The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development Version 5.3 Released

Subscribers now have access to the latest release of The Busy Coder’s Guide to Android Development, known as Version 5.3, in all formats. Just log into your Warescription page and download away, or set up an account and subscribe!

NOTE: The book production process was overhauled in this release. I am more aggressively compressing the images, to try to keep the PDF under 50MB. Also, I have rebuilt the EPUB generation, which in turn affects the APK and MOBI/Kindle formats. If you encounter any problems with these new editions, contact wares@commonsware.com for assistance.

This update adds over a bit shy of 70 pages and contains:

• Another chapter on Gradle, focusing on the Gradle for Android plugin and the new project structure, covering build types and product flavors along the way.

• Compatibility-related pointers for Android 4.4.

• An update of the coverage of SQLCipher for Android to version 3.0.0 of that library.

• Additions to the coverage of drawables (ColorDrawable and my gif2animdraw script), secondary screen support (reviewing the PresentationSlidesDemo that I used at Samsung DevCon), SQLite (covering ROWID), video recording (with a sample for recording via startActivity() and a camera app), HTTP clients (with a new section on Ion), SearchView, and action modes (covering starting an action mode via a long-click).

• Miscellaneous updates and errata fixes.

The next update is not planned until mid-January, barring something really unusual happening in the Android app development ecosystem between now and then. That update will contain yet more Gradle coverage, deeper dives into new Android 4.4 capabilities, more chapters on wearables, and more.

NOTE: Version 5.3 is the last version that will contain a chapter on Maps V1, as by the time Version 5.4 comes out in January, Maps V1 will have been deprecated for over a year. If you are still using Maps V1, make sure that you hold onto your copies of Version 5.3 of the book, in addition to downloading Version 5.4 when it comes out.