Using dependency injection and annotations in Android for cleaner code

Interesting overview of possibilities for cleaner code using dependency injection and annotations by using the RoboGuice and/or


Android Annotations


frameworks:

Clean code in Android applications

Definitely interesting possibilities, but these frameworks are quite young. And is it really worth the effort, since Activities and Intents can also be used quite effectively to keep the app loosely-coupled? Also the libraries will increase the app's size.

Not convinced yet :)

Houston we got them: Android Mini Collectible Special Edition Summer 2011

1st: "Greentooth is a master of mind control technology."
"One shake of his hand and you are under his command."

2nd: "The Hidden Task waits in the shadows, always prepared to set things right."
"The Hidden Task makes no sounds and leaves no traces."

3rd: "El Poderoso fights for justice, equality.. and fancy belts."
"El Poderoso is ready to wrestle the worst villans and pin down the biggest kingpings."

4th: "Cycle-On is a power-hungry Android who will stop at nothing."
"Cycle-On's tough metal casing makes it a formidable opponent."

Android project lessons learned

Quick post with some bullet points of lessons learned during my last Android project:

• To be able to keep strings in strings.xml apart, prefix them with the name of the Activity they belong to. So listOrdersOrderNr instead of just orderNr.
  


• If you inflate() a view without the parent, it won't take into account the parent's attributes like padding! Sadly apparently that trick does not seem to work in the getView() method. For that you'd have to compute the padding in dp and then set the padding of the view. E.g:
  
  

  float scale = getContext().getResources().getDisplayMetrics().density; float dpSize = 10 * scale; // So 10 would be the number of dp you want buttonRow.setPadding((int) dpSize, (int) dpSize, (int) dpSize, (int) dpSize);

  
  


• When using a RelativeLayout, make sure you refer to other elements using "@id/someId", and not "@+id/someId". If you use the latter, Android will just create a new id named "someId" and will place the layout starting from the top of your Activity. Pretty obvious this one (the docs say the "+" creates a new id) but still an easy one to miss... So don't do:
  
  

  android:layout_below="@+id/feedbackEmailLogsSeparator"

  
  But use:
  
  

  android:layout_below="@id/feedbackEmailLogsSeparator"