How to Make Android Apps

Posted by on Jun 14, 2014 in Android Development Tutorial | 28 comments

How to Make Android AppsIn this video I start my new Android tutorial. The last Android tutorial I made is still very popular, but I’m going to try and improve on it here.

If you are a beginner to Android and don’t know Java you may prefer my Android tutorial for beginners. I’ll be using Android Studio in this tutorial and I show how to install Android Studio here. All of the code follows the tutorial below.

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Code from the Video

MainActivity.java

package com.newthinktank.helloagain.app;

import android.os.Bundle;
import android.support.v7.app.ActionBarActivity;
import android.view.Menu;
import android.view.MenuItem;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.Button;
import android.widget.TextView;

public class MainActivity extends ActionBarActivity {

    // onCreate is executed when the activity is created
    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        
        // Sets the file activity_main.xml as the user interface
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

        // To be able to edit the TextView with our code we have to create it and 
        // bind it to a TextView object. I need to use final because it will be 
        // used in the inner class below
        final TextView firstTextView = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.textView);

        // I set up the Button just like I did the TextView
        Button firstButton = (Button) findViewById(R.id.firstButton);

        // This is how you make the Button change the text in the TextView when it is clicked
        firstButton.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
            @Override
            public void onClick(View view) {

                firstTextView.setText("You Clicked");

            }
        });
    }


    @Override
    public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
        // Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.
        getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.main, menu);
        return true;
    }

    @Override
    public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
        // Handle action bar item clicks here. The action bar will
        // automatically handle clicks on the Home/Up button, so long
        // as you specify a parent activity in AndroidManifest.xml.
        int id = item.getItemId();
        if (id == R.id.action_settings) {
            return true;
        }
        return super.onOptionsItemSelected(item);
    }
}

activity_main.xml

<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:paddingLeft="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
    android:paddingRight="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
    android:paddingTop="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
    android:paddingBottom="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
    tools:context="com.newthinktank.helloagain.app.MainActivity">

    <TextView
        android:text="@string/hello_world"
        android:textSize="40sp"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
        android:id="@+id/textView" />

    <Button
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="@string/button_1_text"
        android:id="@+id/firstButton"
        android:layout_below="@+id/textView"
        android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
        android:layout_marginTop="52dp" />

</RelativeLayout>

dimens.xml

<resources>
    <!-- Default screen margins, per the Android Design guidelines. -->
    <dimen name="activity_horizontal_margin">16dp</dimen>
    <dimen name="activity_vertical_margin">16dp</dimen>
</resources>

strings.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
    <!-- We store all the text in the strings.xml file so it is easy to
    translate into other languages -->
<resources>

    <string name="app_name">HelloAgain</string>
    <string name="hello_world">Hello Again</string>
    <string name="action_settings">Settings</string>
    <string name="button_1_text">You Clicked</string>

</resources>

AndroidManifest.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    package="com.newthinktank.helloagain.app" >

    <application
        android:allowBackup="true"
        android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"
        android:label="@string/app_name"
        android:theme="@style/AppTheme" >
        <activity
            android:name="com.newthinktank.helloagain.app.MainActivity"
            android:label="@string/app_name" >
            <intent-filter>
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />

                <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
            </intent-filter>
        </activity>
    </application>

</manifest>

28 Responses to “How to Make Android Apps”

  1. Roni says:
    June 16, 2014 at 5:44 pm

    when will your Android challenge start??
    I can’t wait to win Samsung Galaxy Note 3 😀

    Reply
  2. unknown says:
    June 21, 2014 at 1:10 am

    great job on doing this tutorials keep it up 😀

    Reply
  3. stephen says:
    July 13, 2014 at 12:08 am

    can you help me with this error please and thanks
    Waiting for device.
    “/Applications/Android Studio.app/sdk/tools/emulator” -avd MonoForAndroid_API_8 -netspeed full -netdelay none

    emulator: ERROR: This AVD’s configuration is missing a kernel file!!

    Reply
  4. israel says:
    July 18, 2014 at 3:28 pm

    Best tutorials given by the best teacher Dereck Banas

    Reply
  5. Altiano says:
    July 23, 2014 at 8:06 am

    i’m going to learn about android apps development, which one should i choose, the new android tutorial or the old one?

    Reply
  6. Ext says:
    July 26, 2014 at 10:43 am

    This is my first time programming anything for android, but I have developed a lot for Java and different languages earlier. I followed your tutorial but I can not get it too work. First it does not like ActionBarActivity so I googled and added dependencies {
    compile ‘com.android.support:appcompat-v7:+’
    }
    too build.gradle but now it is complaing about Manifest merger failed : uses-sdk:minSdkVersion 15 cannot be smaller than version L declared in library com.android.support:appcompat-v7:21.0.0-rc1

    What am I doing wrong, is it supposed to be this hard? 😀
    I have never actually experienced anything thid hard to do a simple hello world program 😀

    Reply
  7. David says:
    August 1, 2014 at 12:32 pm

    Derek, are you going to make a video on how to create a menu bar, for example, and add an icon to it? Is this too graphics intensice i.e. GL stuff or is it easier than it looks? Also would you be able to add an action behind that button?

    Reply
  8. Kevin Kesler says:
    October 2, 2014 at 5:51 pm

    I think i need to learn the path to programming effectively for android. the app inventor has worked awesome and i have overcome all of the obstacles i set out to. what steps would you recommend?
    i have experience with computers mostly by necessity. i did basic in high school. a but of c in college but20 years ago. where should i start now and what should i not bypass? is java what i need to learn?
    a little insight could keep me from wasting vast amounts of time learning things that later will be irrelavant. thanks for your thought 🙂

    Reply
  9. Will says:
    October 12, 2014 at 4:08 am

    Thanks for your Tutorial.
    It`s great.
    cheers

    Reply
  10. sypi says:
    October 15, 2014 at 12:55 am

    Thanks for the tutorials! Love the android ones!

    Reply
  11. dre says:
    November 12, 2014 at 12:49 pm

    way kool video. only downside is that it takes for ever to update the sdk manager.

    Reply
  12. Derick says:
    November 12, 2014 at 9:15 pm

    Hi there, I ran the code u given and i got an error.

    error:cannot find symbol variable main

    execution failed for task ‘:app.compileDebugJava
    compilation failed; see the computer compiler error output for details

    ///////////////////////////////////////
    @Override
    public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
    // Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.
    getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.main, menu);
    return true;
    }
    /////////////////////////////////////////

    the ‘main’ in error is from the code above.

    may i know how do i resolve this? thank you.

    Reply
  13. Ashwin says:
    February 1, 2015 at 11:13 am

    Really a huge fan of yours…! 🙂

    Reply

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