Grokking Android

Getting Down to the Nitty Gritty of Android Development

Author archive for Wolfram Rittmeyer:

Why use Observable.create() and not just inherit from Observable?

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When starting to use RxJava you have to create Observables. They are at the very core of RxJava. But how to do so? A look at the Observable class might make you dizzy. Looking at the source even more so. Not only does this beast consist of nearly 10.000 lines (though, 7600 lines of that […]  Continue Reading  “Why use Observable.create() and not just inherit from Observable?”

Selecting Items of a RecyclerView using StateListDrawables

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Last week, after I published my introduction to RecyclerView Paul Betts asked on Twitter whether ItemDecorators are useful for displaying the selection state of items. Well, I think using them for selection is not the right way to go. Instead, I think that you should stick with StateListDrawables and the activated state. The use case […]  Continue Reading  “Selecting Items of a RecyclerView using StateListDrawables”

A First Glance at Android’s RecyclerView

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At this year’s Google I/O, Google released a preview to the upcoming Android version. The so called L Developer Preview. This is a very big improvement over previous releases and I really love that Google is doing this. I think we all benefit by this decision. As developers and as consumers alike! Part of this […]  Continue Reading  “A First Glance at Android’s RecyclerView”

About Cyril Mottier’s “Shaping the Future of Android With Dart” – Some Additional Thoughts

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This post is inspired by Cyril Mottier’s post about Dart for Android. If you haven’t read it already, please read it first. Mostly I think Cyril’s arguments are valid. I wouldn’t object to another language besides Java. Especially since the ability to use the new features of Java 8 might still be far away on […]  Continue Reading  “About Cyril Mottier’s “Shaping the Future of Android With Dart” – Some Additional Thoughts”

Stupid mistakes devs make, part I: Taking app messages at face value

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This is a new series about programming blunders I make. Stuff that keeps me looking for solutions in all the wrong places while the answer most often is glaringly simple. If only I knew that right away! I am sorry for the generalization in the headline – of course it’s only me doing stupid stuff […]  Continue Reading  “Stupid mistakes devs make, part I: Taking app messages at face value”

An XMPP Server for Google Cloud Messaging

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In this post I am going to write about the server-side of upstream messages with Google Cloud Messaging. This is the second part of my three-part series on this topic. If you haven’t read the first part about the flow of events and the Android implementation of upstream messaging, please read that one first. The […]  Continue Reading  “An XMPP Server for Google Cloud Messaging”

Upstream Messages With Google Cloud Messaging

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Google announced a new messaging model with Google Cloud Messaging on last years Google IO. This model allows for upstream messaging and for user specific notifications. This post is the first in a three-part series in which I am going to look into both these changes and to show you how to use them. I […]  Continue Reading  “Upstream Messages With Google Cloud Messaging”

Chrome-Apps on mobile devices – a good idea?

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Google announced a new set of tools this week to help developers publish their Chrome apps on iOS and Android. That’s the next logical step by Google to win over more developers for Chrome apps. In September Google already announced that from then on developers could publish their Chrome apps as offline apps, allowing users […]  Continue Reading  “Chrome-Apps on mobile devices – a good idea?”

FirefoxOS – my Initial Impression

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Quite a while ago I ordered a Peak+ FirefoxOS phone at geeksphone.com. Alas after some delay it finally was cancelled – so I settled for the smaller version, the normal Peak. About a week or two ago it finally was delivered. After some very short initial testing I had more pressing things to do. But […]  Continue Reading  “FirefoxOS – my Initial Impression”

Migrating from ActionBarSherlock to ActionBarCompat

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In July 2013 Google announced ActionBarCompat as part of its support library package. This library makes it easy to use the Action Bar that have to support older devices. Many have waited for this to happen ever since the Action Bar was introduced with Honeycomb. I, though, didn’t expect that to happen. After all the […]  Continue Reading  “Migrating from ActionBarSherlock to ActionBarCompat”