This Template has been DEPRECATED

Use AndroidAppTemplate instead.

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TA Android Template

This is the Tailored Apps Android app template which can be used for new projects. A small example app is available at the example branch.

The basic app structure is taken from the Countries Example app, which is Apache 2.0 licensed.

Technologies used

• Kotlin
• Dagger 2 for dependency injection
• Retrofit/OkHttp/Gson for networking
• Realm for local data storage
• MVVM as architectural pattern

App structure

• Dagger components, modules, scopes and qualifiers for dependency injection are located in the injection package.
• Model classes are located in the data.model package.
• Network related classes and interfaces (e.g. Retrofit services) are located in the data.remote package.
• Local storage related classes (e.g. repositories) are located in the data.local package.
• UI related classes (Activities, Fragments, Views, ...) are located in the ui package. For each aspect of an app create a new subpackage. Use the interfaces and abstract classes from the base subpackage.
• Util classes are located in the util package.

Dev hints

• Your bindings must have a variable named vm, with type of your ViewModel class. Do not put logic in your layouts, instead create a property in your view model.
• Your view classes (Activities, Fragments, ViewHolders) must implement MvvmView (usually, a new subinterface of MvvmView, specifying the callbacks for the specific view).
• Your ViewModel class should extend BaseStateViewModel<MvvmView, YourInnerStateClass> if you have some state (e.g. when you have a form with user inputs) or BaseViewModel<MvvmView> if you don't have any state.
  • The base classes provide basic view attach/detach methods.
  • When you extended BaseStateViewModel, the State should be contained in a static inner class in the view model. This class must also be available for injection via an @Inject annotated constructor. Also, the class must be annotated with @Parcel, because Parceler is used for automatic saving/restoring of the state in the base class. This state class can also extend BaseObservable, for notifying the binding of changes. However, you can should instead use ObservableFields, ObservableBoolean, … to simplify bindings. Then you have to provide appropriate @ParcelConverter annotations to the fields – implementations of the most common types are available in the util package.
  • You can extend the BaseValidator class to validate the state.
• Base classes for views
  • These classes provide a binding and viewModel field. The viewModel gets injected, the binding has to be set manually.
  • Detaching of the view model is handled by the base classes.
  • Don't forget to create a inject() method in the Dagger component for each Activity/Fragment/ViewHolder.
  • Activities should extend BaseActivity<Binding, View, ViewModel>. You should use setAndBindContentView(savedInstanceState, layoutResId), which sets the content view, creates the binding and attaches the view.
  • Fragments should extend BaseFragment<Binding, View, ViewModel>. You should use setAndBindContentView(inflater, container, savedInstanceState, layoutResId), which sets the content view, creates the binding and attaches the view.
  • ViewHolders should extend BaseActivity/FragmentViewHolder<Binding, View, ViewModel>. You should use bindContentView(view), which creates the binding and attaches the view.
• The template_version property in .template_plugin_config.json is increased each time classes under the .ui.base package change.

Testing

• Write unit tests for each view model. You can use Mockito/PowerMock to mock objects and verify correct behaviour. Add the RxSchedulersOverrideRule for preventing errors when using RxJava.
• Write UI tests for common actions in your app. Use JUnit 4 Tests with Espresso. Some helper methods are available in EspressoUtils.

Recommended Reading

• MVVM architecture with the data binding library
• Using Retrofit with Realm and Parceler

License

Copyright 2017 Tailored Media GmbH

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

  http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.