Advantages of Android Platform & its Enhanced UI

Android is a software comb for mobile devices which consists of an operating system for the device, middleware for the applications and software in the device and other key applications for the mobile devices.

Advanced User Interface by Android App Developers
Android app developer and Android app programmers use the ‘View’ and ‘ViewGroup’ objects to build the User Interface of an application. The numerous Views and ViewGroups come under the View Class.

The basic building blocks of a user interface expression in an Android application are the View Objects. Widgets are nothing but a View class which acts as a base for subclasses which provide fully developed User Interface tools like text fields and buttons.

The ViewGroup class also acts as a base for the “layouts” subclass which provides various layouts for the User Interface so that the Android App Programmer can use such as layered, tabular, linear and relative.

Hierarchy of View
The hierarchy of View and ViewGroup nodes in an Android platform is utilized to define an Activity’s User Interface. The simplicity or the complexity of the following Hierarchy tree can be defined by the Android app developer using Android’s predefined widgets and layouts or with the custom views defined by the Android app programmer.

The setContentView() method can be called and passed by Android app developers as a root to the node object to obtain this Hierarchy tree in the screen rendering. Processes such as invalidation, measuring and drawing the tree are done by the Android system, designed by the Android app programmers, once it receives the reference. After this the root node requests its child nodes to draw themselves which makes it possible for each child node to act as root node for various other nodes as they can draw themselves. Here the involvement of the Android app developer is very less. Though the child node has the ability to draw itself, the decision about the location and the size of the child nodes is possessed by the parent node alone and to even draw itself the child node has to request this information from the parent node.

Discussing Widgets
For interaction between the Android app developers, the Android platform and the user the widget which is a View Object can be used as an interface. Android app developers can use the widgets provided by Android such as buttons, textboxes and checkboxes which are fully implemented to developer user interface in an efficient and a rapid way.

Android also provides some widgets which are more complex and evolved. These may even be user defined widgets which were then contributed to the Android community by individual Android app developer or Android app programmer. These complex widgets include date picker, clock, zoom tools, start watch etc. But no Android app programmer is confined to the widgets provided by the Android platform alone. If Android app developers want to do something on their own and develop customizable actionable object then they can develop those widgets individually and use them in their projects.