Rapid Android dev techniques

Leveraging IntelliJ/Eclipse UI Editors

Theming

• Android Holo Color Generator
• Android Action Bar Style Generator

GitStepping

You can follow along the various steps on github.

ActionBar

Demo

• http://developer.android.com/design/patterns/actionbar.html
• http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/actionbar.html
• http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/menus.html

Hamburger

Demo

Using Genymotion for super fast feedback loops.

Pros:

• Blazingly fast, faster than real device.
• (Integration tests at x10 speeds? Yes please.)
• Perfect for product demoes on projectors
• Acts like a real device
  • Access to Play Store
  • Syncs with your google account

Caveats:

• <uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="16"/>
• Current version has softkeyboard/hardkey bugs (overflow a problem)
• When using NDK/JNI you'll need to make sure to provide x86 libraries

TL;DR

Quick, where's my .apk??

• Just run (ctrl-r) with your device as a target, or:
• From your project folder on the command line (Mac/Linux with properly configur):
  • ant clean release
  • find . -name \*apk -ls points to the useable .apk.
  • adb install your.apk to install
  • adb uninstall com.your.project.packagename your.apk to uninstall

"Easy" wins when/if time permits

• BugSense
• Leveraging Google's Android APIs (Maps, push notifications, etc.)

Pits of doom?

• Like scrum? Use post-its, avoid time consuming task managers.
• ActionBarSherlock: we love it, but if you're lucky, by the time you have a shippable product, gingerbread will be dead. The time overhead isn't worth it.
• RoboGuice, RoboElectric are awesome, but you don't have the time. :)
• Complex