I have been writing about Android for about a year and a half now. There are over twenty tutorials and articles on a variety of topics. I refer back to my own posts often, to help me on whatever my current project happens to be. Lately, I am having trouble finding things here, and I feel the need for a little organization. Search for this blog works well, as does the Tags section in the right-hand column. However, sometimes I prefer to find things using a hierarchy of topics. So that’s what this note is.
Notes, grouped by category:
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Most of the articles listed below are tutorials that include the full Android source code.
Drag and Drop
Moving Views in Android – Part 1
I wrote this as I started trying to understand how to use the touch interface to move objects around on the screen. It turns out that what I did was more about getting images to move than getting views to move.
Moving Views in Android – Part 2: Drag and Drop
I studied the Android Launcher code to see how they supported dragging and dropping views. I then built an example based on that code. Views really move.
Moving Views in Android – Part 3: Drop Zones
I extended Part 2 a bit to illustrate the Launcher’s DropTarget interface. I called them “Drop Zones”. They represent areas on the screen where dragged views can be dropped. The example also shows how to add movable views dynamically.
Drag-Drop for an Android GridView
I built a demo that allows you to add images dynamically to the screen and then drag them onto a GridView. You can then move the images around in the GridView or move them to the trash.
Drag-Drop for Android GridView (V4) 
- An updated version of the GridView example. This one shows drag-drop for a GridView, using the latest drag-drop handling in Android V4.
User Interface / Dashboard
How To Build A Dashboard User Interface
This note describes a small demo app that illustrates the Dashboard user interface pattern. The main screen has a title bar and six buttons to take you to the different sections of the app.
Examples of the Dashboard Pattern – links to examples of Android dashboard user interfaces.
Presentation on the Dashboard User Interface – a presentation I did for Tridroid, a meetup group in the Triangle area of North Carolina.
Adapting My Dashboard UI To Tablets The demo builds on “How To Build A Dashboard User Interface”. The app shows one way to adapt an Android app for tablets. (Note: This article is obsolete. See next paragraph.)
My Dashboard User Interface on Android Tablets
This tutorial shows how to have a dashboard user interface that works on both phones and tablets. It extends the user interface presented in “How To Build A Dashboard User Interface”.
Android Fragments Example - a simple example for Fragments that is also backward compatible to Android API level 10.
Horizontal Scrolling Pages of Images
This one makes use of fragments to break up a gallery of images into separate pages. Pages of images scroll left and right, or you can jump to the start or the end of the images by touching the “First” and “Last” buttons.
Android Images With Clickable Areas - This tutorial explains how to have multiple areas within an image that you can touch/click. These hotspots within the image are a bit like image maps in Html.
Three Variations for Image Square Grids - This note describes different ways to have square images on a square grid.
Android Background Tasks
Long Computations in the Main Android Thread
Five steps for moving expensive computations out of the user interface thread.
Using Android AsyncTask for Background Tasks
My previous note explained one way to take an expensive operation and move it to a background task. Since writing that, I have learned about the AsyncTask class. It is much easier way to do the same thing.
One Way to Cancel an AsyncTask - a note about stopping a task that was started for a long-running background task.
Splash Screens
Good Articles About Android Splash Screens – references I used to learn about splash screens.
Splash Screen Demo App – a simple demo app for a splash screen
Splash Screen Demo With Sound – a splash screen with a bit of sound.
Activities
My Introduction to Android Activities – a tutorial about Android activities and the activity lifecycle.
Drawing
How to save jpeg files – a demo app from back in November, 2010. I was learning how to turn a view into a jpeg file and save it on the device.
Android/Java Performance Tuning
My Guide to Performance Tuning for Android and Java – performance tuning suggestions, covering both analysis of cpu time and object allocation.
Notes on Performance Tuning of Java – describes the simple profiling tool built in to the Java runtime environment: HPROF.
Android Environment
Viewing Android Source Code in Eclipse – explains how to view Android platform source while working in Eclipse.
How to Export and Import Android Virtual Devices – explains how to move Android virtual device (AVD) files from an Android Emulator on one machine to another machine.
What to do when your Android Emulator will not start from Eclipse
My Android Game App
Gomoku League available in the Android Market – the announcement about the release of my first game app.
Gomoku League Presentation at Tridroid – a presentation to the Tridroid Android users’ group. It describes the game of Gomoku, the idea for a league app, how I built the app, and some of the things I learned about Android and the Android market.
Amazon App Store announcement for Gomoku League - the Gomoku League app is available in the Amazon App Store.
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