Course: Building Android Apps

Networking is crucial for real-world Android apps to enable seamless communication between the apps and external services, such as remote servers, databases, and application programming interfaces (APIs). Networking allows applications to store data in a persistent manner on remote servers and access this data in a well-designed and secure manner. In this course, you will learn the essential aspects of networking operations in Android applications, empowering you to interact with APIs and handle network requests effectively. We will provide an overview of the clients available for accessing REST points and guide you through best practices for accessing the Internet from your app. Next, you will set up and configure an Android Views Project. We will explore the powerful Glide library, which allows you to efficiently load and display images, even in image-heavy applications. Then, we will use real-world APIs to make GET requests using the HTTPUrlConnection client and parse JSON using the Gson library. You will master app architecture structuring, create data and user interface (UI) layers in your app, and implement robust data handling mechanisms. By incorporating coroutines, you will gain proficiency in fetching data from the backend in a more concise and structured manner. By the end of this course, you will have acquired a comprehensive skill set in Android networking, enabling you to create modern apps that interact seamlessly with APIs and deliver dynamic content from the web.

Android offers a built-in standard HttpURLConnection client for making network requests, but it can be cumbersome and involve boilerplate code for handling responses and errors. In contrast, the Retrofit library simplifies networking by providing a high-level interface, reducing boilerplate, and making application programming interface (API) interactions more concise and efficient. Additionally, using coroutines for background networking operations allows for asynchronous and non-blocking execution, preventing user interface (UI) freezes. In this course, you will learn how to set up and configure a local simple HTTP server to handle requests in your Android application. You will retrieve data from the server, display a list of restaurants, and implement functionality to view individual restaurant details. You will also handle HTTP methods like POST, PUT, and DELETE to add, edit, and remove restaurants, creating a fully functional app with server communication. Next, you will explore the powerful Retrofit library, which streamlines handling HTTP requests in your Android app. You will learn to access REST endpoints more efficiently and reduce boilerplate code, resulting in a cleaner and more maintainable codebase. Finally, you will integrate the Retrofit client with Compose, a modern Android UI toolkit, to build a seamless user interface.

Various methods can be used for persisting data locally in an Android device. App-specific files and preferences offer a lightweight and straightforward approach for storing small amounts of data, such as user settings and preferences. SQLite databases and the Room API provide a robust and efficient solution for more structured and organized data. This enables data persistence for larger datasets with powerful querying capabilities and data manipulation operations. In this course, you will learn the essential aspects of data and file storage on Android. Through hands-on practice, you will build a simple app that stores recipes locally using app-specific files. Next, you will work with storing and retrieving shared preferences, a simple yet effective method to store key-value pairs in Android. Using shared preferences, you will build features to track and utilize recently searched items and prefill forms in your app. Finally, you learn to store app details in a local SQLite database, retrieve and modify data using the SQLite API, and later connect to SQLite using the Room API.

Integrating Android apps with Firebase offers a seamless and secure solution for managing user sign-in and registration processes while enabling real-time data synchronization. Firebase Authentication provides a range of authentication methods, including email, phone number, and social media logins. Firestore serves as a scalable NoSQL cloud database, allowing developers to store and retrieve data in real-time, ensuring dynamic content delivery to users. In this course, you will learn how to integrate Android applications with Firebase. You will discover Firebase's diverse services as we build a restaurant reservation app. You will implement user authentication and explore real-time data storage using Cloud Firestore. Next, you will set up strings, styles, and themes to create a visually appealing and consistent user interface (UI). You will see how dependency injection enhances code maintainability and testability, and you will integrate the Hilt Framework for efficient dependency injection that simplifies access to the Firebase backend. Finally, you will explore advanced concepts in Android app development. Mastering login and signup flows will create a secure and user-friendly app. You will set up a navigation drawer and top bar for app navigation and manage app screens and data using View Models. By the end of the course, you will integrate all these components to create a complete application with a cloud backend.