This Week’s Links

Fragmented Podcast – Ep #95 – Room Databases with Florina Muntenescu
In this episode, Donn (@donnfelker) and Kaushik (@kaushikgopal ) talk to Florina from Google about the recently released Database library Room. Room was introduced as part of the Android Architecture components and has been picking up a lot of steam in the community. Room focuses on being a beautiful api layer to Sqlite. Florina explains to us how we can use Room to create a database, creating entities and how they map to tables using DAOs to access data and even “observe” them. Listen on for more of the details!

Kotlin vs Java The Whole Story
Kotlin has seen a growing interest in Android community over the past few years, and eventually became the hottest topic in Android development after Google IO 2017. Unfortunately, even though many articles about Kotlin were published, there is not much objective information available, and many developers still contemplate whether a migration to Kotlin is the way to go. In this post, the TechYourChance blog provides a more complete list of considerations that should be taken into account when evaluating Kotlin as a replacement for Java.

Android Gotchas: #1 Setting a Drawable on a TextView programmatically
AG is a mini-series on the quirks and idiosyncrasies of Android app development. In this post, learn how to correctly set a Drawable on a TextView programmatically.

Custom Fonts on Android with Android Support Library
Android Oreo was officially unveiled a couple of weeks ago, and it introduces a lot of new and exciting features. One of the really interesting features for developers is the new way to apply fonts right there in your XML files. Learn how to apply this feature in this post.

ObjectBox, A Modern and Easy to Use Android Database
If you’re familiar with libraries like greenDAO or EventBus, you may have heard of the company that created them: greenrobot. Recently, they came out with new library called ObjectBox, used to help manage your app’s local data storage.

Modern Android Development with Kotlin (September 2017) Part 1
It is really hard to find one project that covers all the things that are new in Android Development, but here’s a project that does! In this tutorial, build a simple app that uses Android Studio 3, beta 1, Kotlin, Build Variants, ConstraintLayout, Data Binding Library, MVVM Architecture, RxJava2, Dagger 2.11, Retrofit, and Room.

Introducing Android Native Development Kit r16
The latest version of the Android Native Development Kit (NDK), Android NDK r16 Beta 1, is now available for download. It is also available in the SDK manager via Android Studio. NDK r16 is a big milestone, because it’s the first release that recommends people start migrating to libc++!

Jobs (these are pulled from Androiddevdigest.com/jobs) Developer Volunteer at Code for Social Good (Remote) Code for Social Good is a Specialized Technical Volunteering Network that connects technical volunteers to nonprofits. Do you want to contribute to nonprofits and gain real project experience? Register and apply for volunteer opportunities! [Apply Today] Smarthome Android Developer at Umbrela Smart Inc. (Winnipeg, Canada) Umbrela (umbrela.co) is a startup building smarthome devices that replace conventional light switches and outlets. Our devices support built-in home security, multi-room audio, voice control, video intercom and wall wash RGB lighting to name a few. [Apply Today] Android Developer at WillowTree Inc. (Durham, NC) We’re a digital product agency in Durham, NC. We design and develop native Android apps for some of the world’s largest brands, such as HBO, GE, and Johnson & Johnson. We enjoy pushing the envelope and building experiences that users will love. [Apply Today] Android Developer at Devhouse Spindle (Groningen, The Netherlands) Spindle is looking for an Android developer to help us achieve our purpose of bringing open and free communication to the mobile world. We are an organization without management hierarchy, so there is plenty of room to shape your work. [Apply Today] Senior Android Engineer at Juvo (San Francisco, CA) You will be building a suite of mobile applications that help unbanked and underserved individuals access financial services via their prepaid mobile phones. You will be architecting and developing engaging applications for the Android platform. [Apply Today] Principal Android Engineer at Granular (San Francisco, CA) Granular is a software and analytics platform that helps farmers operate more efficiently and make better business decisions. We are a mission-driven enterprise SaaS. [Apply Today] Need to hire an Android professional? Post a job here

Making the Google Developers Documentation Style Guide Public
For some years now, technical writers at Google have used an internal-only editorial style guide for most of their developer documentation. In order to better support external contributors to open source projects, such as Kubernetes, AMP, or Dart, and to allow for more consistency across developer documentation, they are now making the style guide public.

Android Oreo Feature Spotlight: Rollback Protection, A New Part of Verified Boot, Won’t Allow You to Start a Downgraded OS
On compatible devices, the new Verified Boot changes in Android 8.0 Oreo will prevent a device from booting should it be rolled back to an earlier firmware. The new feature is called Rollback Protection. So if your phone is flashed with older software, you (and your data) are protected from whatever potential security vulnerabilities may have been present in earlier versions.

Videos

Caster.IO Using Firebase Remote Configuration Parameters
Firebase remote configuration parameters can be used to dynamically configure your application. In this lesson, we’ll be learning a little about what exactly parameters are and how we can utilize them for this remote configuration.

Caster.IO Android Things – Peripheral IO, learning UART with the ZX Gesture Sensor
This lesson is going to show you how to interact with the Android Things Peripheral IO APIs to understand and communicate with a UART peripheral. In this case a ZX Gesture and Motion Sensor. Using this peripheral to code an IoT android app.

Open Source

EmoticonGIFKeyboard
EmoticonGIFKeyboard is an easy to integrate, customizable and lightweight library to add support for emojis and GIFs.