Category: Kotlin

When multitasking in Android was covered in earlier chapters, Picture-in-picture (PiP) mode was mentioned briefly but not covered in any detail. Intended primarily for video playback, PiP mode allows an activity screen to be reduced in size and positioned at any location on the screen. While in this state, the activity continues to run, and…

One of the primary uses for smartphones and tablets is to provide access to online content. Video is a key form of content widely used, especially on tablet devices. The Android SDK includes two classes that make implementing video playback on Android devices extremely easy to implement when developing applications. This chapter will provide an…

This chapter will combine the knowledge gained in Using the Android Room Persistence Library with the initial project created in the previous chapter to provide a detailed tutorial demonstrating how to implement SQLite-based database storage using the Room persistence library. In keeping with the Android architectural guidelines, the project will use a view model and…

When the work began on the next chapter of this book (An Android Studio Room Database Tutorial), it was originally intended to include the steps to design the user interface layout for the Room database example application. It quickly became evident, however, that the best way to implement the user interface was to use the…

Included with the Android Architecture Components, the Room persistence library is designed to make it easier to add database storage support to Android apps in a way consistent with the Android architecture guidelines. With the basics of SQLite databases covered in the previous chapter, this chapter will explore the basic concepts behind Room-based database management,…

Mobile applications that do not need to store at least some persistent data are few and far between. The use of databases is an essential aspect of most applications, ranging from almost entirely data-driven applications to those that need to store small amounts of data, such as the prevailing game score. The importance of persistent…

The previous chapter introduced Kotlin flows and explored how these can be used to return multiple sequential values from within coroutine-based asynchronous code. This tutorial will look at a more detailed flow implementation, this time using SharedFlow within a ViewModel. The tutorial will also demonstrate how to ensure that flow collection responds correctly to an…

The earlier chapter, A Guide to Kotlin Coroutines taught us about Kotlin Coroutines and explained how they can perform multiple tasks concurrently without blocking the main thread. As we have seen, coroutine suspend functions are ideal for performing tasks that return a single result value. In this chapter, we will introduce Kotlin Flows and explore…

In this final chapter dedicated to Android services, an example application will be developed to demonstrate the use of a messenger and handler configuration to facilitate interaction between a client and remote bound service of a messenger and handler configuration to facilitate interaction between a client and a remote bound service. Client to Remote Service…

As outlined in the previous chapter, Bound services provide a mechanism for implementing communication between an Android service and one or more client components. This chapter builds on the overview of bound services provided in An Overview of Android Services before embarking on an example implementation of a local bound service. Understanding Bound Services Bound…