Chapter 3
Understanding Android/Mono for Android Applications
What's in This Chapter?
- What comprises Android and Mono for Android applications
- Explaining the Android core components
- Describing purpose of intents and how they interact within the Android platform
- Exploring the Android manifest file and its key features
To develop Mono for Android applications, you need a good working knowledge of the key components of an Android application. Not only will this understanding enable you to build a feature-rich application, but it also will help you communicate between other applications and processes on the Android device.
One of the selling points of Mono for Android is that it enables you to write Android applications in a .NET-specific language. However, this does not imply that you do not need a basic understanding of the Android runtime as well as the underlying Java-based architecture. To write a full-featured application, you must be able to interface with Android's Java APIs and, potentially, other applications that are not necessarily written using Mono for Android. Furthermore, it is imperative that you understand the “Android way” of writing an application, because the Mono for Android runtime is built on that understanding and, in many ways, reflects those “Androidisms” in its architecture. The overall goal of this chapter is to provide the foundation for that understanding.
To accomplish its goals, this chapter gives you a broad understanding of the Android platform ...
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