Code and patterns from building TimePiece: an Android World Clock application released under the Open Source MIT license. The talk was given at the Philly Android Alliance User Group meeting on 8/24

1. Building TimePiece Arpit Mathur http://twitter.com/arpit

2. What is TimePiece World Time lookup without API calls Visually interesting (fun with animation) Open Source (under the MIT license)

3. Technical breakdown Local SQLite database with City / Java TimeZone Id mappings JODA DateTime library Search Custom List Renderers The usual app stuff: User Preferences Menus Intro screens Context menus

4. Implementing ContentProviders with local SQLite databases

5. Steps Add SQLite to your assets folder Copy the database to your app’s data folder Open the database (extend SQLiteOpenHelper) Create a ContentProvider from this Database

6. Code: DataBaseHelper TimeZoneLookupService CitySearchSuggestionProvider

7. Create a searchable config xml file Create an Activity to handle the search Add the Search config and activity to the activity that you want to trigger search on Implementing Search

8. Search config (in res/xml)

9. Search Activity

10. Integrate with Main Activity

11. Mind the stacks! Activity LaunchModesdeclared in Activity: multiple singleTop singleTask singleInstance

12. Replacing the Activity with Suggestions res/searchable.xml CitySearchSuggestionProvider

13. Return format

14. Building Custom Lists Create a List View or a ListActivity Create an Adapter for populating the List Populate the List Adapter Refresh the Adapter every 60 seconds

15. Code MyLocationsActivity MyLocationsDataAdapter

16. A little deeper into Animation

17. Loading Animation XMLs

18. Creating animation objects at runtime

19. Creating custom animations Extend Animation Override applyTransform

21. Remember: Animations only effect the rendering buffers so objects don’t actually change in position itself If you don’t set setFillAfter, the animated object will return to its location/transformation as before animation started Leverage LayoutAnimations as well as regular animations

22. Releasing to the Market Use Android Asset Studio to create your icons Broken Market search: Joining words is probably a bad idea When adding images to your app’s description, make sure the first one is most representative (for third party market indexers like Chomp)

23. Links TimePiece: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.arpitonline.worldclock Packing local SQLite databases: http://www.reigndesign.com/blog/using-your-own-sqlite-database-in-android-applications/ Android Asset Studio: http://android-ui-utils.googlecode.com/hg/asset-studio/dist/index.html