Notes: Mobile Application Development, Class: BCA TY, Unit I: Introduction to android

UNIT I: INTRODUCTION TO ANDROID

1.1 Introduction to Android platform and Architecture
1.2 Basic components of Android, activity life cycle
1.3 Features of ART & Dalvik Virtual machine
1.4 Android Application Structure
1.5 device screen size compatibility
1.6 Android emulator
1.7 working with AndroidManifest.xml

1.1 Introduction to Android platform and Architecture

Android architecture is a software stack of components to support mobile

device needs. Android software stack contains a Linux Kernel, collection of c/c++
libraries which are exposed through an application framework services,
runtime, and application.

Following are main components of android architecture those are.

1. Applications
2. Android Framework
3. Android Runtime
4. Platform Libraries
5. Linux Kernel

Applications
The top layer of the android architecture is Applications. The native and third-
party applications like contacts, email, music, gallery, clock, games, etc.

Application Framework
The Application Framework provides the classes used to create Android
applications.
It also provides a generic abstraction for hardware access and manages the user
interface and application resources

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Notes: Mobile Application Development, Class: BCA TY, Unit I: Introduction to android

The application framework includes services like telephony service, location

services, notification manager, NFC service, view system, etc.

Android Runtime
Android Runtime environment is an important part of Android rather than an
internal part and it contains components like core libraries and the Dalvik
virtual machine.

Dalvik Virtual Machine (DVM) is a register-based virtual machine like Java

Virtual Machine (JVM).
It is specially designed and optimized for android to ensure that a device can run
multiple instances efficiently.
It relies on the Linux kernel for threading and low-level memory management.

Linux Kernel
Linux Kernel is a bottom layer and heart of the android architecture.
It manages all the drivers such as display drivers, camera drivers, Bluetooth
drivers, audio drivers, memory drivers, etc. which are mainly required for the
android device during the runtime.

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Notes: Mobile Application Development, Class: BCA TY, Unit I: Introduction to android

1.2 A] Basic components of Android

Application components are the basic building blocks of an application and

these components will act as an entry point to allow system or user to access our
app.
The following are the basic core application components that can be used in
Android application.

 Activities
 Intents
 Content Providers
 Broadcast Receivers
 Services

All these application components are defined in the android app description file

Android Activities
In android, Activity represents a single screen with a user interface (UI) and it
will acts an entry point for the user’s to interact with app.

Android Intents
In android, Intent is a messaging object which is used to request an action from
another component.
Intents are mainly used to perform the following things.

 Starting an Activity
 Starting a Service
 Delivering a Broadcast

Android Services
Service is a component that keeps an app running in the background to perform
long-running operations based on our requirements. For Service, we don’t have
any user interface and it will run the apps in background like p
Lay music in background when the user in different app.

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Notes: Mobile Application Development, Class: BCA TY, Unit I: Introduction to android

B] Activity life cycle

An activity represents a single screen with a user interface just like window or
frame of Java. Android activity is the subclass of ContextThemeWrapper class.
By the help of activity, you can place all your UI components or widgets in a
single screen.
The 7 lifecycle method of Activity describes how activity will behave at different
states.

1. onCreate : called when activity is first created.

@Override protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
}
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Notes: Mobile Application Development, Class: BCA TY, Unit I: Introduction to android

2. onStart : called when activity is becoming visible to the user.

@Override protected void onStart() { super.onStart(); }

3. onResume : called when activity will start interacting with the user.

@Override protected void onResume() { super.onResume(); }

4. onPause : called when activity is not visible to the user.

@Override protected void onPause() { super.onPause(); }

5. onStop : called when activity is no longer visible to the user.

@Override protected void onStop() { super.onStop(); }

6. onRestart : called after your activity is stopped, prior to start.
7. onDestroy : called before the activity is destroyed.

1.3 Features of ART & Dalvik Virtual machine

Dalvik Virtual Machine

DVM is a Register-Based virtual machine that was designed and written by

Dan Bornstein.
Dalvik is a discontinued process virtual machine (VM) in the Android OS that
executes applications written for Android.
Dalvik bytecode format is still used as a distribution format, but no longer at
runtime in newer Android versions.
There are 2 types of files:
 .dex(Dalvik Executable file) file is an android’s compiled code file. These
.dex files are then zipped into a single .apk file.
 .odex file is created by the Android operating system to save space and
increase the boot speed of an Android app (a .apk file).

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Notes: Mobile Application Development, Class: BCA TY, Unit I: Introduction to android

1.4 Android Application Structure

Android Studio is the official IDE (Integrated Development Environment)

developed by Jet Brains community which is freely provided by Google for
android app development. After completing the setup of Android Architecture
we can create android application in the studio.

The android project contains different types of app modules, source code files,
and resource files.

1. Manifests Folder
2. Java Folder
3. res (Resources) Folder
 Drawable Folder
 Layout Folder
 Mipmap Folder
 Values Folder
4. Gradle Scripts

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Notes: Mobile Application Development, Class: BCA TY, Unit I: Introduction to android

Manifests Folder
Manifests folder contains AndroidManifest.xml for our creating the android
application. This file contains information about our application such as
application components. It acts as an intermediate between android OS and our
application. Following is the manifests folder structure in android application.

Java folder
Java folder contains all the java source code (.java) files that we create during the app
development, including other Test files. If we create any new project using Java, by
default the class file MainActivity.java file will create automatically under the package
name “com.gopal.notificationdemo”.

Resource (res) folder

The resource folder is the most important folder because it contains all the non-
code sources like images, XML layouts, UI strings for our android application.

Res/drawable folder
It contains the different types of images used for the development of the
application. We need to add all the images in a drawable folder for the
application development.

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Notes: Mobile Application Development, Class: BCA TY, Unit I: Introduction to android

Res/layout folder
The layout folder contains all XML layout files which we used to define the user
interface of our application. It contains the activity_main.xml file.

Res/mipmap folder
This folder contains launcher.xml files to define icons that are used to show on
the home screen. It contains different density types of icons depending upon the
size of the device such as hdpi, mdpi, xhdpi.

Res/values folder
Values folder contains a number of XML files like strings, dimensions, colors and
styles definitions. One of the most important file is strings.xml file which
contains the resources.

Gradle Scripts folder

Gradle means automated build system and it contains number of files which are
used to define a build configuration which can be apply to all modules in our
application.

1.5 device screen size compatibility

Support for different screen sizes gives your app access to the greatest number
of users and widest variety of devices.
To support as many screen sizes as possible, design your app layouts to be
responsive and adaptive.
Responsive/adaptive layouts provide an optimized user experience regardless
of screen size, enabling your app to accommodate phones, tablets, foldable and
Chrome OS devices, portrait and landscape orientations, and resizable
configurations such as multi-window mode.

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Notes: Mobile Application Development, Class: BCA TY, Unit I: Introduction to android

1. Responsive design

The best way to create a responsive layout is to use Constraint Layout as the base
layout in your UI.
Constraint Layout enables you to specify the position and size of each view
according to spatial relationships with other views in the layout. All the views
can then move and resize together as the screen size changes.

Responsive width and height

To ensure that your layout is responsive to different screen sizes,

use wrap_content, match_parent, or 0dp (match constraint) for the width and
height of most view components instead of hard-coded values:

 wrap_content — enables the view to set its size to whatever is necessary to fit
the content contained in the view.
 match_parent — enables the view to expand as much as possible within the
parent view.
 0dp (match constraint) — In a ConstraintLayout, similar to match_parent.
Enables the view to take all the available space within the view's constraints.
2. Responsive design

 Ensuring your layout can be adequately resized to fit the screen

 Providing appropriate UI layout according to screen configuration
 Ensuring the correct layout is applied to the correct screen
 Providing bitmaps that scale correctly
 Screen size : Actual physical size, measured as the screen’s diagonal.For
simplicity, Android groups has four generalized sizes: small, normal,
large, and extra large.
 Screen density : The quantity of pixels within a physical area of the
screen; usually referred to as dpi (dots per inch).For simplicity, Android
groups has four generalized densities: low, medium, high, and extra high.
 Orientation : The orientation of the screen from the user’s point of
view.In Android, This is either landscape or portrait.
 Resolution : The total number of physical pixels on a screen.In Android,
we do not work directly with resolution; applications should be
concerned only with screen size and density.

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Notes: Mobile Application Development, Class: BCA TY, Unit I: Introduction to android

1.6 Android emulator

1. The Android Emulator simulates Android devices on your computer so
that you can test your application on a variety of devices and Android API
levels without needing to have each physical device.
2. The emulator provides almost all of the capabilities of a real Android
device.
3. You can simulate incoming phone calls and text messages, specify the
location of the device, simulate different network speeds, simulate
rotation and other hardware sensors, access the Google Play Store, and
much more.
4. Testing your app on the emulator is in some ways faster and easier than
doing so on a physical device.
5. The emulator comes with predefined configurations for various Android
phone, tablet, Wear OS, and Android TV devices.

1.7 working with AndroidManifest.xml

The AndroidManifest.xml file contains information of your package, including

components of the application such as activities, services, broadcast receivers,
content providers etc.
The AndroidManifest.xml file contains information of your package, including
components of the application such as activities, services, broadcast receivers,
content providers etc.
 It is responsible to protect the application to access any protected
parts by providing the permissions.
 It also declares the android api that the application is going to use.
 It lists the instrumentation classes.

The instrumentation classes provides profiling and other information’s. These

information’s are removed just before the application is published etc.

This is the required xml file for all the android application and located inside the
root directory.

Elements of the AndroidManifest.xml file

The elements used in the above xml file are described below.
1. <manifest>
manifest is the root element of the AndroidManifest.xml file. It has package
attribute that describes the package name of the activity class.
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Notes: Mobile Application Development, Class: BCA TY, Unit I: Introduction to android

2. <application>

application is the subelement of the manifest. It includes the namespace

declaration. This element contains several subelements that declares the
application component such as activity etc.
The commonly used attributes are of this element are icon, label, theme etc.
android:icon represents the icon for all the android application components.
android:label works as the default label for all the application components.
android:theme represents a common theme for all the android activities.

3. <activity>

activity is the subelement of application and represents an activity that must be

defined in the AndroidManifest.xml file. It has many attributes such as label,
name, theme, launchMode etc.
android:label represents a label i.e. displayed on the screen.
android:name represents a name for the activity class. It is required attribute.

4. <intent-filter>

intent-filter is the sub-element of activity that describes the type of intent to

which activity, service or broadcast receiver can respond to.

4.1 <action>
It adds an action for the intent-filter. The intent-filter must have at least one
action element.

4.2 <category>
It adds a category name to an intent-filter.
<manifest>
<application>
<activity android:name=".MainActivity" >
</activity>
</application>
</manifest>
5. <uses-permission>: This element specifies the Android Manifest
permissions that are requested for the purpose of security.

The End

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