Exporting a Java Library to a Xamarin.Forms Android Project

The device on our current project has two unique software development kits (one for Android and one for iOS). My team wanted to use Xamarin.Forms to create an application for the device so that the core logic of the app could be stored in one place. However, in order to also incorporate the platform-specific SDK methods, […]

A Quick Android Snackbar Tutorial: Setup, Action Handling, and UI Customization

Android Snackbars are, unfortunately, not as tasty as they sound. But they are extremely useful for showing errors or other lightweight feedback to a user–with minimal setup required. This is a brief tutorial for setting up a basic Snackbar, adding actions, and customizing its appearance.

Sending Data Between Activities in Android

Android Intents are objects used to trigger actions from other Android Activities. One of the most common uses of Intents is to open a new Activity in your app. Often, you will want to pass information to the new Activity. In this post, I’ll discuss a few ways to pass data between Activities using Intents, […]

IDE Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen

If you have ever found yourself working on iOS and Android projects, you’ve probably had to decide which IDE or text editor to use. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of options to choose from when it comes to native projects; however, this means that choosing an IDE is significantly easier. Android Studio is a […]

Espresso – Testing RecyclerViews at Specific Positions

My team recently added a RecyclerView to a screen in an Android app we’re working on. It’s a horizontal view that allows a user to scroll left and right to see content that’s offscreen. One of the challenges we’ve faced while working on this view has been testing it in our Espresso tests—specifically, testing the […]

Developing a Mobile App? Some Numbers You’ll Need to Know

Are you thinking about developing the next great mobile app? When creating your business strategy you’ll want to know: How many potential app users there are? What platform you should develop for? What apps have the greatest reach? What apps generate the most revenue? The mobile app market is evolving quickly, so the answers to […]

Getting Scala with Akka Actors Working on Android

I recently spent some time trying out Scala on Android, with good results. One of the things I wanted to get working on the Android platform was the Akka actor library, unfortunately this was not exactly a simple affair. The ProGuard tool, which is a necessary part of the Scala-Android toolchain, needs configuration to make […]

RubyFlux – Statically Compile Ruby to Java

Charles Nutter, creator of JRuby, has a new offering for the Ruby/Java community: RubyFlux (formerly called fastruby). RubyFlux is a static Ruby to Java compiler. It uses JRuby to analyze the AST of the Ruby files and generate Java source files. The generated code has no run-time dependencies and ends up being pure Java. RubyFlux […]

Where Is the Offline View Pattern?

In mobile application development, many interfaces that are ultimately displaying remote data need to provide an offline mode. This usually implies said data is cached locally on the device at some point, and a protocol is in place to update that data and refresh the view. I think there’s a pattern here, though I can’t […]

Android App Test File Distribution with Dropbox

This last summer a few friends and I were working on a couple of small Android applications. When it came to testing the application on various devices, some of the people we approached to help test the app were not as technologically advanced as we were. For most of the people we were working with, […]

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