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Showing posts from November, 2018

Making Basic App Icons

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I was so excited when I found the Asset Studio in Android Studio (right click in the file menu -> New -> Vector Asset). I was dreading the process of making an app icon for my first app, Scorekeeper. I thought I would have to deal with the pain of creating an icon for each of the Android pixel density buckets (mdpi, hdpi, xhdpi, xxhdpi, and xxxhdpi) and since I haven't done a lot of work with images, I probably would have been trying to do it all in Microsoft Paint. I'd like to think maybe there is a chance I would've found a better solution, but I also know myself well enough to know I like things that are familiar, and Microsoft Paint and I are old friends. Luckily, I was exploring Android Studio one day while working on Scorekeeper and stumbled into the Asset Studio, clicked the Clip Art button, and found myself facing a treasure chest of icons.  It was like a whole new world had opened up to me! Well, that's hyperbole, but the vector assets have

App Release: Temperature Converter

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See the app code on GitHub.

Your First Andriod App: Getting Started with Android Studio

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1. The first part is setting up your Android phone to get developer options. You can use the Android Studio emulator, but it's much faster to use a physical device. Go to Settings > About phone > tap Build number 7 times. Once you have developer options make sure that USB Debugging is turned on: 2. Next, download Android Studio:  https://developer.android.com/studio/ 3. Start a new project. There are template projects available or you can start with an empty project: 4. Switch to Project view: 5. Java files go in "java" folder, XML files (layout, styles, strings, etc.) go in the "res" file, and sometimes you edit the manifest and the Gradle files: After this, be prepared for downloading time as you might need to update Android Studio. If you want more help with a starter app, check out my counter app tutorial video:

Udacity Android Basics Nanodegree - Graduation Certificate!

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Thanks to Google and Udacity for the scholarship, and thanks to everyone else I got help from along the way. I've been lucky to have so many people willing to take time to answer my programming/Android questions.