This Weeks Links

Fragmented Podcast Episode 037: Decompress 1 : Xcode, Fonts sizes, Testing and yes Agera!
In this very first edition of our Decompress episode we talk about the fonts we love to use, some Xcode hating, Testing woes and the intensely discussed library that Google recently released Agera!

Google announces Android Studio 2.1 with Android N Developer Preview support
With Android Studio 2.1, Android developers can now test the Android N operating system and validate their apps on Android N. You can also get access to the latest versions of the operating system and SDK, experiment with new features, and test on the official Android Emulator.

Developing for Direct Boot
Starting with Android N, a device that has been powered on can boot into a new mode called Direct Boot before the user has a chance to unlock it for the first time. In this mode, the operating system is fully operational, but access to private app data is limited and only apps that have been updated to be Direct Boot aware can run. This article will help you determine if Direct Boot is right for your app, how to do it and things to watch out for.

Accessing to the Java 8 language features with Android N
Amongst the new features of Android N, the support of several Java 8 language features is a great addition for developers. Take a look at how to setup your development environment, enable support for Java 8, enjoy your first Lambda Expression on Android and create your first Functional Interface on Android.

Mixins as alternative to inheritance in Java 8
One of the java 8 language features added in Android N is the ability to add default methods to interfaces. In this article Hannes Dorfmann explains how we can use Java 8 and default methods for interfaces and Mixins instead of inheritance.

How to build a material design prototype using Sketch and Pixate – part one
Sketch is a design app that is easy and simple to use. The app splits design up into pages and artboards that allow you to group your designs. Pixate, is a prototyping from Google. It’s has predefined animations and interactions. It has accompanying mobile apps so you can interact with your prototypes on an Android on iOS device. In Part 1, Mike Scamell will take you through importing assets to Sketch and using them to create a Login Screen.

TextInputLayout – Material Design Support library Tutorial
Recently Google has released Android Support Library 22.2.0. In that we are going to explore “Design Support Library” which has lots of new widgets which will definitely helpful to developers. In this article, you will learn what TextInputLayout is, how it is different than EditText and the benefits of using it.

Grokking Rx
The basic idea behind reactive programming is simple. Things change, you observe them, and you react when the change happens. The problem is that we need to know when things happens, instead of continuously checking to see if everything is still the same.
Grokking Rx, is a practical book that teaches you to solve complex problems elegantly and with few lines of code. The book is also includes exercises, checks for understanding, and even the occasional puzzler give you opportunities to think and practice what you’re learning.

Use GoCD for Android and get rid of Jenkins
This article is about Go CD, an alternative continuous integration server, with a different and interesting approach. This is not a wizard but rather a description and feedback covering Jeremie Martinez’s experiments with its key features on Android.

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[TUT] How to test time and control System.currentTimeMillis
This post explains how to time travel! Not really.. but it does teach you how to control time and specifically control System.currentTimeMillis. This will make your code more flexible, more maintainable and in the end, testable!

Something O’Clock – Part 4
Mark Allison talks about his recently released watch face app for Android Wear. Mark says although the app itself is quite light-hearted, the code behind it is worthy of study as the final app will consist of three separate modules. Part-4 looks at handling configuration changes from the companion mobile app on the Wear device itself.

Protecting against unintentional regressions to cleartext traffic in your Android apps
Cleartext network traffic, such as HTTP, poses a risk of it being eavesdropped upon and tampered with by third parties through leaks or exploits. This post will teach you how to block cleartext traffic in production, detect cleartext traffic during development and declare a finer-grained cleartext policy in Network Security Config.

Leave your old Toasts and adopt the Snackbars on Android
Toasts are good to display simple messages to users but they don’t contain actions and cannot be swiped off screen. To fill this gap, the Material Design introduced a new component named Snackar. Easy to use and letting you to add actions, Snackbars are great and should be used in your Android applications to replace Toasts, here is how to get started!

How to send commit changes by email once CI build passes?
You probably want to make change-log based on what have been committed to git repository after you have created a tag. If you are looking for a quick answer this is what you need:

git log `git describe –tags –abbrev=0`..HEAD –oneline > release_notes.txt

However, in this post Hesam aims to add it into build automation based on Bitrise CI, take a look!

Enhancing App Security on Google Play
The Google Play App Security Improvement Program is the first of its kind. It has two core components: They provide developers with security tips to help them build more secure apps, and help developers identify potential security enhancements when uploaded to Google Play. Take a look at how it works…

Futuristic UX Trends from UX Poland 2016
Paweł Szymankiewicz talks about the parts of the 7th edition of the UX Poland conference that focused around the future of User Experience. Take a look at what you should be aware of while designing every new feature.

[New eBook] Download The No-Nonsense Guide to In-App Ads
People want free apps! Little more than 1% of apps are now paid for at the point of download. While demand for free apps continues to increase, app developers are seeking the best way to publish their apps for free, while still sustaining their business. Grab your free copy of this eBook and learn what you should know when monetizing your app.

Videos

Caster.IO Episode 61: Model View Presenter – Part 8: The ViewNotFoundException & Comprehensive Testing
In this episode you will learn:

• How to test for when your view is not found without relying on NullPointerExceptions
• Make your tests more robust
• Why 100% code coverage is just a metric and does not represent test quality
• How to develop new features such as the ViewNotFoundException as well as the null checking all using TDD.

Caster.IO Episode 62: Understanding AutoValue – Value types minus the boiler plate (Part 1)
In this episode you will learn:

• What value types are and their hidden complexities
• How to create them with AutoValue
• What AutoValue generates behind the scenes

Chris Davis – @Binding Android: View and Data Binding
Almost all android apps need to find views and set data. Learn how to write less cruft and develop more quickly using Google’s new Data Binding Library and other third party libraries such as Butter Knife.

Open Source

AndroidBound
Two-way binding library for Android, this library offers easy view bindings for Android..

Depth-LIB-Android
A library that gives depth/thickness to Views. It also contains some examples of Canvas drawing techniques to create particle systems, waves and grain effect.

Events

Start planning your Google I/O 2016 schedule
The first wave of 100 technical talks just went live at google.com/io, so you can start planning your s