Articles & Tutorials

One topic that’s been gaining popularity over the past year in the world of Android development is the Kotlin® language for the JVM from JetBrains.

In Part 2, we’ll actually dive into code and see how some Kotlin language features can be used to do nifty things in an Android project.

In this post you'll learn about the different ingredients of a three tiered clean architecture (implementation/presenter/business logic). You'll be walked through the different dataflows and how it will impact framework independence and testability of your app. Be sure to check out the Cost Tracker sample app and the Boilerplate template in the libraries and code section.

This post explains why you should favour RxJava over event busses like Otto.

Thomas Nield shares his experience using RxJava with Kotlin. He found RxJava works better with Kotlin than Java itself; it just expresses functional programming concepts so much better.

There’s no doubt that Kotlin is much more than just an alternative for Android. Kotlin is here to stay, and Antonio Leiva recommends that you to start learning about it.

Nice walkthrough by Ian Lake that shows you how to load data with the Loaders pattern.

Zarah Dominguez shares a quick post on Android Studio debugging tips & tricks.

Mark Allison previously demonstrated how we can register to receive callbacks containing waveform data and in this concluding article he looks at how we can actually display that data.

greenrobot team releases EventBus 3. Previous versions of EventBus rejected to use annotations for performance reasons. Now, version 3 embraces annotations to improve performance.

Are you planning a fitness app? Then you definitely should know about the Activity Recognition API. Querying it will give a datastructure containing information and confidence wether you're on a bycicle, walking, moving in a car and much more.

In this post Eugenio Marletti explains his revealing moments with the Android Services. For those who have used it excessively probably nothing new - but a good refresher nonetheless.

Testing classes in isolation is hard. In this tutorial you'll learn how to do it the classic way and then you'll learn about DaggerMockRule, which is a custom JUnit rule, that dynamically creates a submodules class. It can be used to reduce the boilerplate when creating test cases like this.

In this blog post by Big Nerd Ranch you'll learn how to customize the behavior of a CoordinatorLayout. A CoordinatorLayout can be used to move multiple views (e.g. a floating button) relating to a parent view.

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Instabug offers an SDK that enables testers and users to report bugs and send feedback in-app by just shaking their phones. Then the SDK automatically attaches screenshots, device details and repro-steps. Bugs can then be forwarded to any bug tracker. Integrate Instabug SDK with one line of code.

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Jobs

We are looking for a native Dutch speaking Android Developer with about 2 years worth of experience who is willing to help us build on our publishing platform an accompanying apps. A true software developer.

XING is the social network for business professionals with millions of members. Mobile is the fastest growing part of our business and this is a chance to create apps and features that help improve the professional lives of our users. Help us shape the future – for a better working life!

Companies around the world use Yammer to allow their employees to communicate and collaborate openly. We're looking for great developers who want to have a huge impact. Microsoft is helping people around the globe achieve more by giving them the best possible tools for any moment.

Libraries & Code

A custom EditText with a switchable icon which shows or hides the password.

Ever wanted a beautiful transition when switching fragments? Morphy Toolbar is your friend.

Easily notify a user with a simple alert, inform them of an optional update, and in dire situations block the user from accessing older versions of the application completely. Maybe you don't need this library since you have your own conventions - but you should use the ideas that are presented here.

Custom shape ImageView using PorterDuffXfermode with paint shapes and SVGs.

This is starter template for writing Android apps using clean architecture from the articles and tutorials section.

This is a real world example app applying the clean architecture from the articles and tutorials section.

News

Finally, Kotlin has graduated the Beta and we are happy to present the Release Candidate Build!

Google has pushed Android Studio 2.0 Beta 2 to the canary channel. It fixes a couple bugs introduced in the first beta.

Videos & Podcasts

This week on The Developer Show, join Timothy Jordan from the YouTube Space LA, as he interrupts Developer Advocates (Todd Kerpelman, Ian Lake, Rich Hyndman) with his selfie stick, and gets answers to your “#AskDevShow” questions!

Ian Lake explains AppCompat.

Realm pro and overall genius Christian Melchior joins us in this episode to talk about all things Realm

So many things to talk about with Jesse Wilson! We ended up picking HTTP, Rounds and Diversity for this episode

Or as the author states: "Why another podcast? -> Why not?"

It's a video by Jake Wharton about Android Development with Kotlin with a transcription of the main topics.

Events

Join the droidcon Berlin meet-up on how to submit a convincing abstract to their Call for Papers! The meet-up takes place at the newthinking office (Schönhauser Allee 6/7, Berlin) on Wed, Feb 10, 2016 @ 7:00pm. Coaches will give examples of well written abstracts and show how to improve proposals.