Professional Android™ 2 Application Development

Chapter 4. Creating User Interfaces

What's in This Chapter?

• Using Views and layouts

• Optimizing layouts

• XML Drawable resources

• Creating resolution-independent user interfaces

• The Android menu system

• Extending, grouping, creating, and using Views

It's vital that you create compelling and intuitive user interfaces for your applications. Ensuring that they are as stylish and easy to use as they are functional should be a top design priority.

To quote Stephen Fry on the importance of style as part of substance in the design of digital devices:

As if a device can function if it has no style. As if a device can be called stylish that does not function superbly.... yes, beauty matters. Boy, does it matter. It is not surface, it is not an extra, it is the thing itself.

——Stephen Fry, The Guardian (October 27, 2007)

Increasing screen sizes, display resolutions, and mobile processor power have made mobile applications increasingly visual. While the diminutive screens pose a challenge for those creating complex visual interfaces, the ubiquity of mobiles makes it a challenge worth accepting.

In this chapter you'll learn about the basic Android UI elements and discover how to use Views, View Groups, and layouts to create functional and intuitive user interfaces for your Activities.

After being introduced to some of the controls available from the Android SDK, you'll learn how to extend and customize them. Using View Groups, you'll see how to combine Views to create atomic, reusable UI elements made up of ...