Overview

This 4.5-day course teaches students how to write apps for the most popular mobile operating system on the planet using the Kotlin programming language. Students will learn Android best practices that would otherwise require years of experience to fully understand.

Bootcamp Price (In Person): $4200 - price includes hotel, meals, and a shuttle to and from the hotel.

Bootcamp Prince (Online): $2450

In the Atlanta area? Interested in commuting to an in person class? Contact training@bignerdranch.com to discuss commuting options and discounts.

WHO SHOULD TAKE THIS CLASS?

• Experienced developers who are looking to expand to Android.

• If you have an existing iOS or web app and want to broaden your user base, this course is a great fit. Experience in other mobile platforms is a plus, but not required.

• Students in this class should already be familiar with basic programming concepts and should be comfortable working with the Kotlin programming language.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

• Construct Android applications using Activities and Fragments.

• Communicate with other applications.

• Understand Android’s threading model and access the web.

• Create custom views and handle raw touch events.

• Safely perform background tasks even after the user has left your app.

HOW TO PREPARE

• Install the latest version of the JDK.

• Install Android Studio.

• One installed, start Android Studio and follow the additional installation instructions. Once you have installed all of the software and SDK components, make sure that you can create and run a new application on an emulator or on a device.

SYLLABUS

ANDROID FOUNDATIONS

• Understand what an Activity is and how they are used to construct Android apps.

• Master the activity lifecycle to elegantly respond to device changes.

• Maintain UI state across rotation and process death

• Use the debugger to find and fix bugs.

• Write unit tests to verify the behavior of your app.

• Safely communicate across Activities.

• Explore the differences between versions of Android and use new features while maintaining compatibility with older versions.

FULL-FEATURED ANDROID

• Use Fragments to create reusable components and to respond elegantly to different types of devices.

• Display lists of items performantly with the RecyclerView API.

• Peek behind the scenes at Android’s layout system and understand how to use layout tools such as ConstraintLayout.

• Customize a dialog to present modal content to the user.

• Add navigation and menu options to the Toolbar.

BEYOND THE BASICS

• Use Room to access a database to performantly store application data.

• Use Kotlin coroutines to efficiently execute background work.

• Seamlessly communicate with other applications using Android’s intent system.

• Increase the potential user base of an app by supporting multiple languages and improving the accessibility.

CONNECTING TO THE WEB

• Download, parse, and present data from a web service.

• Learn more about the Toolbar on Android and how to add custom views.

• Perform background work safely in your application.

• Display content from a web site in your application.

ADDING SOME FUN

• Learn how to create your own custom views when the default widgets just won’t do.

• Receive and respond to raw touch events.

• Understand how to increase the delightfulness of an app through animation.

Click this link for a print-friendly syllabus.