Android Intermediate Topic: Honeycomb Fragments

Hello everyone!

Blake Meike, co-author of two O'Reilly Books "Android Application Development" and "Programming Android" has offered to run some advanced topic tutorial sessions. These will be combined lecture/lab sequences, with detailed presentations followed by hands on practice and instructional work.

This session will cover Android Fragments:

When Android was used nearly exclusively for very small screens, the one-activity/one-screen UI worked very well. Users moved from screen to screen to access different parts of a program's interface, and the Activity class (Android's concept of a task) maintained a back stack enabling quick and intuitive traversal through the strictly tree-structured workflow.

This changes completely, however, when the UI is spread over the surface of a larger tablet screen. Some parts of the screen will remain constant over longer durations than others. Some parts of the screen determine the contents of other parts. A card-stack metaphor simply won't cut it anymore.

With Android 3.0 SDK (API 11), Honeycomb, Android's developers introduced Fragments, a new, complex and powerful tool to encourage great large-screen UIs with consistent feel and behavior. This talk will introduce Fragments, give a thorough example of their use, and describe some of the traps that lurk in their use.

Assuming the publisher delivers them on time, Blake will also be giving away several copies of his newest book, Programming Android. These will be rewarded based on audience participation, though anyone bringing snacks will also be looked favorably upon :)

If you have any questions or comments, please leave them in the comments below! Blake will be checking here regularly to address any preliminary issues, or identify any additional topics people find particularly compelling.

Hope to see everyone there!