location

of its children. This shows a button with an image (instead of text) that can be
pressed or clicked by the user.

6 CheckBox

An on/off switch that can be toggled by the user. You should use check box when
presenting users with a group of selectable options that are not mutually exclusive.

7 ToggleButton

An on/off button with a light indicator.

8 RadioButton

The RadioButton has two states: either checked or unchecked.

9 RadioGroup

A RadioGroup is used to group together one or more RadioButtons.

10 ProgressBar
The ProgressBar view provides visual feedback about some ongoing tasks, such as
when you are performing a task in the background.

11 Spinner

A drop-down list that allows users to select one value from a set.

12 TimePicker

The TimePicker view enables users to select a time of the day, in either 24-hour mode
or AM/PM mode.

13 DatePicker

The DatePicker view enables users to select a date of the day.

Create UI Controls
Input controls are the interactive components in your app's user interface. Android
provides a wide variety of controls you can use in your UI, such as buttons, text
fields, seek bars, check box, zoom buttons, toggle buttons, and many more.

As explained in previous chapter, a view object may have a unique ID assigned to it

which will identify the View uniquely within the tree. The syntax for an ID, inside an
XML tag is

android:id="@+id/text_id"

To create a UI Control/View/Widget you will have to define a view/widget in the

layout file and assign it a unique ID as follows

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

Then finally create an instance of the Control object and capture it from the layout,
use the following
TextView myText = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.text_id);

Events are a useful way to collect data about a user's interaction with interactive
components of Applications. Like button presses or screen touch etc. The Android framework
maintains an event queue as first-in, first-out (FIFO) basis. You can capture these events in your
program and take appropriate action as per requirements.

There are following three concepts related to Android Event Management

Event Listeners An event listener is an interface in the View class that contains a single
callback method. These methods will be called by the Android framework when the View to
which the listener has been registered is triggered by user interaction with the item in the
UI.

Event Listeners Registration Event Registration is the process by which an Event

Handler gets registered with an Event Listener so that the handler is called when the
Event Listener fires the event.

Event Handlers When an event happens and we have registered an event listener for
the event, the event listener calls the Event Handlers, which is the method that actually
handles the event.

Event Listeners & Event Handlers

Event Handler Event Listener & Description

OnClickListener()

onClick() This is called when the user either clicks or touches or focuses upon
any widget like button, text, image etc. You will use onClick() event
handler to handle such event.

OnLongClickListener()

onLongClick() This is called when the user either clicks or touches or focuses upon
any widget like button, text, image etc. for one or more seconds.
You will use onLongClick() event handler to handle such event.

OnFocusChangeListener()

onFocusChange() This is called when the widget looses its focus ie. user goes away
from the view item. You will use onFocusChange() event handler to
handle such event.
OnFocusChangeListener()

onKey() This is called when the user is focused on the item and presses or
releases a hardware key on the device. You will use onKey() event
handler to handle such event.

OnTouchListener()

onTouch() This is called when the user presses the key, releases the key, or
any movement gesture on the screen. You will use onTouch() event
handler to handle such event.

OnMenuItemClickListener()

onMenuItemClick()
This is called when the user selects a menu item. You will use
onMenuItemClick() event handler to handle such event.

onCreateContextMenuItemListener()

onCreateContextMenu()
This is called when the context menu is being built(as the result of a
sustained "long click)

There are many more event listeners available as a part of View class like
OnHoverListener, OnDragListener etc which may be needed for your application. So I
recommend to refer official documentation for Android application development in
case you are going to develop a sophisticated apps.

Event Listeners Registration

Event Registration is the process by which an Event Handler gets registered with an
Event Listener so that the handler is called when the Event Listener fires the event.
Though there are several tricky ways to register your event listener for any event,
but I'm going to list down only top 3 ways, out of which you can use any of them
based on the situation.

Using an Anonymous Inner Class

Activity class implements the Listener interface.

Using Layout file activity_main.xml to specify event handler directly.

Below section will provide you detailed examples on all the three scenarios
Touch Mode
Users can interact with their devices by using hardware keys or buttons or touching
the screen.Touching the screen puts the device into touch mode. The user can then
interact with it by touching the on-screen virtual buttons, images, etc.You can check
if the device is in touch mode by calling the View classs isInTouchMode() method.

Focus
A view or widget is usually highlighted or displays a flashing cursor when its in
focus. This indicates that its ready to accept input from the user.

isFocusable() it returns true or false

isFocusableInTouchMode() checks to see if the view is focusable in touch mode. (A

view may be focusable when using a hardware key but not when the device is in touch
mode)

android:foucsUp="@=id/button_l"

onTouchEvent()
public boolean onTouchEvent(motionEvent event){
switch(event.getAction()){
case TOUCH_DOWN:
Toast.makeText(this,"you have clicked down Touch button",Toast.LENTH_LONG).show();
break();

case TOUCH_UP:
Toast.makeText(this,"you have clicked up touch button",Toast.LENTH_LONG).show();
break;

case TOUCH_MOVE:
Toast.makeText(this,"you have clicked move touch button"Toast.LENTH_LONG).show();
break;
}
return super.onTouchEvent(event) ;
}

Event Handling Examples

Event Listeners Registration Using an Anonymous Inner Class
Here you will create an anonymous implementation of the listener and will be useful
if each class is applied to a single control only and you have advantage to pass
arguments to event handler. In this approach event handler methods can access
private data of Activity. No reference is needed to call to Activity.

But if you applied the handler to more than one control, you would have to cut and
paste the code for the handler and if the code for the handler is long, it makes the
code harder to maintain.

Following are the simple steps to show how we will make use of separate Listener
class to register and capture click event. Similar way you can implement your
listener for any other required event type.

Step Description

1 You will use Android studio IDE to create an Android application and name it
as myapplication under a package com.example.myapplication as explained in the Hello
World Example chapter.

2 Modify src/MainActivity.java file to add click event listeners and handlers for the two
buttons defined.

3 Modify the detault content of res/layout/activity_main.xml file to include Android UI

controls.

4 No need to declare default string constants.Android studio takes care default constants.

5 Run the application to launch Android emulator and verify the result of the changes done
in the aplication.

Following is the content of the modified main activity

file src/com.example.myapplication/MainActivity.java. This file can include
each of the fundamental lifecycle methods.

package com.example.myapplication;

import android.app.ProgressDialog;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.support.v7.app.ActionBarActivity;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.Button;
import android.widget.TextView;

public class MainActivity extends ActionBarActivity {

private ProgressDialog progress;
Button b1,b2;
@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
progress = new ProgressDialog(this);

b1=(Button)findViewById(R.id.button);
b2=(Button)findViewById(R.id.button2);
b1.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {

@Override
public void onClick(View v) {
TextView txtView = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.textView);
txtView.setTextSize(25);
}
});
b2.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {

@Override
public void onClick(View v) {
TextView txtView = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.textView);
txtView.setTextSize(55);
}
});
}
}

Following will be the content of res/layout/activity_main.xml file

Here abc indicates about tutorialspoint logo

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

</RelativeLayout>

Following will be the content of res/values/strings.xml to define two new

constants

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<resources>
<string name="app_name">myapplication</string>
</resources>

Following is the default content of AndroidManifest.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>

</activity>

</application>
</manifest>

Let's try to run your myapplication application. I assume you had created your AVD while doing
environment setup. To run the app from Android Studio, open one of your project's activity files and click
Run icon from the toolbar. Android Studio installs the app on your AVD and starts it and if everything is
fine with your setup and application, it will display following Emulator window

Now you try to click on two buttons, one by one and you will see that font of
the Hello World text will change, which happens because registered click event
handler method is being called against each click event.

Exercise
Try writing different event handlers for different event types and understand exact
difference in different event types and their handling. Events related to menu,
spinner, pickers widgets are little different but they are also based on the same
concepts as explained above.

A style resource defines the format and look for a UI. A style can be applied to an individual
View (from within a layout file) or to an entire Activity or application (from within the manifest
file).

Defining Styles
A style is defined in an XML resource that is separate from the XML that specifies the
layout. This XML file resides under res/values/ directory of your project and will
have <resources> as the root node which is mandatory for the style file. The name
of the XML file is arbitrary, but it must use the .xml extension.

You can define multiple styles per file using <style> tag but each style will have its
name that uniquely identifies the style. Android style attributes are set
using <item> tag as shown below

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<resources>
<style name="CustomFontStyle">
<item name="android:layout_width">fill_parent</item>
<item name="android:layout_height">wrap_content</item>
<item name="android:capitalize">characters</item>
<item name="android:typeface">monospace</item>
<item name="android:textSize">12pt</item>
<item name="android:textColor">#00FF00</item>/>
</style>
</resources>

The value for the <item> can be a keyword string, a hex color, a reference to another resource
type, or other value depending on the style property.

Using Styles
Once your style is defined, you can use it in your XML Layout file
using style attribute as follows

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

</LinearLayout>

To understand the concept related to Android Style, you can check Style Demo
Example.

Style Inheritance
Android supports style Inheritance in very much similar way as cascading style sheet
in web design. You can use this to inherit properties from an existing style and then
define only the properties that you want to change or add.

To implement a custom theme create or edit MyAndroidApp/res/values/themes.xml

and add the following

In your AndroidManifest.xml apply the theme to the activities you want to style

Your new theme will be applied to your activity, and text is now bright red.
Applying Colours to Theme Attributes
Your color resource can then be applied to some theme attributes, such as the
window background and the primary text color, by adding <item> elements to your
custom theme. These attributes are defined in your styles.xml file. For example, to
apply the custom color to the window background, add the following two <item>
elements to your custom theme, defined in MyAndroidApp/res/values/styles.xml file

<resources>
...
<style name="MyCustomTheme" ...>
<item name="android:windowBackground">@color/my_custom_color</item>
<item name="android:colorBackgroundCacheHint">@color/my_custom_color</item>
</style>
...
</resources>
Using a Custom Nine-Patch With Buttons
A nine-patch drawable is a special kind of image which can be scaled in width and
height while maintaining its visual integrity. Nine-patches are the most common way
to specify the appearance of Android buttons, though any drawable type can be
used.

A SAMPLE OF NINE-PATCH BUTTON

Steps to create Nine-Patch Buttons

Save this bitmap as /res/drawable/my_nine_patch.9.png

Define a new style

Apply the new button style to the buttonStyle attribute of your custom theme

Define a new Style

<resources>
...
<style name="MyCustomButton" parent="android:Widget.Button">
<item name="android:background">@drawable/my_nine_patch</item>
</style>
...
</resources>

Apply the theme

<resources>
...
<style name="MyCustomTheme" parent=...>
...
<item name="android:buttonStyle">@style/MyCustomButton</item>
</style>
...
</resources>
Android Themes
Hope you understood the concept of Style, so now let's try to understand what is
a Theme. A theme is nothing but an Android style applied to an entire Activity or
application, rather than an individual View.

Thus, when a style is applied as a theme, every View in the Activity or application
will apply each style property that it supports. For example, you can apply the
same CustomFontStyle style as a theme for an Activity and then all text inside
that Activity will have green monospace font.

To set a theme for all the activities of your application, open

the AndroidManifest.xml file and edit the <application> tag to include
the android:theme attribute with the style name. For example

But if you want a theme applied to just one Activity in your application, then add the
android:theme attribute to the <activity> tag only. For example

There are number of default themes defined by Android which you can use directly or
inherit them using parent attribute as follows

<style name="CustomTheme" parent="android:Theme.Light">

...
</style>

To understand the concept related to Android Theme, you can check Theme Demo
Example.

Styling the colour palette

The layout design can implementable based on them based colours, for example as
following design is designed based on them colour(blue)
Above layout has designed based on style.xml file,Which has placed at res/values/

<resource>
<style name="AppTheme" parent="android:Theme.Material">
<item name ="android:color/primary">@color/primary</item>
<item name ="android:color/primaryDark">@color/primary_dark</item>
<item name ="android:colorAccent/primary">@color/accent</item>
</style>
<resource>

Default Styles & Themes

The Android platform provides a large collection of styles and themes that you can
use in your applications. You can find a reference of all available styles in
the R.style class. To use the styles listed here, replace all underscores in the style
name with a period. For example, you can apply the Theme_NoTitleBar theme with
"@android:style/Theme.NoTitleBar". You can see the following source code for
Android styles and themes

Android Styles (styles.xml)

Android Themes (themes.xml)

Implementing own components in pre built-in components with extending subclass with
own defined class
Android offers a great list of pre-built widgets like Button, TextView, EditText,
ListView, CheckBox, RadioButton, Gallery, Spinner, AutoCompleteTextView etc.
which you can use directly in your Android application development, but there
may be a situation when you are not satisfied with existing functionality of any
of the available widgets. Android provides you with means of creating your own
custom components which you can customized to suit your needs.

If you only need to make small adjustments to an existing widget or layout,

you can simply subclass the widget or layout and override its methods which
will give you precise control over the appearance and function of a screen
element.

This tutorial explains you how to create custom Views and use them in your
application using simple and easy steps.

EXAMPLE OF CUSTOM COMPONENTS IN CUSTOM VIEW HIERARCHY

Creating a Simple Custom Component

Step Description

1 You will use Android studio IDE to create an Android application and name it
as myapplication under a package com.example.tutorialspoint7.myapplication as
explained in the Hello World Example chapter.

2 Create an XML res/values/attrs.xml file to define new attributes along with their data
type.
3 Create src/mainactivity.java file and add the code to define your custom component

4 Modify res/layout/activity_main.xml file and add the code to create Colour compound
view instance along with few default attributes and new attributes.

5 Run the application to launch Android emulator and verify the result of the changes done
in the application.

Create the following attributes file called attrs.xml in your res/values folder.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<declare-styleable name="TimeView">

<attr name="title" format="string" />

<attr name="setColor" format="boolean"/>

</declare-styleable>

</resources>

Change the layout file used by the activity to the following.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"

xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"

xmlns:custom="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"

android:layout_width="match_parent"

android:layout_height="match_parent"

tools:context=".MainActivity" >

<com.example.tutorialspoint7.myapplication.TimeView

android:id="@+id/timeView"

android:layout_width="match_parent"

android:layout_height="wrap_content"

android:textColor="#fff"

android:textSize="40sp"

custom:title="my time view"

custom:setColor="true" />

<TextView
android:layout_width="match_parent"

android:layout_height="wrap_content"

android:id="@+id/simple"

android:layout_below="@id/timeView"

android:layout_marginTop="10dp" />

</RelativeLayout>

Create the following java file called timeview for your compound view.

package com.example.tutorialspoint7.myapplication;

/**

* Created by TutorialsPoint7 on 9/14/2016.

import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;

import java.util.Calendar;

import android.content.Context;

import android.content.res.TypedArray;

import android.graphics.Color;

import android.util.AttributeSet;

import android.widget.TextView;

public class TimeView extends TextView {

private String titleText;

private boolean color;

public TimeView(Context context) {

super(context);

setTimeView();

public TimeView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {

super(context, attrs);

// retrieved values correspond to the positions of the attributes

TypedArray typedArray = context.obtainStyledAttributes(attrs,

R.styleable.TimeView);

int count = typedArray.getIndexCount();

try{

for (int i = 0; i < count; ++i) {

int attr = typedArray.getIndex(i);

// the attr corresponds to the title attribute

if(attr == R.styleable.TimeView_title) {

// set the text from the layout

titleText = typedArray.getString(attr);

setTimeView();

} else if(attr == R.styleable.TimeView_setColor) {

// set the color of the attr "setColor"

color = typedArray.getBoolean(attr, false);

decorateText();

// the recycle() will be executed obligatorily

finally {

// for reuse

typedArray.recycle();

public TimeView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs, int defStyle) {

super(context, attrs, defStyle);

setTimeView();

private void setTimeView() {

// has the format hour.minuits am/pm

SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("hh.mm aa");

String time = dateFormat.format(Calendar.getInstance().getTime());

if(this.titleText != null )

setText(this.titleText+" "+time);

else
setText(time);

private void decorateText() {

// when we set setColor attribute to true in the XML layout

if(this.color == true){

// set the characteristics and the color of the shadow

setShadowLayer(4, 2, 2, Color.rgb(250, 00, 250));

setBackgroundColor(Color.CYAN);

} else {

setBackgroundColor(Color.RED);

Change your Main activity java file to the following code and run your
application.

package com.example.tutorialspoint7.myapplication;

import android.os.Bundle;

import android.widget.TextView;

import android.app.Activity;

public class MainActivity extends Activity {

@Override

protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {

super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

TextView simpleText = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.simple);

simpleText.setText("That is a simple TextView");

The running application should look like the following screen shot.
Android drag/drop framework allows your users to move data from one View to
another View in the current layout using a graphical drag and drop gesture. As
of API 11 drag and drop of view onto other views or view groups is supported.The
framework includes following three important components to support drag & drop
functionality

Drag event class.

Drag listeners.

Helper methods and classes.

The Drag/Drop Process

There are basically four steps or states in the drag and drop process

Started This event occurs when you start dragging an item in a layout, your application
calls startDrag() method to tell the system to start a drag. The arguments inside
startDrag() method provide the data to be dragged, metadata for this data, and a callback
for drawing the drag shadow.

The system first responds by calling back to your application to get a drag shadow. It then
displays the drag shadow on the device.

Next, the system sends a drag event with action type ACTION_DRAG_STARTED to the
registered drag event listeners for all the View objects in the current layout.

To continue to receive drag events, including a possible drop event, a drag event listener
must return true, If the drag event listener returns false, then it will not receive drag
events for the current operation until the system sends a drag event with action type
ACTION_DRAG_ENDED.

Continuing The user continues the drag. System sends ACTION_DRAG_ENTERED action
followed by ACTION_DRAG_LOCATION action to the registered drag event listener for the
View where dragging point enters. The listener may choose to alter its View object's
appearance in response to the event or can react by highlighting its View.

The drag event listener receives a ACTION_DRAG_EXITED action after the user has moved
the drag shadow outside the bounding box of the View.

Dropped The user releases the dragged item within the bounding box of a View. The
system sends the View object's listener a drag event with action type ACTION_DROP.

Ended Just after the action type ACTION_DROP, the system sends out a drag event with
action type ACTION_DRAG_ENDED to indicate that the drag operation is over.

The DragEvent Class

The DragEvent represents an event that is sent out by the system at various times
during a drag and drop operation. This class provides few Constants and important
methods which we use during Drag/Drop process.

Constants
Following are all constants integers available as a part of DragEvent class.

Sr.No. Constants & Description

ACTION_DRAG_STARTED
1
Signals the start of a drag and drop operation.

ACTION_DRAG_ENTERED
2
Signals to a View that the drag point has entered the bounding box of the View.

ACTION_DRAG_LOCATION

3
Sent to a View after ACTION_DRAG_ENTERED if the drag shadow is still within the
View object's bounding box.

ACTION_DRAG_EXITED
4

Signals that the user has moved the drag shadow outside the bounding box of the
View.

ACTION_DROP

5
Signals to a View that the user has released the drag shadow, and the drag point is
within the bounding box of the View.

ACTION_DRAG_ENDED
6
Signals to a View that the drag and drop operation has concluded.

Methods
Following are few important and most frequently used methods available as a part of
DragEvent class.

Sr.No. Constants & Description

int getAction()
1
Inspect the action value of this event..

ClipData getClipData()

2
Returns the ClipData object sent to the system as part of the call to
startDrag().

ClipDescription getClipDescription()
3
Returns the ClipDescription object contained in the ClipData.

boolean getResult()
4
Returns an indication of the result of the drag and drop operation.

float getX()
5
Gets the X coordinate of the drag point.

6 float getY()
Gets the Y coordinate of the drag point.

String toString()
7
Returns a string representation of this DragEvent object.

Listening for Drag Event

If you want any of your views within a Layout should respond Drag event then your
view either implements View.OnDragListener or
setup onDragEvent(DragEvent) callback method. When the system calls the
method or listener, it passes to them a DragEvent object explained above. You can
have both a listener and a callback method for View object. If this occurs, the system
first calls the listener and then defined callback as long as listener returns true.

The combination of the onDragEvent(DragEvent) method and View.OnDragListener is

analogous to the combination of
the onTouchEvent() and View.OnTouchListener used with touch events in old
versions of Android.

Starting a Drag Event

You start with creating a ClipData and ClipData.Item for the data being moved. As
part of the ClipData object, supply metadata that is stored in
a ClipDescription object within the ClipData. For a drag and drop operation that
does not represent data movement, you may want to use null instead of an actual
object.

Next either you can extend extend View.DragShadowBuilder to create a drag

shadow for dragging the view or simply you can
use View.DragShadowBuilder(View) to create a default drag shadow that's the same
size as the View argument passed to it, with the touch point centered in the drag
shadow.

Example
Following example shows the functionality of a simple Drag & Drop
using View.setOnLongClickListener(), View.setOnTouchListener()and View.O
nDragEventListener().

Step Description

1 You will use Android studio IDE to create an Android application and name it as My
Application under a package com.example.saira_000.myapplication.

2 Modify src/MainActivity.java file and add the code to define event listeners as well as a
call back methods for the logo image used in the example.

3 Copy image abc.png in res/drawable-* folders. You can use images with different
resolution in case you want to provide them for different devices.

4 Modify layout XML file res/layout/activity_main.xml to define default view of the logo
images.

5 Run the application to launch Android emulator and verify the result of the changes
done in the application.

Following is the content of the modified main activity file src/MainActivity.java.

This file can include each of the fundamental lifecycle methods.

package com.example.saira_000.myapplication;

import android.app.Activity;

import android.content.ClipData;
import android.content.ClipDescription;

import android.support.v7.app.ActionBarActivity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.util.Log;

import android.view.DragEvent;
import android.view.Menu;
import android.view.MenuItem;
import android.view.MotionEvent;
import android.view.View;

import android.widget.ImageView;
import android.widget.RelativeLayout;

public class MainActivity extends Activity {

ImageView img;
String msg;
private android.widget.RelativeLayout.LayoutParams layoutParams;

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
img=(ImageView)findViewById(R.id.imageView);

img.setOnLongClickListener(new View.OnLongClickListener() {
@Override
public boolean onLongClick(View v) {
ClipData.Item item = new ClipData.Item((CharSequence)v.getTag());
String[] mimeTypes = {ClipDescription.MIMETYPE_TEXT_PLAIN};

ClipData dragData = new ClipData(v.getTag().toString(),mimeTypes, item);

View.DragShadowBuilder myShadow = new View.DragShadowBuilder(img);

v.startDrag(dragData,myShadow,null,0);
return true;
}
});

img.setOnDragListener(new View.OnDragListener() {
@Override
public boolean onDrag(View v, DragEvent event) {
switch(event.getAction()) {
case DragEvent.ACTION_DRAG_STARTED:
layoutParams = (RelativeLayout.LayoutParams)v.getLayoutParams();
Log.d(msg, "Action is DragEvent.ACTION_DRAG_STARTED");

// Do nothing
break;

case DragEvent.ACTION_DRAG_ENTERED:
Log.d(msg, "Action is DragEvent.ACTION_DRAG_ENTERED");
int x_cord = (int) event.getX();
int y_cord = (int) event.getY();
break;
case DragEvent.ACTION_DRAG_EXITED :
Log.d(msg, "Action is DragEvent.ACTION_DRAG_EXITED");
x_cord = (int) event.getX();
y_cord = (int) event.getY();
layoutParams.leftMargin = x_cord;
layoutParams.topMargin = y_cord;
v.setLayoutParams(layoutParams);
break;

case DragEvent.ACTION_DRAG_LOCATION :
Log.d(msg, "Action is DragEvent.ACTION_DRAG_LOCATION");
x_cord = (int) event.getX();
y_cord = (int) event.getY();
break;

case DragEvent.ACTION_DRAG_ENDED :
Log.d(msg, "Action is DragEvent.ACTION_DRAG_ENDED");

// Do nothing
break;

case DragEvent.ACTION_DROP:
Log.d(msg, "ACTION_DROP event");

// Do nothing
break;
default: break;
}
return true;
}
});

img.setOnTouchListener(new View.OnTouchListener() {
@Override
public boolean onTouch(View v, MotionEvent event) {
if (event.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN) {
ClipData data = ClipData.newPlainText("", "");
View.DragShadowBuilder shadowBuilder = new View.DragShadowBuilder(img);
img.startDrag(data, shadowBuilder, img, 0);
img.setVisibility(View.INVISIBLE);
return true;
} else {
return false;
}
}
});
}
}

Following will be the content of res/layout/activity_main.xml file

In the following code abc indicates the logo of tutorialspoint.com

</RelativeLayout>

Following will be the content of res/values/strings.xml to define two new

constants

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<resources>
<string name="app_name">My Application</string>
</resources>

Following is the default content of AndroidManifest.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

</activity>

</application>
</manifest>

Now do long click on the displayed TutorialsPoint logo and you will see that logo
image moves a little after 1 seconds long click from its place, its the time when you
should start dragging the image. You can drag it around the screen and drop it at a
new location.
A notification is a message you can display to the user outside of your application's normal UI.
When you tell the system to issue a notification, it first appears as an icon in the notification
area. To see the details of the notification, the user opens the notification drawer. Both the
notification area and the notification drawer are system-controlled areas that the user can view
at any time.

Android Toast class provides a handy way to show users alerts but problem is that
these alerts are not persistent which means alert flashes on the screen for a few
seconds and then disappears.

To see the details of the notification, you will have to select the icon which will
display notification drawer having detail about the notification. While working with
emulator with virtual device, you will have to click and drag down the status bar to
expand it which will give you detail as follows. This will be just 64 dp tall and called
normal view.
Above expanded form can have a Big View which will have additional detail about
the notification. You can add upto six additional lines in the notification. The following
screen shot shows such notification.

Create and Send Notifications

You have simple way to create a notification. Follow the following steps in your
application to create a notification

Step 1 - Create Notification Builder

As a first step is to create a notification builder
using NotificationCompat.Builder.build(). You will use Notification Builder to set
various Notification properties like its small and large icons, title, priority etc.

NotificationCompat.Builder mBuilder = new NotificationCompat.Builder(this)

Step 2 - Setting Notification Properties
Once you have Builder object, you can set its Notification properties using Builder
object as per your requirement. But this is mandatory to set at least following

A small icon, set by setSmallIcon()

A title, set by setContentTitle()

Detail text, set by setContentText()

mBuilder.setSmallIcon(R.drawable.notification_icon);
mBuilder.setContentTitle("Notification Alert, Click Me!");
mBuilder.setContentText("Hi, This is Android Notification Detail!");

You have plenty of optional properties which you can set for your notification. To
learn more about them, see the reference documentation for
NotificationCompat.Builder.

Step 3 - Attach Actions

This is an optional part and required if you want to attach an action with the
notification. An action allows users to go directly from the notification to
an Activity in your application, where they can look at one or more events or do
further work.

The action is defined by a PendingIntent containing an Intent that starts an

Activity in your application. To associate the PendingIntent with a gesture, call the
appropriate method of NotificationCompat.Builder. For example, if you want to start
Activity when the user clicks the notification text in the notification drawer, you add
the PendingIntent by calling setContentIntent().

A PendingIntent object helps you to perform an action on your applications behalf,

often at a later time, without caring of whether or not your application is running.

We take help of stack builder object which will contain an artificial back stack for the
started Activity. This ensures that navigating backward from the Activity leads out of
your application to the Home screen.

Intent resultIntent = new Intent(this, ResultActivity.class);

TaskStackBuilder stackBuilder = TaskStackBuilder.create(this);
stackBuilder.addParentStack(ResultActivity.class);

// Adds the Intent that starts the Activity to the top of the stack
stackBuilder.addNextIntent(resultIntent);
PendingIntent resultPendingIntent = stackBuilder.getPendingIntent(0,PendingIntent.FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT);
mBuilder.setContentIntent(resultPendingIntent);

Step 4 - Issue the notification

Finally, you pass the Notification object to the system by calling
NotificationManager.notify() to send your notification. Make sure you
call NotificationCompat.Builder.build() method on builder object before notifying
it. This method combines all of the options that have been set and return a
new Notification object.

NotificationManager mNotificationManager = (NotificationManager)

getSystemService(Context.NOTIFICATION_SERVICE);

// notificationID allows you to update the notification later on.

mNotificationManager.notify(notificationID, mBuilder.build());

The NotificationCompat.Builder Class

The NotificationCompat.Builder class allows easier control over all the flags, as well
as help constructing the typical notification layouts. Following are few important and
most frequently used methods available as a part of NotificationCompat.Builder
class.

Sr.No. Constants & Description

1
Notification build()

Combine all of the options that have been set and return a new Notification object.

2 NotificationCompat.Builder setAutoCancel (boolean autoCancel)

Setting this flag will make it so the notification is automatically canceled when the
user clicks it in the panel.

3
NotificationCompat.Builder setContent (RemoteViews views)

Supply a custom RemoteViews to use instead of the standard one.

4 NotificationCompat.Builder setContentInfo (CharSequence info)

Set the large text at the right-hand side of the notification.

5
NotificationCompat.Builder setContentIntent (PendingIntent intent)

Supply a PendingIntent to send when the notification is clicked.

6 NotificationCompat.Builder setContentText (CharSequence text)

Set the text (second row) of the notification, in a standard notification.

7
NotificationCompat.Builder setContentTitle (CharSequence title)

Set the text (first row) of the notification, in a standard notification.

8 NotificationCompat.Builder setDefaults (int defaults)

Set the default notification options that will be used.

9 NotificationCompat.Builder setLargeIcon (Bitmap icon)

Set the large icon that is shown in the ticker and notification.

10
NotificationCompat.Builder setNumber (int number)

Set the large number at the right-hand side of the notification.

11
NotificationCompat.Builder setOngoing (boolean ongoing)

Set whether this is an ongoing notification.

12
NotificationCompat.Builder setSmallIcon (int icon)

Set the small icon to use in the notification layouts.

13 NotificationCompat.Builder setStyle (NotificationCompat.Style style)

Add a rich notification style to be applied at build time.

14
NotificationCompat.Builder setTicker (CharSequence tickerText)

Set the text that is displayed in the status bar when the notification first arrives.

15 NotificationCompat.Builder setVibrate (long[] pattern)

Set the vibration pattern to use.

16 NotificationCompat.Builder setWhen (long when)

Set the time that the event occurred. Notifications in the panel are sorted by this
time.

Example
Following example shows the functionality of a Android notification using
a NotificationCompat.Builder Class which has been introduced in Android 4.1.

Step Description

1 You will use Android studio IDE to create an Android application and name it
as tutorialspoint under a package com.example.notificationdemo.

2 Modify src/MainActivity.java file and add the code to notify(""), if user click on the
button,it will call android notification service.

3 Create a new Java file src/NotificationView.java, which will be used to display new
layout as a part of new activity which will be started when user will click any of the
notifications

4 Modify layout XML file res/layout/activity_main.xml to add Notification button in

relative layout.

5 Create a new layout XML file res/layout/notification.xml. This will be used as layout
file for new activity which will start when user will click any of the notifications.

6 No need to change default string constants. Android studio takes care of default
string constants

7 Run the application to launch Android emulator and verify the result of the changes
done in the application.

Following is the content of the modified main activity

file src/com.example.notificationdemo/MainActivity.java. This file can include
each of the fundamental lifecycle methods.

package com.example.notificationdemo;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.app.NotificationManager;
import android.app.PendingIntent;
import android.content.Context;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.Button;

public class MainActivity extends Activity {

Button b1;
@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

b1 = (Button)findViewById(R.id.button);
b1.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
@Override
public void onClick(View v) {
addNotification();
}
});
}

private void addNotification() {

NotificationCompat.Builder builder =
new NotificationCompat.Builder(this)
.setSmallIcon(R.drawable.abc)
.setContentTitle("Notifications Example")
.setContentText("This is a test notification");

Intent notificationIntent = new Intent(this, MainActivity.class);

PendingIntent contentIntent = PendingIntent.getActivity(this, 0, notificationIntent,
PendingIntent.FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT);
builder.setContentIntent(contentIntent);

// Add as notification
NotificationManager manager = (NotificationManager)
getSystemService(Context.NOTIFICATION_SERVICE);
manager.notify(0, builder.build());
}
}

Following will be the content of res/layout/notification.xml file

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

Following is the content of the modified main activity

file src/com.example.notificationdemo/NotificationView.java.

package com.example.notificationdemo;

import android.os.Bundle;
import android.app.Activity;

public class NotificationView extends Activity{

@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState){
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.notification);
}
}

Following will be the content of res/layout/activity_main.xml file

Following will be the content of res/values/strings.xml to define two new

constants

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<resources>
<string name="action_settings">Settings</string>
<string name="app_name">tutorialspoint </string>
</resources>

Following is the default content of AndroidManifest.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>

</activity>

</application>
</manifest>

Let's try to run your tutorialspoint application. I assume you had created
your AVD while doing environment set-up. To run the APP from Android Studio, open
one of your project's activity files and click Run icon from the toolbar. Android
Studio installs the app on your AVD and starts it and if everything is fine with your
setup and application, it will display following Emulator window

Now click button, you will see at the top a message "New Message Alert!" will
display momentarily and after that you will have following screen having a small icon
at the top left corner.

Now lets expand the view, long click on the small icon, after a second it will display
date information and this is the time when you should drag status bar down without
releasing mouse. You will see status bar will expand and you will get following screen

Big View Notification

The following code snippet demonstrates how to alter the notification created in the
previous snippet to use the Inbox big view style. I'm going to update
displayNotification() modification method to show this functionality

protected void displayNotification() {

Log.i("Start", "notification");

/* Invoking the default notification service */

NotificationCompat.Builder mBuilder = new NotificationCompat.Builder(this);

mBuilder.setContentTitle("New Message");
mBuilder.setContentText("You've received new message.");
mBuilder.setTicker("New Message Alert!");
mBuilder.setSmallIcon(R.drawable.woman);

/* Increase notification number every time a new notification arrives */

mBuilder.setNumber(++numMessages);

/* Add Big View Specific Configuration */

NotificationCompat.InboxStyle inboxStyle = new NotificationCompat.InboxStyle();

String[] events = new String[6];

events[0] = new String("This is first line....");
events[1] = new String("This is second line...");
events[2] = new String("This is third line...");
events[3] = new String("This is 4th line...");
events[4] = new String("This is 5th line...");
events[5] = new String("This is 6th line...");
// Sets a title for the Inbox style big view
inboxStyle.setBigContentTitle("Big Title Details:");

// Moves events into the big view

for (int i=0; i < events.length; i++) {
inboxStyle.addLine(events[i]);
}

mBuilder.setStyle(inboxStyle);

/* Creates an explicit intent for an Activity in your app */

Intent resultIntent = new Intent(this, NotificationView.class);

TaskStackBuilder stackBuilder = TaskStackBuilder.create(this);

stackBuilder.addParentStack(NotificationView.class);

/* Adds the Intent that starts the Activity to the top of the stack */
stackBuilder.addNextIntent(resultIntent);
PendingIntent resultPendingIntent
=stackBuilder.getPendingIntent(0,PendingIntent.FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT);

mBuilder.setContentIntent(resultPendingIntent);
mNotificationManager = (NotificationManager) getSystemService(Context.NOTIFICATION_SERVICE);

/* notificationID allows you to update the notification later on. */

mNotificationManager.notify(notificationID, mBuilder.build());
}

Now if you will try to run your application then you will find following result in
expanded form of the view
Android location APIs make it easy for you to build location-aware applications, without needing
to focus on the details of the underlying location technology.

This becomes possible with the help of Google Play services, which facilitates
adding location awareness to your app with automated location tracking, geofencing,
and activity recognition.

This tutorial shows you how to use Location Services in your APP to get the current
location, get periodic location updates, look up addresses etc.

The Location Object

The Location object represents a geographic location which can consist of a latitude,
longitude, time stamp, and other information such as bearing, altitude and velocity.
There are following important methods which you can use with Location object to get
location specific information

Sr.No. Method & Description

1
float distanceTo(Location dest)

Returns the approximate distance in meters between this location and the
given location.

2
float getAccuracy()

Get the estimated accuracy of this location, in meters.

3 double getAltitude()

Get the altitude if available, in meters above sea level.

4
float getBearing()

Get the bearing, in degrees.

5
double getLatitude()

Get the latitude, in degrees.

6 double getLongitude()
Get the longitude, in degrees.

7
float getSpeed()

Get the speed if it is available, in meters/second over ground.

8 boolean hasAccuracy()

True if this location has an accuracy.

9 boolean hasAltitude()

True if this location has an altitude.

10
boolean hasBearing()

True if this location has a bearing.

11
boolean hasSpeed()

True if this location has a speed.

12
void reset()

Clears the contents of the location.

13 void setAccuracy(float accuracy)

Set the estimated accuracy of this location, meters.

14
void setAltitude(double altitude)

Set the altitude, in meters above sea level.

15 void setBearing(float bearing)

Set the bearing, in degrees.

16 void setLatitude(double latitude)

Set the latitude, in degrees.

17
void setLongitude(double longitude)

Set the longitude, in degrees.

18 void setSpeed(float speed)

Set the speed, in meters/second over ground.

19 String toString()

Returns a string containing a concise, human-readable description of this

object.

Get the Current Location

To get the current location, create a location client which is LocationClient object,
connect it to Location Services using connect() method, and then call
its getLastLocation() method. This method returns the most recent location in the
form of Location object that contains latitude and longitude coordinates and other
information as explained above. To have location based functionality in your activity,
you will have to implement two interfaces

GooglePlayServicesClient.ConnectionCallbacks

GooglePlayServicesClient.OnConnectionFailedListener

These interfaces provide following important callback methods, which you need to
implement in your activity class

Sr.No. Callback Methods & Description

1 abstract void onConnected(Bundle connectionHint)

This callback method is called when location service is connected to the location
client successfully. You will use connect() method to connect to the location
client.

2 abstract void onDisconnected()

This callback method is called when the client is disconnected. You will
use disconnect() method to disconnect from the location client.
3
abstract void onConnectionFailed(ConnectionResult result)

This callback method is called when there was an error connecting the client to the
service.

You should create the location client in onCreate() method of your activity class, then connect it
in onStart(), so that Location Services maintains the current location while your activity is fully
visible. You should disconnect the client in onStop() method, so that when your app is not
visible, Location Services is not maintaining the current location. This helps in saving battery
power up-to a large extent.

Get the Updated Location

If you are willing to have location updates, then apart from above mentioned
interfaces, you will need to implement LocationListener interface as well. This
interface provide following callback method, which you need to implement in your
activity class

Sr.No. Callback Method & Description

1 abstract void onLocationChanged(Location location)

This callback method is used for receiving notifications

from the LocationClient when the location has changed.

Location Quality of Service

The LocationRequest object is used to request a quality of service (QoS) for
location updates from the LocationClient. There are following useful setter methods
which you can use to handle QoS. There are equivalent getter methods available
which you can check in Android official documentation.

Sr.No. Method & Description

1
setExpirationDuration(long millis)

Set the duration of this request, in milliseconds.

2
setExpirationTime(long millis)

Set the request expiration time, in millisecond since boot.

3
setFastestInterval(long millis)

Explicitly set the fastest interval for location updates, in milliseconds.

4
setInterval(long millis)

Set the desired interval for active location updates, in milliseconds.

5 setNumUpdates(int numUpdates)

Set the number of location updates.

6 setPriority(int priority)

Set the priority of the request.

Now for example, if your application wants high accuracy location it should create a
location request with setPriority(int) set to PRIORITY_HIGH_ACCURACY
and setInterval(long) to 5 seconds. You can also use bigger interval and/or other
priorities like PRIORITY_LOW_POWER for to request "city" level accuracy or
PRIORITY_BALANCED_POWER_ACCURACY for "block" level accuracy.

Activities should strongly consider removing all location request when entering the background
(for example at onPause()), or at least swap the request to a larger interval and lower quality to
save power consumption.

Displaying a Location Address

Once you have Location object, you can
use Geocoder.getFromLocation() method to get an address for a given latitude
and longitude. This method is synchronous, and may take a long time to do its work,
so you should call the method from the doInBackground() method of
an AsyncTask class.

The AsyncTask must be subclassed to be used and the subclass will

override doInBackground(Params...) method to perform a task in the background
and onPostExecute(Result) method is invoked on the UI thread after the
background computation finishes and at the time to display the result. There is one
more important method available in AyncTask which is execute(Params...
params), this method executes the task with the specified parameters.

Example
Following example shows you in practical how to to use Location Services in your app
to get the current location and its equivalent addresses etc.
To experiment with this example, you will need actual Mobile device equipped with latest Android
OS, otherwise you will have to struggle with emulator which may not work.

Create Android Application

Step Description

1 You will use Android studio IDE to create an Android application and name it
as Tutorialspoint under a package com.example.tutorialspoint7.myapplication.

2 add src/GPSTracker.java file and add required code.

3 Modify src/MainActivity.java file and add required code as shown below to take care of
getting current location and its equivalent address.

4 Modify layout XML file res/layout/activity_main.xml to add all GUI components which
include three buttons and two text views to show location/address.

5 Modify res/values/strings.xml to define required constant values

6 Modify AndroidManifest.xml as shown below

7 Run the application to launch Android emulator and verify the result of the changes
done in the application.

Following is the content of the modified main activity file MainActivity.java.

package com.example.tutorialspoint7.myapplication;

import android.Manifest;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.support.v4.app.ActivityCompat;
import android.test.mock.MockPackageManager;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.Button;
import android.widget.Toast;

public class MainActivity extends Activity {

Button btnShowLocation;
private static final int REQUEST_CODE_PERMISSION = 2;
String mPermission = Manifest.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION;

// GPSTracker class
GPSTracker gps;

@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

try {
if (ActivityCompat.checkSelfPermission(this, mPermission)
!= MockPackageManager.PERMISSION_GRANTED) {

ActivityCompat.requestPermissions(this, new String[]{mPermission},

REQUEST_CODE_PERMISSION);

// If any permission above not allowed by user, this condition will

execute every time, else your else part will work
}
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}

btnShowLocation = (Button) findViewById(R.id.button);

// show location button click event

btnShowLocation.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {

@Override
public void onClick(View arg0) {
// create class object
gps = new GPSTracker(MainActivity.this);

// check if GPS enabled

if(gps.canGetLocation()){

double latitude = gps.getLatitude();

double longitude = gps.getLongitude();

// \n is for new line

Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), "Your Location is - \nLat: "
+ latitude + "\nLong: " + longitude, Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
}else{
// can't get location
// GPS or Network is not enabled
// Ask user to enable GPS/network in settings
gps.showSettingsAlert();
}

}
});
}
}

Following is the content of the modified main activity file GPSTracker.java.

package com.example.tutorialspoint7.myapplication;

import android.app.AlertDialog;
import android.app.Service;
import android.content.Context;
import android.content.DialogInterface;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.location.Location;
import android.location.LocationListener;
import android.location.LocationManager;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.os.IBinder;
import android.provider.Settings;
import android.util.Log;

public class GPSTracker extends Service implements LocationListener {

private final Context mContext;

// flag for GPS status

boolean isGPSEnabled = false;
// flag for network status
boolean isNetworkEnabled = false;

// flag for GPS status

boolean canGetLocation = false;

Location location; // location

double latitude; // latitude
double longitude; // longitude

// The minimum distance to change Updates in meters

private static final long MIN_DISTANCE_CHANGE_FOR_UPDATES = 10; // 10 meters

// The minimum time between updates in milliseconds

private static final long MIN_TIME_BW_UPDATES = 1000 * 60 * 1; // 1 minute

// Declaring a Location Manager

protected LocationManager locationManager;

public GPSTracker(Context context) {

this.mContext = context;
getLocation();
}

public Location getLocation() {

try {
locationManager = (LocationManager) mContext.getSystemService(LOCATION_SERVICE);

// getting GPS status

isGPSEnabled = locationManager.isProviderEnabled(LocationManager.GPS_PROVIDER);

// getting network status

isNetworkEnabled = locationManager
.isProviderEnabled(LocationManager.NETWORK_PROVIDER);

if (!isGPSEnabled && !isNetworkEnabled) {

// no network provider is enabled
} else {
this.canGetLocation = true;
// First get location from Network Provider
if (isNetworkEnabled) {
locationManager.requestLocationUpdates(
LocationManager.NETWORK_PROVIDER,
MIN_TIME_BW_UPDATES,
MIN_DISTANCE_CHANGE_FOR_UPDATES, this);

Log.d("Network", "Network");
if (locationManager != null) {
location = locationManager
.getLastKnownLocation(LocationManager.NETWORK_PROVIDER);

if (location != null) {
latitude = location.getLatitude();
longitude = location.getLongitude();
}
}
}

// if GPS Enabled get lat/long using GPS Services

if (isGPSEnabled) {
if (location == null) {
locationManager.requestLocationUpdates(
LocationManager.GPS_PROVIDER,
MIN_TIME_BW_UPDATES,
MIN_DISTANCE_CHANGE_FOR_UPDATES, this);

Log.d("GPS Enabled", "GPS Enabled");

if (locationManager != null) {
location = locationManager
.getLastKnownLocation(LocationManager.GPS_PROVIDER);

if (location != null) {
latitude = location.getLatitude();
longitude = location.getLongitude();
}
}
}
}
}

} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}

return location;
}

/**
* Stop using GPS listener
* Calling this function will stop using GPS in your app
* */

public void stopUsingGPS(){

if(locationManager != null){
locationManager.removeUpdates(GPSTracker.this);
}
}

/**
* Function to get latitude
* */

public double getLatitude(){

if(location != null){
latitude = location.getLatitude();
}

// return latitude
return latitude;
}

/**
* Function to get longitude
* */

public double getLongitude(){

if(location != null){
longitude = location.getLongitude();
}

// return longitude
return longitude;
}

/**
* Function to check GPS/wifi enabled
* @return boolean
* */

public boolean canGetLocation() {

return this.canGetLocation;
}

/**
* Function to show settings alert dialog
* On pressing Settings button will lauch Settings Options
* */

public void showSettingsAlert(){

AlertDialog.Builder alertDialog = new AlertDialog.Builder(mContext);

// Setting Dialog Title

alertDialog.setTitle("GPS is settings");

// Setting Dialog Message

alertDialog.setMessage("GPS is not enabled. Do you want to go to settings menu?");

// On pressing Settings button

alertDialog.setPositiveButton("Settings", new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog,int which) {
Intent intent = new Intent(Settings.ACTION_LOCATION_SOURCE_SETTINGS);
mContext.startActivity(intent);
}
});
// on pressing cancel button
alertDialog.setNegativeButton("Cancel", new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int which) {
dialog.cancel();
}
});

// Showing Alert Message

alertDialog.show();
}

@Override
public void onLocationChanged(Location location) {
}

@Override
public void onProviderDisabled(String provider) {
}

@Override
public void onProviderEnabled(String provider) {
}

@Override
public void onStatusChanged(String provider, int status, Bundle extras) {
}

@Override
public IBinder onBind(Intent arg0) {
return null;
}
}

Following will be the content of res/layout/activity_main.xml file

<?xml version = "1.0" encoding = "utf-8"?>

</LinearLayout>

Following will be the content of res/values/strings.xml to define two new

constants

<?xml version = "1.0" encoding = "utf-8"?>

<resources>
<string name = "app_name">Tutorialspoint</string>
</resources>

Following is the default content of AndroidManifest.xml

<?xml version = "1.0" encoding = "utf-8"?>

<activity android:name = ".MainActivity">

<intent-filter>
<action android:name = "android.intent.action.MAIN" />

<category android:name = "android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />

</intent-filter>
</activity>
</application>

</manifest>
Let's try to run your Tutorialspoint application. I assume that, you have connected
your actual Android Mobile device with your computer. To run the app from Android
Studio, open one of your project's activity files and click Run icon from the
toolbar. Before starting your application, Android studio installer will display following
window to select an option where you want to run your Android application.

Now to see location select Get Location Button which will display location information
as follows
Email is messages distributed by electronic means from one system user to one or more
recipients via a network.

Before starting Email Activity, You must know Email functionality with intent, Intent
is carrying data from one component to another component with-in the application or
outside the application.

To send an email from your application, you dont have to implement an email client
from the beginning, but you can use an existing one like the default Email app
provided from Android, Gmail, Outlook, K-9 Mail etc. For this purpose, we need to
write an Activity that launches an email client, using an implicit Intent with the right
action and data. In this example, we are going to send an email from our app by
using an Intent object that launches existing email clients.

Following section explains different parts of our Intent object required to send an
email.

Intent Object - Action to send Email

You will use ACTION_SEND action to launch an email client installed on your
Android device. Following is simple syntax to create an intent with ACTION_SEND
action.

Intent emailIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SEND);

Intent Object - Data/Type to send Email

To send an email you need to specify mailto: as URI using setData() method and
data type will be to text/plain using setType() method as follows

emailIntent.setData(Uri.parse("mailto:"));
emailIntent.setType("text/plain");

Intent Object - Extra to send Email

Android has built-in support to add TO, SUBJECT, CC, TEXT etc. fields which can be
attached to the intent before sending the intent to a target email client. You can use
following extra fields in your email

Sr.No. Extra Data & Description

1
EXTRA_BCC

A String[] holding e-mail addresses that should be blind carbon copied.

2 EXTRA_CC

A String[] holding e-mail addresses that should be carbon copied.

3 EXTRA_EMAIL

A String[] holding e-mail addresses that should be delivered to.

4 EXTRA_HTML_TEXT

A constant String that is associated with the Intent, used with ACTION_SEND to
supply an alternative to EXTRA_TEXT as HTML formatted text.

5 EXTRA_SUBJECT

A constant string holding the desired subject line of a message.

6 EXTRA_TEXT
A constant CharSequence that is associated with the Intent, used with
ACTION_SEND to supply the literal data to be sent.

7
EXTRA_TITLE

A CharSequence dialog title to provide to the user when used with a

ACTION_CHOOSER.

Here is an example showing you how to assign extra data to your intent

emailIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_EMAIL , new String[]{"Recipient"});

emailIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT, "subject");
emailIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT , "Message Body");

The out-put of above code is as below shown an image

EMAIL EXAMPLE

Example
Following example shows you in practical how to use Intent object to launch Email
client to send an Email to the given recipients.

To Email experiment with this example, you will need actual Mobile device equipped with latest
Android OS, otherwise you might get struggle with emulator which may not work properly.
Second you will need to have an Email client like GMail(By default every android version having
Gmail client App) or K9mail installed on your device.

Step Description
1 You will use Android studio to create an Android application and name it
as Tutorialspoint under a package com.example.tutorialspoint.

2 Modify src/MainActivity.java file and add required code to take care of sending email.

3 Modify layout XML file res/layout/activity_main.xml add any GUI component if

required. I'm adding a simple button to launch Email Client.

4 Modify res/values/strings.xml to define required constant values

5 Modify AndroidManifest.xml as shown below

6 Run the application to launch Android emulator and verify the result of the changes
done in the application.

Following is the content of the modified main activity

file src/com.example.Tutorialspoint/MainActivity.java.

package com.example.tutorialspoint;

import android.net.Uri;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.util.Log;
import android.view.Menu;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.Button;
import android.widget.Toast;

public class MainActivity extends Activity {

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

Button startBtn = (Button) findViewById(R.id.sendEmail);

startBtn.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
public void onClick(View view) {
sendEmail();
}
});
}

protected void sendEmail() {

Log.i("Send email", "");
String[] TO = {""};
String[] CC = {""};
Intent emailIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SEND);

emailIntent.setData(Uri.parse("mailto:"));
emailIntent.setType("text/plain");
emailIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_EMAIL, TO);
emailIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_CC, CC);
emailIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT, "Your subject");
emailIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, "Email message goes here");

try {
startActivity(Intent.createChooser(emailIntent, "Send mail..."));
finish();
Log.i("Finished sending email...", "");
} catch (android.content.ActivityNotFoundException ex) {
Toast.makeText(MainActivity.this, "There is no email client installed.",
Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
}
}
}

Following will be the content of res/layout/activity_main.xml file

Here abc indicates about tutorialspoint logo

</LinearLayout>

Following will be the content of res/values/strings.xml to define two new

constants

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<resources>
<string name="app_name">Tutorialspoint</string>
<string name="compose_email">Compose Email</string>
</resources>

Following is the default content of AndroidManifest.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>

</activity>

</application>
</manifest>

Let's try to run your tutorialspoint application. I assume you have connected your
actual Android Mobile device with your computer. To run the app from Android
Studio, open one of your project's activity files and click Run icon from the
toolbar. Before starting your application, Android studio installer will display following
window to select an option where you want to run your Android application.Select
your mobile device as an option and then check your mobile device which will display
following screen
Now use Compose Email button to list down all the installed email clients. From the
list, you can choose one of email clients to send your email. I'm going to use Gmail
client to send my email which will have all the provided defaults fields available as
shown below. Here From: will be default email ID you have registered for your
Android device.
You can modify either of the given default fields and finally use send email button to
send your email to the mentioned recipients.

In Android, you can use SmsManager API or devices Built-in SMS application to send
SMS's. In this tutorial, we shows you two basic examples to send SMS message

SmsManager API

SmsManager smsManager = SmsManager.getDefault();

smsManager.sendTextMessage("phoneNo", null, "sms message", null, null);

Built-in SMS application

Intent sendIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW);

sendIntent.putExtra("sms_body", "default content");
sendIntent.setType("vnd.android-dir/mms-sms");
startActivity(sendIntent);

Of course, both need SEND_SMS permission.

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.SEND_SMS" />

Apart from the above method, there are few other important functions available in
SmsManager class. These methods are listed below

Sr.No. Method & Description

1 ArrayList<String> divideMessage(String text)

This method divides a message text into several fragments, none bigger than the
maximum SMS message size.

2
static SmsManager getDefault()

This method is used to get the default instance of the SmsManager

3 void sendDataMessage(String destinationAddress, String scAddress, short

destinationPort, byte[] data, PendingIntent sentIntent, PendingIntent
deliveryIntent)

This method is used to send a data based SMS to a specific application port.

4 void sendMultipartTextMessage(String destinationAddress, String

scAddress, ArrayList<String> parts, ArrayList<PendingIntent>
sentIntents, ArrayList<PendingIntent> deliveryIntents)

Send a multi-part text based SMS.

5 void sendTextMessage(String destinationAddress, String scAddress, String

text, PendingIntent sentIntent, PendingIntent deliveryIntent)

Send a text based SMS.

Example
Following example shows you in practical how to use SmsManager object to send an
SMS to the given mobile number.

To experiment with this example, you will need actual Mobile device equipped with latest Android
OS, otherwise you will have to struggle with emulator which may not work.

Step Description

1 You will use Android Studio IDE to create an Android application and name it
as tutorialspoint under a package com.example.tutorialspoint.

2 Modify src/MainActivity.java file and add required code to take care of sending sms.

3 Modify layout XML file res/layout/activity_main.xml add any GUI component if

required. I'm adding a simple GUI to take mobile number and SMS text to be sent
and a simple button to send SMS.
4 No need to define default string constants at res/values/strings.xml. Android studio
takes care of default constants.

5 Modify AndroidManifest.xml as shown below

6 Run the application to launch Android emulator and verify the result of the changes
done in the application.

Following is the content of the modified main activity

file src/com.example.tutorialspoint/MainActivity.java.

package com.example.tutorialspoint;

import android.Manifest;
import android.content.pm.PackageManager;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.app.Activity;

import android.support.v4.app.ActivityCompat;
import android.support.v4.content.ContextCompat;
import android.telephony.SmsManager;

import android.util.Log;
import android.view.Menu;
import android.view.View;

import android.widget.Button;
import android.widget.EditText;
import android.widget.Toast;

public class MainActivity extends Activity {

private static final int MY_PERMISSIONS_REQUEST_SEND_SMS =0 ;
Button sendBtn;
EditText txtphoneNo;
EditText txtMessage;
String phoneNo;
String message;

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

sendBtn = (Button) findViewById(R.id.btnSendSMS);

txtphoneNo = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.editText);
txtMessage = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.editText2);

sendBtn.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
public void onClick(View view) {
sendSMSMessage();
}
});
}

protected void sendSMSMessage() {

phoneNo = txtphoneNo.getText().toString();
message = txtMessage.getText().toString();

if (ContextCompat.checkSelfPermission(this,
Manifest.permission.SEND_SMS)
!= PackageManager.PERMISSION_GRANTED) {
if (ActivityCompat.shouldShowRequestPermissionRationale(this,
Manifest.permission.SEND_SMS)) {
} else {
ActivityCompat.requestPermissions(this,
new String[]{Manifest.permission.SEND_SMS},
MY_PERMISSIONS_REQUEST_SEND_SMS);
}
}
}

@Override
public void onRequestPermissionsResult(int requestCode,String permissions[], int[]
grantResults) {
switch (requestCode) {
case MY_PERMISSIONS_REQUEST_SEND_SMS: {
if (grantResults.length > 0
&& grantResults[0] == PackageManager.PERMISSION_GRANTED) {
SmsManager smsManager = SmsManager.getDefault();
smsManager.sendTextMessage(phoneNo, null, message, null, null);
Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), "SMS sent.",
Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
} else {
Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(),
"SMS faild, please try again.", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
return;
}
}
}

}
}

Following will be the content of res/layout/activity_main.xml file

Here abc indicates about tutorialspoint logo

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

</RelativeLayout>

Following will be the content of res/values/strings.xml to define two new

constants

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<resources>
<string name="app_name">tutorialspoint</string>
</resources>

Following is the default content of AndroidManifest.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.SEND_SMS" />

<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>

</application>
</manifest>

Now you can enter a desired mobile number and a text message to be sent on that
number. Finally click on Send SMS button to send your SMS. Make sure your
GSM/CDMA connection is working fine to deliver your SMS to its recipient.

You can take a number of SMS separated by comma and then inside your program
you will have to parse them into an array string and finally you can use a loop to
send message to all the given numbers. That's how you can write your own SMS
client. Next section will show you how to use existing SMS client to send SMS.

Using Built-in Intent to send SMS

You can use Android Intent to send SMS by calling built-in SMS functionality of the
Android. Following section explains different parts of our Intent object required to
send an SMS.
Intent Object - Action to send SMS
You will use ACTION_VIEW action to launch an SMS client installed on your Android
device. Following is simple syntax to create an intent with ACTION_VIEW action.

Intent smsIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW);

Intent Object - Data/Type to send SMS

To send an SMS you need to specify smsto: as URI using setData() method and data
type will be to vnd.android-dir/mms-sms using setType() method as follows

smsIntent.setData(Uri.parse("smsto:"));
smsIntent.setType("vnd.android-dir/mms-sms");

Intent Object - Extra to send SMS

Android has built-in support to add phone number and text message to send an SMS
as follows

smsIntent.putExtra("address" , new String("0123456789;3393993300"));

smsIntent.putExtra("sms_body" , "Test SMS to Angilla");
Here address and sms_body are case sensitive and should be specified in small characters only.
You can specify more than one number in single string but separated by semi-colon (;).

Example
Following example shows you in practical how to use Intent object to launch SMS
client to send an SMS to the given recipients.

To experiment with this example, you will need actual Mobile device equipped with latest Android
OS, otherwise you will have to struggle with emulator which may not work.

Step Description

1 You will use Android studio IDE to create an Android application and name it
as tutorialspoint under a package com.example.tutorialspoint.

2 Modify src/MainActivity.java file and add required code to take care of sending SMS.

3 Modify layout XML file res/layout/activity_main.xml add any GUI component if required.
I'm adding a simple button to launch SMS Client.

4 No need to define default constants.Android studio takes care of default constants.

5 Modify AndroidManifest.xml as shown below

6 Run the application to launch Android emulator and verify the result of the changes done
in the application.

Following is the content of the modified main activity

file src/com.example.tutorialspoint/MainActivity.java.

package com.example.tutorialspoint;
import android.net.Uri;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.util.Log;
import android.view.Menu;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.Button;
import android.widget.Toast;
public class MainActivity extends Activity {
@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

Button startBtn = (Button) findViewById(R.id.button);

startBtn.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
public void onClick(View view) {
sendSMS();
}
});
}
protected void sendSMS() {
Log.i("Send SMS", "");
Intent smsIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW);

smsIntent.setData(Uri.parse("smsto:"));
smsIntent.setType("vnd.android-dir/mms-sms");
smsIntent.putExtra("address" , new String ("01234"));
smsIntent.putExtra("sms_body" , "Test ");

try {
startActivity(smsIntent);
finish();
Log.i("Finished sending SMS...", "");
} catch (android.content.ActivityNotFoundException ex) {
Toast.makeText(MainActivity.this,
"SMS faild, please try again later.", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
}
}

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
// Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.
getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.main, menu);
return true;
}
}

Following will be the content of res/layout/activity_main.xml file

Here abc indicates about tutorialspoint logo

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

</RelativeLayout>

Following will be the content of res/values/strings.xml to define two new

constants

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<resources>
<string name="app_name">tutorialspoint</string>
</resources>

Following is the default content of AndroidManifest.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>

</activity>

</application>
</manifest>

Let's try to run your tutorialspoint application. I assume you have connected your
actual Android Mobile device with your computer. To run the app from Android
studio, open one of your project's activity files and click Run icon from the toolbar.
Before starting your application, Android studio will display following window to
select an option where you want to run your Android application.
Select your mobile device as an option and then check your mobile device which will
display following screen
Now use Compose SMS button to launch Android built-in SMS clients which is
shown below

You can modify either of the given default fields and finally use send SMS button to
send your SMS to the mentioned recipient.

Android provides Built-in applications for phone calls, in some occasions we may
need to make a phone call through our application. This could easily be done by
using implicit Intent with appropriate actions. Also, we can use PhoneStateListener
and TelephonyManager classes, in order to monitor the changes in some telephony
states on the device.

This chapter lists down all the simple steps to create an application which can be
used to make a Phone Call. You can use Android Intent to make phone call by calling
built-in Phone Call functionality of the Android. Following section explains different
parts of our Intent object required to make a call.
Intent Object - Action to make Phone Call
You will use ACTION_CALL action to trigger built-in phone call functionality
available in Android device. Following is simple syntax to create an intent with
ACTION_CALL action

Intent phoneIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_CALL);

You can use ACTION_DIAL action instead of ACTION_CALL, in that case you will
have option to modify hardcoded phone number before making a call instead of
making a direct call.

Intent Object - Data/Type to make Phone Call

To make a phone call at a given number 91-000-000-0000, you need to
specify tel: as URI using setData() method as follows

phoneIntent.setData(Uri.parse("tel:91-000-000-0000"));

The interesting point is that, to make a phone call, you do not need to specify any
extra data or data type.

Example
Following example shows you in practical how to use Android Intent to make phone
call to the given mobile number.

To experiment with this example, you will need actual Mobile device equipped with latest Android
OS, otherwise you will have to struggle with emulator which may not work.

Step Description

1 You will use Android studio IDE to create an Android application and name it as My
Application under a package com.example.saira_000.myapplication.

2 Modify src/MainActivity.java file and add required code to take care of making a call.

3 Modify layout XML file res/layout/activity_main.xml add any GUI component if

required. I'm adding a simple button to Call 91-000-000-0000 number

4 No need to define default string constants.Android studio takes care of default

constants.

5 Modify AndroidManifest.xml as shown below

6 Run the application to launch Android emulator and verify the result of the changes
done in the application.

Following is the content of the modified main activity file src/MainActivity.java.

package com.example.saira_000.myapplication;

import android.Manifest;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.content.pm.PackageManager;
import android.net.Uri;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.support.v4.app.ActivityCompat;
import android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.Button;

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {

private Button button;

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
button = (Button) findViewById(R.id.buttonCall);

button.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
public void onClick(View arg0) {
Intent callIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_CALL);
callIntent.setData(Uri.parse("tel:0377778888"));
if (ActivityCompat.checkSelfPermission(MainActivity.this,
Manifest.permission.CALL_PHONE) != PackageManager.PERMISSION_GRANTED) {
return;
}
startActivity(callIntent);
}
});
}
}

Following will be the content of res/layout/activity_main.xml file

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:orientation="vertical" >

</LinearLayout>

Following will be the content of res/values/strings.xml to define two new

constants

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<resources>
<string name="app_name">My Application</string>
</resources>

Following is the default content of AndroidManifest.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.CALL_PHONE" />

<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>

</activity>

</application>
</manifest>

Let's try to run your My Application application. I assume you have connected your
actual Android Mobile device with your computer. To run the app from Android
studio, open one of your project's activity files and click Run icon from the
toolbar.Select your mobile device as an option and then check your mobile device
which will display following screen

Now use Call button to make phone call as shown below

Android application publishing is a process that makes your Android applications
available to users. Infect, publishing is the last phase of the Android application
development process.
ANDROID DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE
Once you developed and fully tested your Android Application, you can start selling
or distributing free using Google Play (A famous Android marketplace). You can also
release your applications by sending them directly to users or by letting users
download them from your own website.

You can check a detailed publishing process at Android official website, but this
tutorial will take you through simple steps to launch your application on Google Play.
Here is a simplified check list which will help you in launching your Android
application

Step Activity

1 Regression Testing Before you publish your application, you need to make sure that
its meeting the basic quality expectations for all Android apps, on all of the devices
that you are targeting. So perform all the required testing on different devices
including phone and tablets.

2 Application Rating When you will publish your application at Google Play, you will
have to specify a content rating for your app, which informs Google Play users of its
maturity level. Currently available ratings are (a) Everyone (b) Low maturity (c)
Medium maturity (d) High maturity.

3 Targeted Regions Google Play lets you control what countries and territories where
your application will be sold. Accordingly you must take care of setting up time zone,
localization or any other specific requirement as per the targeted region.
4 Application Size Currently, the maximum size for an APK published on Google Play
is 50 MB. If your app exceeds that size, or if you want to offer a secondary download,
you can use APK Expansion Files, which Google Play will host for free on its server
infrastructure and automatically handle the download to devices.

5 SDK and Screen Compatibility It is important to make sure that your app is
designed to run properly on the Android platform versions and device screen sizes
that you want to target.

6 Application Pricing Deciding whether you app will be free or paid is important
because, on Google Play, free app's must remain free. If you want to sell your
application then you will have to specify its price in different currencies.

7 Promotional Content It is a good marketing practice to supply a variety of high-

quality graphic assets to showcase your app or brand. After you publish, these appear
on your product details page, in store listings and search results, and elsewhere.

8 Build and Upload release-ready APK The release-ready APK is what you you will
upload to the Developer Console and distribute to users. You can check complete
detail on how to create a release-ready version of your app: Preparing for Release.

9 Finalize Application Detail Google Play gives you a variety of ways to promote your
app and engage with users on your product details page, from colourful graphics,
screen shots, and videos to localized descriptions, release details, and links to your
other apps. So you can decorate your application page and provide as much as clear
crisp detail you can provide.

Export Android Application Process

APK DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

Before exporting the apps, you must some of tools
Dx tools(Dalvik executable tools ): It going to convert .class file to .dex file. it has
useful for memory optimization and reduce the boot-up speed time

AAPT(Android assistance packaging tool):it has useful to convert .Dex file to.Apk

APK(Android packaging kit): The final stage of deployment process is called as .apk.

You will need to export your application as an APK (Android Package) file before you
upload it Google Play marketplace.

To export an application, just open that application project in Android studio and
select Build Generate Signed APK from your Android studio and follow the
simple steps to export your application

Next select, Generate Signed APK option as shown in the above screen shot and
then click it so that you get following screen where you will choose Create new
keystore to store your application.
Enter your key store path,key store password,key alias and key password to protect
your application and click on Next button once again. It will display following screen
to let you create an application

Once you filled up all the information,like app destination,build type and flavours
click finish button While creating an application it will show as below

Finally, it will generate your Android Application as APK formate File which will be
uploaded at Google Play marketplace.

Google Play Registration

The most important step is to register with Google Play using Google Play
Marketplace. You can use your existing google ID if you have any otherwise you can
create a new Google ID and then register with the marketplace. You will have
following screen to accept terms and condition.
You can use Continue to payment button to proceed to make a payment of $25 as
a registration fee and finally to complete your account detail.

Once you are a registered user at Google Play, you can upload release-ready
APK for your application and finally you will complete application detail using
application detail page as mentioned in step 9 of the above mentioned checklist.

Signing Your App Manually

You do not need Android Studio to sign your app. You can sign your app from the
command line using standard tools from the Android SDK and the JDK. To sign an
app in release mode from the command line

Generate a private key using keytool

$ keytool -genkey -v -keystore my-release-key.keystore
-alias alias_name -keyalg RSA -keysize 2048 -validity 10000

Compile your app in release mode to obtain an unsigned APK

Sign your app with your private key using jarsigner

$ jarsigner -verbose -sigalg SHA1withRSA -digestalg SHA1

-keystore my-release-key.keystore my_application.apk alias_name

Verify that your APK is signed. For example

$ jarsigner -verify -verbose -certs my_application.apk

Align the final APK package using zipalign.

$ zipalign -v 4 your_project_name-unaligned.apk your_project_name.apk

Some of App markets

GOOGLE PLAY

PHOLOAD

APTOIDE

AMAZON APPSTORE

1MOBILE

INSYDE MARKET

YANDEX STORE

F-DROID

SAMSUNG GALAXY APPSTORE

A Dialog is small window that prompts the user to a decision or enter additional
information.

Some times in your application, if you wanted to ask the user about taking a decision
between yes or no in response of any particular action taken by the user, by
remaining in the same activity and without changing the screen, you can use Alert
Dialog.
In order to make an alert dialog, you need to make an object of AlertDialogBuilder
which an inner class of AlertDialog. Its syntax is given below

AlertDialog.Builder alertDialogBuilder = new AlertDialog.Builder(this);

Now you have to set the positive (yes) or negative (no) button using the object of
the AlertDialogBuilder class. Its syntax is

alertDialogBuilder.setPositiveButton(CharSequence text,
DialogInterface.OnClickListener listener)
alertDialogBuilder.setNegativeButton(CharSequence text,
DialogInterface.OnClickListener listener)

Apart from this , you can use other functions provided by the builder class to
customize the alert dialog. These are listed below

Sr.No Method type & description

setIcon(Drawable icon)
1
This method set the icon of the alert dialog box.

setCancelable(boolean cancel able)

2 This method sets the property that the dialog can be cancelled or
not

setMessage(CharSequence message)
3
This method sets the message to be displayed in the alert dialog

setMultiChoiceItems(CharSequence[] items, boolean[]

checkedItems, DialogInterface.OnMultiChoiceClickListener
listener)
4
This method sets list of items to be displayed in the dialog as the
content. The selected option will be notified by the listener

setOnCancelListener(DialogInterface.OnCancelListener

5 onCancelListener)

This method Sets the callback that will be called if the dialog is
cancelled.

setTitle(CharSequence title)
6
This method set the title to be appear in the dialog

After creating and setting the dialog builder , you will create an alert dialog by calling
the create() method of the builder class. Its syntax is

AlertDialog alertDialog = alertDialogBuilder.create();

alertDialog.show();

This will create the alert dialog and will show it on the screen.

Dialog fragment
Before enter into an example we should need to know dialog fragment.Dialog
fragment is a fragment which can show fragment in dialog box

public class DialogFragment extends DialogFragment {

@Override
public Dialog onCreateDialog(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
// Use the Builder class for convenient dialog construction
AlertDialog.Builder builder = new AlertDialog.Builder(getActivity());
builder.setPositiveButton(R.string.fire, new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int id) {
toast.makeText(this,"enter a text here",Toast.LENTH_SHORT).show();
}
})
.setNegativeButton(R.string.cancel, new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int id) {
finish();
});
// Create the AlertDialog object and return it
return builder.create();
}
}
}

List dialog
It has used to show list of items in a dialog box.For suppose, user need to select a
list of items or else need to click a item from multiple list of items.At this situation
we can use list dialog.

public Dialog onCreateDialog(Bundle savedInstanceState) {

AlertDialog.Builder builder = new AlertDialog.Builder(getActivity());
builder.setTitle(Pick a Color)

.setItems(R.array.colors_array, new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {

public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int which) {
// The 'which' argument contains the index position
// of the selected item
}
});
return builder.create();
}

Single-choice list dialog

It has used to add single choice list to Dialog box.We can check or uncheck as per
user choice.

public Dialog onCreateDialog(Bundle savedInstanceState) {

mSelectedItems = new ArrayList();
AlertDialog.Builder builder = new AlertDialog.Builder(getActivity());

builder.setTitle("This is list choice dialog box");

.setMultiChoiceItems(R.array.toppings, null,
new DialogInterface.OnMultiChoiceClickListener() {
@Override
public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int which, boolean isChecked) {

if (isChecked) {
// If the user checked the item, add it to the selected items
mSelectedItems.add(which);
}

else if (mSelectedItems.contains(which)) {
// Else, if the item is already in the array, remove it
mSelectedItems.remove(Integer.valueOf(which));
}
}
})

// Set the action buttons

.setPositiveButton(R.string.ok, new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
@Override
public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int id) {
// User clicked OK, so save the mSelectedItems results somewhere
// or return them to the component that opened the dialog
...
}
})

.setNegativeButton(R.string.cancel, new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {

@Override
public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int id) {
...
}
});
return builder.create();
}

Example
The following example demonstrates the use of AlertDialog in android.

To experiment with this example , you need to run this on an emulator or an actual
device.

Steps Description

1 You will use Android studio to create an Android application and name it as My
Application under a package com.example.sairamkrishna.myapplication.

2 Modify src/MainActivity.java file to add alert dialog code to launch the dialog.

3 Modify layout XML file res/layout/activity_main.xml add any GUI component if

required.

4 No need to change default string constants. Android studio takes care of default
strings at values/string.xml
5 Run the application and choose a running android device and install the application
on it and verify the results.

Here is the modified code of src/MainActivity.java

package com.example.sairamkrishna.myapplication;

import android.app.AlertDialog;
import android.content.DialogInterface;
import android.support.v7.app.ActionBarActivity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.Toast;

public class MainActivity extends ActionBarActivity {

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
}

public void open(View view){

AlertDialog.Builder alertDialogBuilder = new AlertDialog.Builder(this);
alertDialogBuilder.setMessage("Are you sure,
You wanted to make decision");
alertDialogBuilder.setPositiveButton("yes",
new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
@Override
public void onClick(DialogInterface arg0, int arg1) {
Toast.makeText(MainActivity.this,"You clicked yes
button",Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
}
});

alertDialogBuilder.setNegativeButton("No",new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
Override
public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int which) {
finish();
}
});
AlertDialog alertDialog = alertDialogBuilder.create();
alertDialog.show();
}
}

Here is the modified code of res/layout/activity_main.xml

In the below code abc indicates the logo of tutorialspoint.com

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

</RelativeLayout>

Here is ofStrings.xml

<resources>
<string name="app_name">My Application</string>
</resources>

Here is the default code of AndroidManifest.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

</activity>

</application>
</manifest>

Let's try to run your application. I assume you have connected your actual Android
Mobile device with your computer. To run the app from Android studio, open one of
your project's activity files and click Run icon from the toolbar. Before starting
your application, ]Android studio will display following window to select an option
where you want to run your Android application.
Select your an option and then click on it. For suppose, if you have clicked on yes
button, then result would as follows

if you click on no button it will call finish() and it will close your application.

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