Posts Tagged ‘Android Development’
Android: Change color of the standard button inside Activity
Posted by Dimitri | Filed under Programming
This post explains how to change the color of the standard Android button. It also shows how to change the color of the text inside those buttons. It goes into detail on how to create a ColorFilter effect that changes the color of the button using three different approaches . The code featured in this post has been tested on Android 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 and 4.0.
Before starting, a little advice: know that changing the color of the standard Android button through XML is an easier and more straightforward approach. For that, please refer to the link Custom color buttons for Android (9-Patch). If the button color isn’t going to be changed after the application is initialized, then use XML. If that isn’t the case, then do it programmatically, which is what this tutorial focuses on.
So, here’s the code: (more…)
Android: ADB remote emulator access
Posted by Dimitri | Filed under Programming
This post shows how to access an emulated Android device over a local area network, so you can test and debug applications on another computer. It’s a step by step explanation based on this thread on Stack Overflow. The main goal behind this post is to show just one of the possible ways of doing it. So, if you have a suggestion on how to improve or make this process more secure, please, feel free to comment below.
The technique described on this post has been tested on a computer with Windows 7 64 bit (the one that executes the emulator) and an Ubuntu virtual machine running on another computer. The Ubuntu PC is the one that is running Eclipse and the one where the applications are being coded. For the sake of simplicity, this tutorial will reference it as “dev machine“. The other PC, the one running Windows 7 64 bit, will execute the Android emulator, which will be remotely accessed. This PC will be referenced as “remote machine” from now on.
Android: get String resource at another XML namespace
Posted by Dimitri | Filed under Programming
This post shows the necessary steps to obtain the correct String resource outside the Android XML namespace. It has been written specifically for dealing with string resources associated with Preferences inflated from XML files, so this post assumes that the reader is familiar with writing customized preferences for Android. Altought, it can probably be used on other situations. This code has been tested on an emulator running Android 2.1 and also on real devices running Android 2.1, 2.2 and 4.0.4.
Android: “reset to default” preference dialog
Posted by Dimitri | Filed under Featured, Programming
This post explains how to create a DialogPreference that allows the user to reset all preference values to their defaults. This post has been created and tested in both the emulator and on a real device running Android 2.1. Therefore, some method calls used in this example may be deprecated on newer Android versions.
The best way to show how to reset all the preference values with a DialogPreference is by presenting an example featuring PreferenceActivity that sets some preferences, and them show how to revert them back to their default. This example project can be downloaded at the end of the post. So, the first thing needed for this example is a XML file that defines the contents of the preference screen: (more…)
Android: rendering a path with a Bitmap fill
Posted by Dimitri | Filed under Programming
This Android tutorial shows how to render a Path that is filled by a Bitmap and displays stroke in a different color. It also explains how to manipulate the texture coordinates to make it independent of the position of the path, just like a mask, but without using any of the PorterDuff rendering modes. The code featured in this code was created and tested on Android 2.1, both on a real and at an emulated device.
Here’s a video of the example application in action:
If you can’t play the video, don’t worry: there is a screenshot of the application at the bottom of this post.