Publishing Your Application

After you have created , and fully debugged , you application , you might want to deploy it to the Google.Store for others to enjoy. The following sections outline the steps for publishing your applications.

Generating a Signed APK

To Publish Your finished application on the Google Play Store , you must generate a signed APK ( the Android application package ) . The APK is the compiled , executable version of your application. Signing it is much like signing your name to a document. The signature identifies the app's developer to Google and the users who install your application. More importantly , unless your Android Studio is in developer mode , unsigned application will not run . Use the following steps to generate a signed APK :

1. Generate a signed APK from your code by selecting Build -> Generate Signed APK from the Menu bar to bring up the Generate Signed APK window as show in figure

2. Assuming you have never published an application from Android Studio , you need to create a new key store. Click the Create New button to display New Key Store window.

3. Fill out all of the information on this form because it pertains to your entity and application. Notice that there are two places for a password . These are the passwords for your key store and your key , respectively . Because a key store can hold multiple keys , it requires a separate password than that of the key for a specific app.

4. Click OK to return to the Generate Signed APK window.

5. In the Generate Signed APK windows , click Next to review and finish the process.

Now that you have a signed APK , you can upload it to the Google Play Store using developer console at https://play.google.com/apps/publish/

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Creating Android Virtual Devices (AVDs)

The next step is to create an Android Virtual Device (AVD) you can use for testing your Android application. An AVD is an emulator instance that enables you to model an actual device. Each AVD consists of a hardware profile ; a mapping to a system image ; and emulated storage,such as a secure digital (SD) card.One important thing to remember about emulators is that they are not perfect. There are some applications , such as games (which are GPU heavy ) or application that use sensors such as the GPS or accelerometer. Theses types of application cannot be simulated with the same speed or consistency within an emulator as they can when running on an actual device. However , the emulator is good for doing some generalized testing of your applications. You can create as many AVDs as you want to test your applications with different configurations. This testing is important to confirm the behavior of you application when it is run on different devices with varying capabilities. Use ...

Applying Styles and Themes to an Activity

By default , an activity is themed to the default Android theme. However , there been a push in recent year to adopt a new theme known as Material . The Material theme has a much more modern and clean look to it. There are two versions of the Material theme available to Android developers : Material Light and Material Dark , Either of these themes can be applied from the AndroidManifest.xml To apply one of the Material themes to an activity , simply modify the <Application> element in the AndroidManifest.xml file by changing the default android:theme attribute. (Please be sure to change all instances of "com.android" to whatever package name your project is using.) <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <manifest xmls:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools" package="com.android.activity101"> <application ...

Debugging Your Application

After you have built an application , you need to be able to debug it and see what is going on inside your code . One of the handiest ways to be able to see inside your code it through the use of break points. Breakpoints allow you to pause the execution of your code at specific location and see what is going on (or what is going wrong). Let's take a look at how to use breakpoints in Android Studio. Setting Breakpoints Breakpoints are mechanism by which you can tell Android Studio to temporarily pause execution of your code , which allows you to examine the condition of your application . This means that you can check on the values of variables in your application while you are debugging it. Also , you can check whether certain lines of code are being executed as expected - or at all. To tell Android Studio that you want to examine a specific line of code during debugging , you must set breakpoint at the line. Click the margin of the editor tab next to line of code you want...

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