Issue #234

December 4th, 2016

Articles & Tutorials

 
link image   Guide to ConstraintLayout (medium.com)

This post guides you on how to use ConstraintLayout in comparison to RelativeLayout or LinearLayout, what you should look for and what are the new awesome features, with plenty of examples.

 
React Native Express (www.reactnativeexpress.com)

A step-by-step introduction to the cross-platform React Native framework that goes deeper than the React Native documentation and provides live examples.

 
Managing Android Virtual Devices during test session (medium.com)

Kamil Krzyk presents a solution for handling AVDs during our Android test sessions at Azimo using fastlane.

 
You don’t have to use WeakReference to avoid memory leaks (medium.com)

In this post by Said Tahsin Dane you'll learn why you can live without WeakReferences and still avoid memory leaks.

 
Effective Java for Android (medium.com)

Here's a cheat-sheet that gives an overview and applies the tenets of the Effective Java book to Android development.

 
link image   Scheduling tasks in Android made easy (blog.hypertrack.io)

In this blog post by the Hypertrack team you'll learn about the options when scheduling a task in Android. You'll learn about AlarmManager, Handler and JobScheduler and that all of them have a separate interface. Eventually they'll introduce a library named Smart-Scheduler that makes scheduling a task very easy.

 
How to create beautiful text stickers for Android (medium.com)

While messengers and bots are on the rise sticker graphics will get more and more important. And everyone love stickers! In this post you'll learn how to put some text on some graphics.

 
Elite Worship (blog.sqisland.com)

Chiu-Ki Chan shares steps we can take to make the Android developer community more equitable.

 
Product Flavors for Android Libraries (medium.com)

Product flavors is a powerful feature of the gradle plugin in Android Studio and is used mostly when building apps. In this post Sahil Dave shows how to add product flavors to libraries as well.

 
Keyframes: Delivering scalable, high-quality animations (code.facebook.com)

Facebook shares Keyframes, a library that is able to export and play back After Effects animations while addressing the a set of constraints specific to mobile devices.

 
SQLDelight: Getting Started (medium.com)

Tony Owen wanted to try out SQLDelight, a library (and IntelliJ plugin) that generates Java models based off of SQL statements. It took a bit to understand the concepts, so here’s his getting started guide.

 
Your ViewHolders are Dumb. Make ’em Not Dumb (medium.com)

Jon F. Hancock proposes that we write smarter ViewHolders. He starts with a dumb ViewHolder and an Adapter that has too much work to do, then refactors it step by step.

 
An Introduction to Icon Animation Techniques (www.androiddesignpatterns.com)

Alex Lockwood's blog post covers several different techniques that you can use to create beautiful icon animations. The best way to learn is by example, so as you read through the post you’ll encounter interactive demos highlighting how each technique works.

 
OkLog 2.0 — improved Android network logging (medium.com)

OkLog 2.0 is now able to show all of the network request and response data that is printed to logcat by OkHttp’s own Logging Interceptor, which OkLog is inspired and based on.

 
How to Build an Android App for Fire TV (Part 4) (medium.com)

Mario Viviani takes a closer look into the Presenter class to define the look and feel of the Leanback-enabled app without editing the underlying data structure.

 

Sponsored

 
link image   Don't Get Frustrated - Get Hired (hired.com)

Hired puts the power back in your hands, by having companies apply to you, not the other way around, so that you only talk to companies you're interested in.

 
link image   Photo Editor SDK (www.photoeditorsdk.com)

Enhance your app with a photo editor with plenty of features and styles. The SDK is fully customizable - within minutes.

 

Jobs

 
Senior Android Engineer (San Francisco, CA)

At eero, we work to make a simple and effective product that improves people’s lives. Building and perfecting our mobile application is one of the key ways we make this happen. As an engineer at eero, you will play a lead role in creating new features, improving our build process, and designing UI.

 
Lead Android Developer (Boston or Newburyport MA)

Rocket Insights is a boutique agency, focused on creating beautiful apps for top-tier clients. We're looking for a Senior Android Developer who is smart, talented and humble. Someone passionate about the development process and not timid about working directly with clients.

 
Lead/Senior Software Engineer (Dania Beach, FL and Mountain View, CA)

Magic Leap is an eclectic group of visionaries, wizards, and gurus from the fields of film, robotics, visualization, software, computing, and user experience. We are growing quickly and looking for various talented Software Engineers to work in our Application and Application Framework teams.

 

Libraries & Code

 
link image   PageFlip (github.com)

3D Style Page Flip on Android. Could have some more unit tests but everything including the example looks ok.

 
Smart-Scheduler (github.com)

A utility library for scheduling periodic and non-periodic jobs efficiently. Be sure to check the introductory blog post.

 
PageLoader (github.com)

In many applications you'll have to load data and this little helper view enables you to quickly develop a loading screen. There are already plenty of solutions out there and this particular library could have more unit tests - but since open source is hard we say: nice work by Arie Ridwansyah.

 
fastlane-plugin-automated-test-emulator-run (github.com)

fastlane plugin dedicated for Android platform. Wraps gradle task/shell command used for launching instrumented tests. Provides start of single AVD before test run, waits for boot, kills emulator and deletes from hdd after tests are finished or disturbed.

 
Keyframes (github.com)

A library for converting Adobe AE shape based animations to a data format and playing it back on Android and iOS devices.

 

News

 
link image   Updated Udacity Android course (android-developers.blogspot.com)

As a very popular Udacity course, the Developing Android Apps course was recently updated to ensure developers have the resources to build high quality apps.

 

Videos & Podcasts

 
link image   Ben Oberkfell: Fingerprint Authentication (www.youtube.com)

While in NYC for Droidcon NYC, Huyen learns about the fingerprint authentication API from AMEX Android engineer and GDG St. Louis organizer, Ben Oberkfell.

 
Exploring RxJava 2 for Android (realm.io)

Jake’s talk from GOTO Copenhagen 2016 will explore the what and why of RxJava 2’s changes. You’ll learn how both libraries and applications can migrate to supporting RxJava 2, and how to interop between the two versions.

 
TheContext Podcast (github.com)

Artem & Hannes talk with Felipe Lima about React Native, a cross platform solution to build native mobile apps using JavaScript and React, and how React Native is used at Airbnb.

 

Specials

 
link image   Are you a Knight of Coding? (vmob.me)

Or a Wizard of the Order of the Compiler? Take the State of the Developer Nation survey and find out which character best describes you.