If you have ever wondered how to open an application using terminal, the command is very simple. > open -a application_name For instance: > open -a Calculator.app Note that auto-complete will place a forward slash like this > open -a Calculator.app/ You will have to remove it. Your current directory in terminal should be the… Read More »
There are lots of articles on how to create a navigation drawer in Android but they are all slightly different with some extending ActionBar and some extending Activity. I wanted to extend AppCompatActivity as this is the most up to date version to use. The notes at: https://developer.android.com/training/implementing-navigation/nav-drawer.html are ok but it doesn’t explain step by… Read More »
It is relatively easy to show a toast (a short message that appears on screen for a few seconds and then disappears) with the following code: Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), “hi”, Toast.LENGTH_LONG ).show(); The trick is trying to understand how this short hand method was created. This is what it looks like written the long way: Context context;… Read More »
There is a bit more to it when trying to create a button in Android and setting a listener to it. The new way hides a lot of the complexity but it also hides a lot of the understanding. The “traditional” way was: btn = (Button)findViewById(R.id.firstButton); btn.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() { @Override public void onClick(View v) {… Read More »
This site has a very high quality android tutorial. Old school versions: Make Your First Android App: Part 1/3 Android Tutorial for Beginners: Part 2 Android Tutorial for Beginners: Part 3 Updated versions: Beginning Android Development Part One: Installing Android Studio Beginning Android Development Part Two: Using Android Studio It is well worth reading both.… Read More »
The official definition is: An Intent is an object that provides runtime binding between separate components, such as two activities. (taken from: https://developer.android.com/training/basics/firstapp/starting-activity.html) In plain English, if you want to pass variables or parameters between screens (activities), use Intents
If you are running into this problem, it will be because Android Studio has this quirk where the constraint folder is not in the android directory structure but outside it. Let’s start from the beginning. The libraries are all in the /User/<username>/Library/Android/sdk/extras/android/m2repository/com/android/support/ However, constraint sits in a slightly different place. It is at /User/<username>/Library/Android/sdk/extras/m2repository/com/android/support/ Note the… Read More »
If you are running code like this: try { PackageInfo myInfo = getPackageManager().getPackageInfo(getPackageName(),0); versionName = myInfo.versionName; verCode = myInfo.versionCode; } catch (PackageManager.NameNotFoundException e) { e.printStackTrace(); } TextView myText = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.textView2); myText.setText(versionName + ” – ” + verCode); but the output is not what you are expecting, the chances are you are using gradle to build… Read More »