Project Setup for a Steemit Android App

Hello Community,

this is a follow up blog post regarding -> https://steemit.com/android/@razem-io/building-an-android-app-for-steemit

Some of you might be interested in the process I make others might want to know on how to build a simple android App. That's why I will briefly document what I am doing. If questions remain fell free to comment. I will answer as soon as possible.

In this post I will describe the process of setting up the App skeleton and creating a repository at github for the App.

First of all we will need an IDE to get started. I will use Android Studio as an IDE which is based on Intellij's IDEA. Once downloaded, installed and opened, let's start with a new project.
I am not sure about the final application name (suggestions are welcome) so I will just name it Steemit App for now. I will set the minimum API level to 15 which stands for IceCreamSandwich version 4.0.3. It should be compatible with more then 97% of all Android devices out there. Finally I will select the Empty Activity template as a skeleton for the App. Perfect! Our project skeleton is almost done.

To get things a little emotional I would like to display the steem logo for the initial version. Also it makes a much better screenshot. I found a good one at steem.io!

I will save the image under app\src\main\res\drawable\steem_logo.png and add the image to the application using an ImageView. Now the acitvity_main.xml looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:paddingBottom="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
    android:paddingLeft="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
    android:paddingRight="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
    android:paddingTop="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
    tools:context="io.razem.steemitapp.MainActivity">

    <ImageView
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:src="@drawable/steem_logo"/>
</RelativeLayout>

That's it for the initial App skeleton. We have a nice looking dummy App which displays the steem logo.

To backup our current work and let other developers participate we will create a repository at Github . I will distribute the App under the MIT License. This will allow anybody to use it without to many restrictions.

From now on anybody will be able to see the current status of the project at github.

-> https://github.com/razem-io/Steemit-App <-

This is what it looks like. It isn't much but it's a start.

Tomorrow (CEST) I will setup an automated build so that there will always be a current version for you guys to download and test.