The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development Version 6.4 Released

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This update is focused on a bunch of TV-related stuff that I had worked on prior to Android Studio 1.0 shipping, causing the TV stuff to get put aside temporarily. The TV material includes:

• Preliminary coverage of the leanback-v17 library, focused on BrowseFragment for providing a two-dimensional, D-pad-friendly navigation option for browsing a content catalog

• A chapter on Android TV, converted from the Google TV chapter

• Mention of the Fire TV Stick in the coverage of Fire TV

• A new chapter reviewing a large sample app, Decktastic, which presents conference-style presentations using an external display (HDMI, MHL, Miracast, etc.), Chromecast (and other RemotePlaybackDevice devices), and direct-to-TV devices (Android TV, Fire TV, etc.)

This update also contains:

• A new chapter on AndroidJUnitRunner and JUnit4 support. Espresso support should be covered in some future edition of the book.

• A revised VideoList sample in the chapter on the MediaStore, switching out SmartImageView with the Universal Image Loader for asynchronously loading video thumbnails.

• A merged chapter on the basics of Gradle and the manifest, as having those spread over two chapters was too confusing.

• Updated material on publishing AARs, focusing now on the official maven plugin.

• Various bug fixes and such.

The next update is tentatively slated for mid-March 2015.