New to Android Development: Advice on approach?

joeKel73

Hi,

Myself and two friends are developing an Android App as part of a college project over the coming months. We don't have any experience developing apps or have java experience but are very willing to learn (that's the point really). We have been looking at different options and would appreciate any advice from experienced developers out there.

Our app will do the following;

• Display a map showing users on a map
• When in range of certain positions it'll prompt users to offer to share their position
• The map will update every few seconds with all the user positions and preferably animate the movement of markers to their new position

That's basically it, without giving away too much!

We're planning on uploading and downloading all these positions to/from a database. MySQL?

From what I've seen the MapView in android has limited functionality when it comes to animating markers, placing custom polylines and pulling positions from database etc - is this true?

We've found a wealth of examples and tutorials for doing most of the map stuff using Javascript... so we're thinking of doing the map in Javascript through a WebView. That be the best approach? We'd also like a read-only website interface for the app so that would cover that too.

Then when it comes to creating the app with the webview (possibly) and interface that will prompt the users to share locations and upload to database... what do you recommend. A few options we've seen here are;

• Work directly with the Android SDK and Eclipse to develop it in JAVA
• Use another solution such as Appcelerator Titanium Mobile to make this simpler for a java newbie
• Create a webapp using the Geolocation in HTML5 which will make the app iPhone compatible too.
• Other?

We'll be starting into this in the coming days so any advise to set off in the right direction is much appreciated!

We're studying software development so if we were to opt for html5 or Titanium Mobile would we be seriously cutting back on our development as future developers?

Thanks!

Atomic Pineapple

What do you have experience in? Do you have experience in Object Orientated Programming? If so then picking up Android's syntax should be a breeze.

Android is only actually based on Java's syntax and isn't actually Java but more like a flavour of Java. It provides a lot of Java classes but not them all and then throws in Androids own classes.

If your course is a software development course and thats what you want to get into and you want to make a proper native app then I would reccomend doing it the proper way using Eclipse and the Android plug in. And if you want to port it to Iphone then learn Objective-c too, it will seem like a lot of work but someone who can program Android and Objective-C is going to be a very attractive to mobile software companies!

Its been awhile since I used a mapview in Android but I was easily able to draw over the map and easily pulled geo locations from a database and used them as proximity zones on the map to let people know where they were.

Learning the basics of what you want to do should be easy enough in Android, grab a book and learn about the life cycle and then move on to the mapviews and start playing around with them, you should be fine with 3 of you doing it.

joeKel73

Thanks for the advice! Can you recommend a good book? Or website.... haven't found as much online as I'd have expected.

Atomic Pineapple

The commonsware book by Mark Murphy seems to be one of the best ones out there, your probably looking for the updated 2.3 version (Not sure if its out yet just that there has been a few additions to 2.3 so should be an updated book)

joeKel73

Thanks, subscribed to Commonsware now and the books (PDF) look like a great resource.

jimmycrackcorm

foto joe wrote: »

Our app will do the following;

• Display a map showing users on a map
• When in range of certain positions it'll prompt users to offer to share their position
• The map will update every few seconds with all the user positions and preferably animate the movement of markers to their new position

So basically you are copying Google Lattitude.

That's basically it, without giving away too much!
We're studying software development so if we were to opt for html5 or Titanium Mobile would we be seriously cutting back on our development as future developers?

Thanks!

It does limit you somewhat. Try doing an Android widget in Titanium. You do have some advantages in cross-platform support but you inevitably lose out on specialized functionality.

joeKel73

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

So basically you are copying Google Lattitude.

Well no, the program will function similar alright but for a more specific purpose. Will be clear when we launch it.