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Instant Android
Fragmentation
Management How-to
A complete hands-on guide to solving the biggest problem
facing Android application developers today
Gianluca Pacchiella
BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
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Instant Android Fragmentation Management
How-to
Copyright © 2013 Packt Publishing
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However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: January 2013
Production Reference: 1160113
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
Livery Place
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Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.
ISBN 978-1-78216-086-1
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Credits
Author Project Coordinator
Gianluca Pacchiella Priya Sharma
Reviewers Proofreader
Rick Boyer Maria Gould
Visar Shehu
Production Coordinator
Acquisition Editor Prachali Bhiwandkar
Martin Bell
Cover Work
Commissioning Editor Prachali Bhiwandkar
Maria D'souza
Cover Image
Technical Editor Sheetal Aute
Prasad Dalvi
Copy Editor
Aditya Nair
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About the Author
Gianluca Pacchiella is an Italian developer living in Turin. He has a Master's degree in
Physics and a PhD in Mathematics. He started programming in 2000 with some weird web
languages (PHP, MySQL, HTML4, and CSS), but soon he was fascinated by real programming
on the UNIX systems, and fell in love with C language (and a little bit of assembly).
Some years later, Gianluca bought an Android phone and started to learn everything about
it and about embedded systems. Meanwhile, he continued to improve his skills with the web
application, using the Python language and the Django framework together with the Nginx
web server and the PostgreSQL database.
In his spare time, he tries to learn security concepts and cryptography applied to his projects.
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About the Reviewers
Rick Boyer is an Android developer with over 20 years of programming experience,
with a passion for mobile development. Having programmed on different mobile devices,
including Windows CE, Windows Phone, and Android, he now focuses solely on Android with
his consulting business, NightSky Development. He also runs a LinkedIn forum focusing on
developers bringing their apps to the market.
He can be contacted via www.linkedin.com/in/boyerrick, www.NightSkyDev.com,
and LinkenIn Android Group at goo.gl/Byilc.
Visar Shehu has a PhD in Computer Science and is currently employed at the Computer
Science department of South East European University in Tetovo, Macedonia. His research
interests focus on intelligent web and mobile technologies that aim to integrate statistical and
data mining techniques in building adaptable user interfaces and applications. Visar Shehu
has been involved in multiple research projects and has authored and co-authored a number
of research papers. Besides his academic work, he has also contributed in the development
of various information systems ranging from mobile applications, custom-built content
management, and learning management systems.
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Table of Contents
Preface 1
Instant Android Fragmentation Management How-to 5
Installing the compatibility package (Must know) 6
Fragments (Should know) 13
Loader (Should know) 26
ActionBar (Should know) 40
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Preface
Smartphones, by now, have entered our lives not only as users and consumers but also as
producers of our own content. Though this kind of device has been on the market since 1992
(the first was the Simon model by IBM), the big diffusion was driven by Apple's iPhone, when it
was produced in 2007 (this year, the fifth generation of this device has been released).
Meanwhile, another big giant, Google, developed an open source product to be used as the
internal operating system in mobile devices; in a different manner from the leader of the
market, this company doesn't constraint itself to a unique hardware-specific device, but allows
third-party companies to use it on their cell phones, which have different characteristics. The
big advantage was also to be able to sell this device to consumers that don't want to (or can't
have) spend as much money as the Apple phone costs. This allowed Android to win the battle
of diffusion.
But there is another side to the coin. A variety of devices by different producers means more
fragmentation of the underlying system and a non-uniform user experience that can be really
disappointing. As programmers, we have to take into account these problems and this book
strives to be a useful guideline to solve that problem.
What this book covers
Installing the compatibility package (Must know), provides Google's primary solution to the
backward compatibility problem.
Fragments (Should know), discusses the first new feature introduced with the new Android
release. This recipe also explains how to create the context-adapting UI.
Loader (Should know), discusses how the smoothness of an Android application is guaranteed
using the built-in utilities that allow us to do expensive work in the background.
ActionBar (Should know), discusses the standard way to create an appealing UI that manages
user interactions with our applications.
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