The following is the first few sections of a chapter from Exploring Android, plus headings for the remaining major sections, to give you an idea about the content of the chapter.

Constructing a Layout

Our starter project has a layout resource: res/layout/activity_main.xml already. However, it is just a bit different from what we need. So, in this tutorial, we will modify that layout, using the Android Studio drag-and-drop GUI builder.

This is a continuation of the work we did in the previous tutorial. The book’s GitHub repository contains the results of the previous tutorial as well as the results of completing the work in this tutorial.

Read Me!

This tutorial assumes that you have learned the basics of working with layout resources — particularly ConstraintLayout — elsewhere. That could be:

• From the official documentation, such as their material on creating layouts
• Several chapters from The Busy Coder’s Guide to Android Development, including:
  • “The Theory of Widgets”
  • “The Android User Interface”
  • “Basic Widgets”
  • “The Classic Container Classes”
  • “Other Common Widgets and Containers”
  • “GUI Building, Continued”
  • “Introducing ConstraintLayout”
  • “RecyclerView”
• Other educational resources

Step #1: Examining What We Have And What We Want

The preview of this section was last seen in the Bermuda Triangle.

Step #2: Adding a RecyclerView

The preview of this section was accidentally identified as an Android 'tasty treat' by the Cookie Monster.

Step #3: Adjusting the TextView

The preview of this section was the victim of a MITM ('Martian in the middle') attack.

What We Changed

The preview of this section is unavailable right now, but if you leave your name and number at the sound of the tone, it might get back to you (BEEEEEEEEEEEEP!).