Head First Android Development, 3rd Edition

Chapter 9. Material Views: A Material World

Most apps need a slick UI that responds to the user.

You’ve so far learned how to use views such as text views, buttons and spinners, and applied Material themes to make sweeping changes to your app’s look and feel. But there’s so much more you can do. Here, you’ll learn how to make your UI more responsive with the coordinator layout. You’ll create toolbars that can collapse or scroll on a whim. You’ll discover exciting new views such as checkboxes, radio buttons, chips, and floating action buttons. Finally, you’ll find out how to display friendly pop-up messages using toasts and snackbars. Read on to find out more.

Material is used throughout Androidville

In the previous chapter you learned how to use toolbars, bottom navigation bars, and navigation drawers to help users navigate your app, and styled them using a theme from the Material library. As you may recall, Material is a design system that helps you build apps with a consistent look and feel across all screens.

Material isn’t just limited to toolbars, navigation drawers, and bottom navigation bars; it styles every view in your app, from buttons to text views.

Here are some more examples of components and features that use Material:

• Scrolling and collapsing ...