Adding a variable to both the Android Manifest and Build Config
Whilst it is possible to set a variable in your AndroidManifest.xml using manifestPlaceholders and setting the value in your build.gradle, it can often be useful to access these values in your code too. For example, I recently used this post’s technique to define a deep link path (defined in the manifest) and check the url’s path at runtime (checked in the code).
Saving and restoring a RecyclerView’s position in Android
When using a RecyclerView in your Android app, especially one with many (or infinite) items inside it, your users will get pretty frustrated if you fail to remember their position.
Using break strategy to fix unusual Android TableRow text wrapping issues
An easy way of creating simple, aligned layouts in XML is using a TableLayout and TableRows. This works excellently for most situations, but unfortunately has a few quirks when it comes to handling TextView text wrapping. Recently a bug report was received where very long emails addresses weren’t displayed correctly, and flowed offscreen.
Accessing a deep link intent’s data / URL in a fragment with AndroidX
Usually, accessing the data associated with a deep link intent in an Activity is just a case of calling intent.data. Easy!
An introduction to the NASA APOD API
NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day API is an amazing service providing free, reliably sourced space images. However, the official documentation can be a little lacking, hopefully this post will improve on it somewhat.
Creating custom stacked icons with FontAwesome
FontAwesome is an excellent resource for web developers, providing almost 1500 icons for free. Whilst these are often enough for your use case, sometimes additional icons are needed. For example, on my portfolio I wanted a square icon for each social media service, but only 6 out of 10 services had a square icon available!
Using ShareX to take screenshots and upload them to a private Imgur album
The ability to quickly share screenshots with others is essential to day to day conversation / work, especially when talking to people in other offices or countries. The built in Windows Snipping Tool has good basic functionality (e.g. press Win + Shift + S to select an area to copy), but lacks any image uploading functionality, or advanced editing.
How to get a “Verified” tag on your GitHub organization’s page
Your company’s GitHub profile is a great way to show off some of the high quality work produced internally, and attract new potential developers. Additionally, all the usual benefits of sharing your code with others apply, and you’ll be helping the open source community!
“Beginner’s Guide to Android Development” live Q&A podcast recording
A couple of months ago the guys at Enhance.co hopped on the Android Dev Discord and took a few questions from the members there. After a few delays this 90 minute podcast is now up on Soundcloud, and embedded below!