Before the Android system can start an app component, the system must know that the component exists by reading the app's manifest file, AndroidManifest.xml. Your app must declare all its components in this file, which must be at the root of the app project directory.

The manifest does a number of things in addition to declaring the app's components, such as the following:

• Identifies any user permissions the app requires, such as Internet access or read-access to the user's contacts.
• Declares the minimum API Level required by the app, based on which APIs the app uses.
• Declares hardware and software features used or required by the app, such as a camera, bluetooth services, or a multitouch screen.
• Declares API libraries the app needs to be linked against (other than the Android framework APIs), such as the Google Maps library.

Overview

In this part of the project, we will use the simple REST API that we created in Part 1 to display the data on Android UI.

Prerequisites

Android Studio >3.0: You can download Android Studio here.

If you get stuck at any stage, you can download all the source files for this project here.

Step 1: Create a New Android Project

We’re going to call this application MyRESTProject, ...

Three of the four component types—activities, services, and broadcast receivers—are activated by an asynchronous message called an intent. Intents bind individual components to each other at runtime. You can think of them as the messengers that request an action from other components, whether the component belongs to your app or another.

An intent is created with an Intent object, which defines a message to activate either a specific component (explicit intent) or a specific type of component (implicit intent).

For activities and services, an intent defines the action to perform (for example, to view or send something) and may specify the URI of the data to act on, among other things that the component being started might need to know. For example, an intent might convey a request for an activity to show an image or to open a web page. In some cases, you can start an activity to receive a result, in which case the activity also returns the result in an Intent. For example, you can issue an intent to let the user pick a personal contact and have it returned to you. The return intent includes a URI pointing to the...

App components are the essential building blocks of an Android app. Each component is an entry point through which the system or a user can enter your app. Some components depend on others.

There are four different types of app components:

• Activities
• Services
• Broadcast receivers
• Content providers

Each type serves a distinct purpose and has a distinct lifecycle that defines how the component is created and destroyed. The following sections describe the four types of app components.

Activities

An activity is the entry point for interacting with ...

An Android app is composed of more than just code—it requires resources that are separate from the source code, such as images, audio files, and anything relating to the visual presentation of the app. For example, you can define animations, menus, styles, colors, and the layout of activity user interfaces with XML files. Using app resources makes it easy to update various characteristics of your app without modifying code. Providing sets of alternative resources enables you to optimize your app for a variety of device configurations, such as different languages and screen sizes.

For every resource that you include in your Android project, the SDK build tools define a unique integer ID, which you can use to reference the resource from your app code or from other resources defined in XML. For example, if your app contains an image file named logo.png (saved in the res/drawable/ directory), the SDK tools generate a resource ID named R.drawable.logo. This ID maps to an app-specific integer, which you can use to reference the image and insert it in your user interface.

One of the most important aspects of providing resou...

Overview

In this project, we will create a simple REST API with database integration, and then use the API to display the data on Android UI.

Project Goals

During this project, you will:

1. Develop a simple student database in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) which will store basic information of students.
2. Make a RESTful API in ASP.NET and connect it with the database.
3. Make an Android app with a simple and clean use of this REST API to display student information on the Android UI.
1. Work with JSON objects in Android.
2. Use the Volley library to query the API an...