CREATE YOUR FIRST ANDROID APP

Learning Outcomes

1. How to create an Android App with Android Studio

2. How to run apps with the Preview tool in Android Studio

3. How to update text with Kotlin

4. How to update a User Interface (UI) with Jetpack Compose

5. How to see a preview of your app with Preview in Jetpack Compose

1. CREATE A PROJECT USING THE TEMPLATE

To create a project in Android Studio:

1. Double click the Android Studio icon to launch Android Studio.

2. In the Welcome to Android Studio dialog, click New Project.

The New Project window opens with a list of templates provided by Android Studio.

In Android Studio, a project template is an Android project that provides the blueprint
for a certain type of app. Templates create the structure of the project and the files
 needed for Android Studio to build your project. The template that you choose
provides starter code to get you going faster.

3. Make sure the Phone and Tablet tab is selected.

4. Click the Empty Activity template to select it as the template for your project.
The Empty Activity template is the template to create a simple project that you can use
to build a Compose app. It has a single screen and displays the text "Hello Android!".

5. Click Next. The New Project dialog opens. This has some fields to configure your
project.

6. Configure your project as follows:

The Name field is used to enter the name of your project, for this project type "Greeting
Card".

Leave the Package name field as is. This is how your files will be organized in the file
structure. In this case, the package name will be com.example.greetingcard.

Leave the Save location field as is. It contains the location where all the files related to
your project are saved. Take a note of where that is on your computer so that you can
find your files.

Select API 24: Android 7.0 (Nougat) from the menu in the Minimum
SDK field. Minimum SDK indicates the minimum version of Android that your app
can run on.
7. Click Finish. This may take a while - this is a great time to get a cup of tea! While
Android Studio is setting up, a progress bar and message indicates whether Android
Studio is still setting up your project. It may look like this:

A message that looks similar to this informs you when the project set up is created.

8. Click Split on the top right of Android Studio, this allows you to view both code and
design. You can also click Code to view code only or click Design to view design only.
 After pressing Split you should see three areas:

 The Project view (1) shows the files and folders of your project

 The Code view (2) is where you edit code

 The Design view (3) is where you preview what your app looks like

In the Design view, you will see a blank pane with this text:
9. Click Build & Refresh. It may take a while to build but when it is done the preview
shows a text box that says "Hello Android!". Empty Compose activity contains all the
code necessary to create this app.
 2. FIND PROJECT FILES

In this section you will continue to explore Android Studio by becoming familiar with
the file structure.

1. In Android Studio, take a look at the Project tab. The Project tab shows the files and
folders of your project. When you were setting up your project the package name
was com.example.greetingcard. You can see that package right here in the Project tab.
A package is basically a folder where code is located. Android Studio organizes the
project in a directory structure made up of set of packages.

2. If necessary, select Android from the drop-down menu in the Project tab.

This is the standard view and organization of files that you use. It's useful when you
write code for your project because you can easily access the files you will be working
on in your app. However, if you look at the files in a file browser, such as Finder or
Windows Explorer, the file hierarchy is organized very differently.
3. Select Project Source Files from the drop-down menu. You can now browse the files in
the same way as in any file browser.

4. Select Android again to switch back to the previous view. You use the Android view
for this course. If your file structure ever looks strange, check to make sure you're still
in Android view.

3. UPDATE THE TEXT

Now that you have gotten to know Android Studio, it's time to start making your
greeting card!

Look at the Code view of the MainActivity.kt file. Notice there are some automatically
generated functions in this code, specifically the onCreate() and
the setContent() functions.
Note: Remember that a function is a segment of a program that performs a specific task.
class MainActivity : ComponentActivity() {
override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
setContent {
GreetingCardTheme {
// A surface container using the 'background' color from the theme
Surface(
modifier = Modifier.fillMaxSize(),
color = MaterialTheme.colors.background
){
Greeting("Android")
}
}
}
}
}

The onCreate() function is the entry point to this Android app and calls other functions
to build the user interface. In Kotlin programs, the main() function is the entry
point/starting point of execution. In Android apps, the onCreate() function fills that
role.

The setContent() function within the onCreate() function is used to define your layout
through composable functions. All functions marked with the @Composable annotation
can be called from the setContent() function or from other Composable functions. The
annotation tells the Kotlin compiler that this function is used by Jetpack Compose to
generate the UI.
 Note: The compiler takes the Kotlin code you wrote, looks at it line by line, and
translates it into something that the computer can understand. This process is called
compiling your code.

Next, look at the Greeting() function. The Greeting() function is a Composable function,
notice the @Composable annotation above it. This Composable function takes some
input and generates what's shown on the screen.
@Composable
fun Greeting(name: String, modifier: Modifier = Modifier) {
Text(text = "Hello $name!")
}

 You add the @Composable annotation before the function.

 @Composable function names are capitalized.

 @Composable functions can't return anything.

@Composable
fun Greeting(name: String, modifier: Modifier = Modifier) {
Text(text = "Hello $name!")
}

Right now the Greeting() function takes in a name and displays Hello to that person.
1. Update the Greeting() function to introduce yourself instead of saying "Hello":
@Composable
fun Greeting(name: String, modifier: Modifier = Modifier) {
Text(text = "Hi, my name is $name!")
}

2. Android should automatically update the preview.

Great! You changed the text, but it introduces you as Android, which is probably not
your name. Next, you will personalize it to introduce you with your name!

The GreetingPreview() function is a cool feature that lets you see what your composable
looks like without having to build your entire app. To enable a preview of a
composable, annotated with @Composable and @Preview. The @Preview annotation
tells Android Studio that this composable should be shown in the design view of this
file.

As you can see, the @Preview annotation takes in a parameter called showBackground.
If showBackground is set to true, it will add a background to your composable preview.

Since Android Studio by default uses a light theme for the editor, it can be hard to see
the difference between showBackground = true and showBackground = false. However,
this is an example of what the difference looks like. Notice the white background on the
image set to true.
 showBackground = true

showBackground = false

3. Update the GreetingPreview() function with your name. Then rebuild and check out
your personalized greeting card!
@Preview(showBackground = true)
@Composable
fun GreetingPreview() {
GreetingCardTheme {
Greeting("Meghan")
}
}
 4. CHANGE THE BACKGROUND COLOR

Now you have the introduction text, but it's a little boring! In this section, you learn to
change the background color.

To set a different background color for your introduction, you'll need to surround your
text with a Surface. A Surface is a container that represents a section of UI where you
can alter the appearance, such as the background color or border.

1. To surround the text with a Surface, highlight the line of text, press (Alt+Enter for
Windows or Option+Enter on Mac), and then select Surround with widget.

2. Choose Surround with Container.

 The default container it will give you is Box, but you can change this to another
container type. You will learn about Box layout later in the course.

3. Delete Box and type Surface() instead.

@Composable
fun Greeting(name: String, modifier: Modifier = Modifier) {
Surface() {
Text(
text = "Hi, my name is $name!",
modifier = modifier
)
}
 }

4. To the Surface container add a color parameter, set it to Color.

@Composable
fun Greeting(name: String, modifier: Modifier = Modifier) {
Surface(color = Color) {
Text(
text = "Hi, my name is $name!",
modifier = modifier
)
}
}

5. When you type Color you may notice that it is red, which means Android Studio is not
able to resolve this. To solve this scroll to the top of the file where it says import and
press the three buttons.

6. Add this statement to the bottom of the list of imports.

import androidx.compose.ui.graphics.Color

The full list of imports will look similar to this.

import android.os.Bundle
import androidx.activity.ComponentActivity
import androidx.activity.compose.setContent
import androidx.compose.foundation.layout.Box
 import androidx.compose.foundation.layout.fillMaxSize
import androidx.compose.material3.MaterialTheme
import androidx.compose.material3.Surface
import androidx.compose.material3.Text
import androidx.compose.runtime.Composable
import androidx.compose.ui.Modifier
import androidx.compose.ui.tooling.preview.Preview
import com.example.greetingcard.ui.theme.GreetingCardTheme
import androidx.compose.ui.graphics.Color

7. In your code, the best practice is to keep your imports listed alphabetically and remove
unused imports. To do this press Help on the top toolbar, type in optimize imports,
and click on Optimize Imports.
You could open the Optimize Imports directly from the menu: Code > Optimize
Imports. Using Help's search option will help you locate a menu item if you don't
remember where it is.

The full list of imports will now look like this:

import android.os.Bundle
import androidx.activity.ComponentActivity
import androidx.activity.compose.setContent
 import androidx.compose.foundation.layout.fillMaxSize
import androidx.compose.material3.MaterialTheme
import androidx.compose.material3.Surface
import androidx.compose.material3.Text
import androidx.compose.runtime.Composable
import androidx.compose.ui.Modifier
import androidx.compose.ui.graphics.Color
import androidx.compose.ui.tooling.preview.Preview
import com.example.greetingcard.ui.theme.GreetingCardTheme

8. Notice that the Color that you typed in the Surface parentheses has switched from being
red to being underlined in red. To fix that, add a period after it. You will see a pop-up
showing different color options.

This is one of the cool features in Android Studio, it is intelligent and will help you out
when it can. In this case it knows you are wanting to specify a color so it will suggest
different colors.
9. Choose a color for your surface. This codelab uses Cyan, but you can choose your
favorite!
@Composable
fun Greeting(name: String, modifier: Modifier = Modifier) {
Surface(color = Color.Cyan) {
Text(
text = "Hi, my name is $name!",
modifier = modifier
)
}
}

10. Notice the updated preview.

5. ADD PADDING

Now your text has a background color, next you will add some space (padding) around
the text.

A Modifier is used to augment or decorate a composable. One modifier you can use is
the padding modifier, which adds space around the element (in this case, adding space
around the text). This is accomplished by using the Modifier.padding() function.
 Every composable should have an optional parameter of the type Modifier. This should
be the first optional parameter.

1. Add a padding to the modifier with a size of 24.dp.

Note: You learn more about density-independent pixels (dp) in the next pathway, but
refer to Layout – Material Design 3 article if you want to read more now.
@Composable
fun Greeting(name: String, modifier: Modifier = Modifier) {
Surface(color = Color.Cyan) {
Text(
text = "Hi, my name is $name!",
modifier = modifier.padding(24.dp)
)
}
}

2. Add these imports to the import statement section.

Make sure to use Optimize Imports to alphabetize the new imports.

import androidx.compose.ui.unit.dp
import androidx.compose.foundation.layout.padding

Well congratulations - you built your first Android app in Compose! This is a pretty
huge accomplishment. Take some time to play around with different colors and text,
make it your own!

6. REVIEW THE SOLUTION CODE

package com.example.greetingcard

import android.os.Bundle
import androidx.activity.ComponentActivity
import androidx.activity.compose.setContent
import androidx.compose.ui.graphics.Color
import androidx.compose.foundation.layout.fillMaxSize
import androidx.compose.foundation.layout.padding
import androidx.compose.material3.MaterialTheme
import androidx.compose.material3.Surface
import androidx.compose.material3.Text
import androidx.compose.runtime.Composable
import androidx.compose.ui.Modifier
import androidx.compose.ui.tooling.preview.Preview
import androidx.compose.ui.unit.dp
import com.example.greetingcard.ui.theme.GreetingCardTheme

class MainActivity : ComponentActivity() {

override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
 super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
setContent {
GreetingCardTheme {
// A surface container using the 'background' color from the theme
Surface(
modifier = Modifier.fillMaxSize(),
color = MaterialTheme.colorScheme.background
){
Greeting("Android")
}
}
}
}
}

@Composable
fun Greeting(name: String, modifier: Modifier = Modifier) {
Surface(color = Color.Cyan) {
Text(text = "Hi, my name is $name!", modifier = modifier.padding(24.dp))
}
}

@Preview(showBackground = true)
@Composable
fun GreetingPreview() {
GreetingCardTheme {
Greeting("Meghan")
}
}