Silly Android
What is this?
Silly Android is an Android (Java) library with various plugins for the core Android framework. In general, AppCompat offers lot of help; but often enough, we need more. A lot of quirky Android APIs introduce the need for a bunch of utility classes, other times we just add a considerable amount of boilerplate code. Having said that, Silly Android does not aim to remove all boilerplate code from your apps, or fix all of the silly API design decisions imposed by the default framework; people are tired of copying the same utilities and workarounds over and over, from one app they work on to the next one - and Silly Android's core goal is to help with that.
In shortest terms, Silly Android is a set of most commonly used workarounds, fixes and utilities, all of which should have been included in the core framework by default. When you find yourself asking questions like "Why is this simple task so complicated to do?" or "How was this not done by default?" - Silly Android should be the help you need.
Examples
Note: Not all features are demonstrated in this section. Please check the 'Code organization' section for more info. All samples internally reference the SillyAndroid class which does all of the heavy lifting - and, all APIs are available through that class directly, but are integrated into Easy and Parsable components for ease of use.
Extra dimensions, colors and other values:
...
<!-- SillyAndroid provides '@dimen/spacing_large', '@color/yellow', '@dimen/text_size_small', etc. -->
<Button
android:id="@+id/button_random_padding"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:paddingLeft="@dimen/spacing_large"
android:paddingRight="@dimen/spacing_large"
android:text="@string/label_random_padding"
android:textColor="@color/yellow"
android:textSize="@dimen/text_size_small" />
...Typed findView() method (available in all Easy components)
...
TextView displayView = findView(R.id.my_text_view);
// no cast necessary!
...Screen size calculations:
...
Point screenSize = SillyAndroid.UI.getScreenSize(this);
if (screenSize.x < 1000 && screenSize.y < 1000) {
// do something dynamically for a small screen
}
...Software keyboard helpers (available in all Easy components):
...
@Override
public void onKeyboardShown(int size) {
Log.d(TAG, "Current keyboard size is: " + size);
}
@Override
public void onKeyboardHidden() {
Log.d(TAG, "Current keyboard is hidden!");
}
@Override
public void onClick(@NonNull View view) {
// this returns false if it fails to hide the keyboard:
hideKeyboard();
}
...UI configuration checks:
...
@DeviceType int type = SillyAndroid.UI.getDeviceType(this);
if (type == SillyAndroid.UI.TABLET_PORT || type == SillyAndroid.UI.PHONE_LAND) {
// do something weird
}
...EasyActivity permission enhancement (also available in EasyFragments):
...
// obviously you don't need to request this, but it's just a demo
if (!hasPermission(Manifest.permission.ACCESS_WIFI_STATE)) {
// no typed array, just declare them one after the other
requestPermissions(REQ_CODE, Manifest.permission.ACCESS_WIFI_STATE);
return;
}
// do your permitted work here
...EasyFragment permission enhancement (also available in EasyActivities):
@Override
protected void onPermissionsResult(int reqestCode, @NonNull Set<String> granted, @NonNull Set<String> denied) {
if (granted.contains(Manifest.permission.ACCESS_WIFI_STATE)) {
// do your permitted work here
}
}
Easy Toast displays (available in all Easy components):
...
toastLong(R.string.my_error);
toastShort("Dynamic text here");
...Easy conversions, checks and setters (available in all Easy components):
...
// dp<->px conversions, network checks, and finally an easy padding setter
int padding = SillyAndroid.convertDipsToPixels(getContext(), 20);
boolean hasNetwork = SillyAndroid.isNetworkConnected(getContext());
setPadding(mYourView, 0);
// reset padding for some reason
if (hasNetwork) {
setPaddingVertical(mYourView, padding);
}
else {
setPaddingHorizontal(mYourView, padding);
}
...Thread checking:
...
if (SillyAndroid.isThisMainThread()) {
throw new IllegalStateException("Don't run this on the UI thread");
}
...Dynamic, responsive, and contrasted View coloring:
/*
* Prepare the special button coloring to demonstrate the Coloring class (you would have something like this happen generically in real apps):
*
* - IDLE state colors -
*
Background: GRAY
*
Text: Contrast to [IDLE.Background]
*
Icon: Contrast to [IDLE.Background]
*
* - PRESSED state colors -
*
Background: #FFCC00 (bright yellow)
*
Text: Contrast to [PRESSED.Background]
*
Icon: Contrast to [PRESSED.Background]
*
* Android does not recolor to contrast colors when pressed, so we're doing that manually below.
*/
int idleBackgroundColor = Color.GRAY; // button background when not pressed
int idleContentColor = Coloring.contrastColor(idleBackgroundColor);
// text and icon color when not pressed (need them to be always legible)
int pressedBackgroundColor = 0xFFFFCC00; // button background highlight color when pressed
Drawable originalDrawable = ContextCompat.getDrawable(this, android.R.drawable.star_big_on);
// load a random icon from android
StateListDrawable statefulDrawable = Coloring.createContrastStateDrawable(this, idleContentColor, pressedBackgroundColor, true, originalDrawable);
ColorStateList statefulTextColors = Coloring.createContrastTextColors(idleContentColor, pressedBackgroundColor);
Rect originalBounds = mPaddingButton.getBackground().copyBounds();
// copy original drawable's bounds so that the ripple is bordered
int cornerRoundness = SillyAndroid.convertDipsToPixels(this, 4);
Drawable backgroundDrawable = Coloring.createResponsiveDrawable(this, idleBackgroundColor, pressedBackgroundColor, idleBackgroundColor, true, cornerRoundness, originalBounds);
// set the background color, pre-colored compound icon and text colors
setBackgroundCompat(mPaddingButton, backgroundDrawable);
mPaddingButton.setCompoundDrawablesWithIntrinsicBounds(statefulDrawable, null, null, null);
mPaddingButton.setTextColor(statefulTextColors);
Automatic layout and menu setup for Parsable components:
@Menu(R.menu.my_menu)
@Layout(R.layout.my_layout)
class MainActivity extends ParsableActivity {
// your activity code here
}
Automatic View finding and injections for Parsable components:
@Layout(R.layout.my_layout)
class MainActivity extends ParsableActivity {
@Clickable // makes the View respond to clicks via this#onClick()
@FindView(R.id.my_clickable_button)
private Button mClickableButton;
@LongClickable // makes the View respond to clicks via this#onLongClick()
@FindView(R.id.my_long_clickable_button)
private Button mLongClickableButton;
}
Setup
- Gradle build -
jCenterandmavenCentralare both supported - AppCompat, minimum version
25.0.2- Silly Android heavily relies on the features provided by this library. Note that including other versions might work too, but don't report issues if it does not. You've been warned!
To include Silly Android in your app, add the following line to your app's build.gradle's dependecies block.
// look for the latest version on top of this file
compile "me.angrybyte.sillyandroid:sillyandroid:VERSION_NAME" Code organization
- The backbone of the library is here:
me.angrybyte.sillyandroid.SillyAndroid. It contains various utilities to help around with accessing APIs more easily. - Check out the
me.angrybyte.sillyandroid.extras.Coloringclass for various color and drawable utilities. - Android components such as Activity, Fragment, Dialog, View and ViewGroup have been enhanced to include features from the Silly Android internally, you can check that out in the
me.angrybyte.sillyandroid.componentspackage. They are now calledEasyActivity,EasyFragmentand so on. - Even more enhancements are added to the Easy component set using Silly Android's annotations, such as View injections, typed
T findView(int id)methods, automated click and long-click handling, and more. For information about that, see packageme.angrybyte.sillyandroid.parsable.components. - For a coded demo of the fully enhanced Activity class, go to
me.angrybyte.sillyandroid.demo.MainActivity. - Check out the colors, UI sizes and text sizes added in
sillyandroid/src/main/res.
Contributions and how we determine what to include
All interested parties need to create a new Feature request so that everyone involved in active development can discuss the feature or the workaround described. Any pull request not referencing a Feature request will be automatically denied. You need to have actual reasons backed up by real-world facts in order to include stuff in the library - otherwise, we would have a huge library with lots of useless components that would need to be removed with ProGuard (and we don't want to be another AppCompat).
Furthermore, we are trying to test everything that's not trivial and keep the code as clean as humanly possible; thus, any pull requests that fail the CI code quality check or fail to properly pass the tests will also be denied. If pull requests pass every check (and don't worry, it's not impossible to pass), one of the admins could then merge the changes to the release branch - this triggers a CI build with device/emulator tests. If all goes ok, the library is automatically deployed to jCenter and MavenCentral.
Further support
In case of emergency errors, please create an issue. We missed something really useful? Have an idea for a cleaner API? Fork this project and submit a pull request through GitHub. Keep in mind that you need a Feature request first with a finalized discussion (see the Contributions section). Some more help may be found here:
- StackOverflow here
- On my blog