Paul Labis: This is a personal blog where everyone can read my experiences, ideas and thoughts about programming, latest gadgets and other information technology related topics, lifestyle and many other stuff I would like to share to the public.

Tutorial on Android Layout

On my previous article, I've discussed more on the theory and definition of an Android. In this article, we will be dealing more on the technical aspect of developing android application layout. I will walk you through various elements that make up the user interface(UI) and how to position different widgets on an android screen.

Terms to remember:
  • Activity - the basic unit of an android application. It contains views and ViewGroup. 
  • View - a widget that has an appearance on screen.
  • Widget - are user interface components like buttons, labels, text boxes, etc.
  • ViewGroup - a special type of View that provides the layout in which you can group views, order the appearance and sequence your views.
Just an additional information; In a typical android project, UI is defined using an XML file located in the res/layout folder. An example is main.xml located in res/layout folder.  During runtime, the .xml file where you defined your UI is loaded using the onCreate() event handler of your activity class and using setContentView() method of the extended Activity class. Moreover, during compilation time, each of the element in the defined UI xml file are compiled into an equivalent Android GUI class wherein its attributes are represented by methods.

Learning Android By Definition

Android is an open source platform for mobile devices. It is not a hardware. Its basically a software. In fact, It is a software stack as defined by Google. Encase your not familiar with the term, software stack is compose of an Operating System(OS), middle-ware & the key applications.
  • OS is by simply defined as platform between you and the hardware and where all applications run.
  • Middle-ware is/are the components and available package that allows applications to communicate to a network and to one another.
  • Key Applications is/are the actual programs or software that the phones will run
It was the product of the joint effort of Google and Open Handset Alliance(OHA). It was released November 5, 2007 which is shortly just after Apple's first generation iPhone release. Android is based on an opensource operating system called Linux.

Hello World by Techie Boy

This is my first article post so its a Hello World article! Its hello world because most of developers do the very first application regardless of any technology that is being use, they begin by displaying a "hello world" on a computer screen or may vary with regards to its intention.

Moving forward, I'm Paul Labis. Sole writer & owner of this blog. I am a graduate of the degree in Information Management from Ateneo de Cagayan University and working as a Software Engineer in Orange & Bronze Software Labs. 

I like anything related to information technology. I am also an Open Source believer. That sums up my explanation why I am inclined to Java programming, Groovy & Grails, App Engine, Python & DJango and other Open Source Frameworks.

Web Service Tutorial in Java

Web Service is a piece of software that makes a service available on web. It uses a universal standard XML processing. It is interoperable in a sense that it enables a .NET software on a Windows Server to communicate to a JAVA software on a Unix. In other words, its not bound to a specific programming language or an operating system.
  • "Provider agent" implements a Web service
  • "Requester agent" (a.k.a. "client") makes use of that Web service
  • WSD(Web Service Description) represents a "contract"
  • Specifies the message formats, transport protocols, locations 
What we want to do in this article is to create a project where it utilizes a web service online. I plot the step by step way of utilizing a web service through terminal.