The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development Version 3.8 Released

(I thought I might never get around to writing that blog post title…)

Subscribers now have access to the latest release of The Busy Coder’s Guide to Android Development, known as Version 3.8, in all formats.

This is the culmination of The Big Book Reboot — the merger of all my Android books into one, 1,651-page digital tome.

Compared to Version 0.8 of the former Android Programming Omnibus, this edition has ported over most of the rest of the material from the other titles. It also adds the first portions of the “Widget Catalog”, a series of short chapters covering one widget apiece, designed to provide samples, screenshots, and tips to complement the SDK’s JavaDocs.

In addition, this edition provides:

• A partially rewritten Advanced ListViews chapter

• Updated action mode coverage to incorporate ActionBarSherlock (where possible)

• A partially rewritten chapter on advanced permissions

• Partially rewritten coverage of PowerManager and WakeLock

• More coverage of preferred activities and activity resolution

• A partially rewritten chapter on JUnit

• Light coverage of MonkeyRunner

This edition drops coverage of using the Camera class, formerly in The Busy Coder’s Guide to Advanced Android Development. Like sensors before it, I no longer feel confident in describing the details of getting the camera to work, particularly across devices. There is camera coverage in the book, focusing on Intent-based solutions and ZXing for barcode scanning. I hope to restore the Camera coverage – probably as part of publishing a CWAC project to help simplify its use – later in 2012.

People who were subscribed as of 8pm Eastern on July 7, 2012 will have access to the new book edition, plus access to the last-published editions of The Busy Coder’s Guide to Advanced Android Development, Android Programming Tutorials, and Tuning Android Applications. New subscribers will only have access to The Busy Coder’s Guide to Android Development.

My plan is to attempt to update this book monthly, typically around the first of the month. The next update – Version 4.0 – will add in coverage of the new Jelly Bean Android release, assuming that I have gotten my hands on Android 4.1 hardware.

Note that The Busy Coder’s Guide to Android Development is eligible for the Book Bug Bounty program. I suspect that there are lots of bugs in there. :-)

If you encounter any problems with this update or your Warescription in general, please contact wares@commonsware.com, and be sure to provide your Warescription user ID.