[Android Bootcamp] Project 1 - Instagram Reader ready for review

[ekilah]

/cc @codepath @codepathreview

[ekilah]

Oh and be sure to check out https://github.com/ekilah/codepathinstagram/blob/video_firstattempt/demo.gif (this code isn't in master because I might keep working on it... we'll see. It's pretty good.) This demo gif is also on master's readme just for clarity

[nesquena]

Great thanks for the update, we'll be reviewing this in more detail soon.

[codepathreview]

:+1: Excellent work, good job getting all optional stories done as well as adding your own. A few notes after checking out the code:

• Good layout, proper view naming, usage of sp/dp, margin and relative placement rules
• Excellent job on a polished UI
• Consider using strings.xml for all your text resources
• Nice to see you used the ActionBarPullToRefresh for easy stream refreshes
• Consider better organizing your source files
• Good job using the ViewHolder pattern to improve performance of photos ListView.
• Also, externalize your FeedItemAdapter into its own file for better readability/organization of code.
• Consider including a check to see if internet is available to detect any network failures. Show an appropriate message in case of failure.
• Consider overriding onFailure method in JsonHttpResponseHandler to handle error messages appropriately.

One of the most important part of these projects is that you add additional features and tweak the UI / UX because that will provide many more learning opportunities. I would encourage you to complete the projects each week with required stories early and then spend time adding your own UI elements and experimenting with optional extensions that will improve the user experience.

We have provided a detailed Project 1 Feedback Guide here which covers the most common points we see for this project. Read through the feedback guide point-by-point to determine other ways you could improve your submission. You should consider going back and implementing applicable feedback as well. Keep in mind that one of the most important parts of Android development is learning the correct patterns and conventions.

Hopefully this first project has given you a better sense of working with RelativeLayout which is a very flexible layout system, probably one of the most powerful responsive-first layout systems available across web and mobile platforms. This assignment also gave us our first introduction to networking, working with APIs and loading remote images. The next assignment will introduce new concept such as accepting user input and navigating between activities but will also reinforce important concepts such as networking, using APIs, handling remote images.

If you have any particular questions about the assignment in general or on any of the feedback, feel free to reply here or or email us support@codepath.com.

P.S. Good to see you properly added the readme with features and screenshots to your project as described in the submitting assignments guide!

[ekilah]

Thanks for the review. Some good feedback to reflect with.

A few questions/comments:

• Consider using strings.xml for all your text resources
  • I did, for the strings that would ever need localization... unless I missed one? The API keys and HTML formatting obviously don't need to be.
• Consider job using the ViewHolder pattern to improve performance of photos ListView. _(sic)_
  • I did? Confused by the grammar here, but I definitely used the pattern...
  • One place I couldn't use it easily was for the comments, since there were a variable number of them on each FeedItem. I struggled to find the right solution to this part. Thoughts?
• Also, externalize your FeedItemAdapter into its own class
  • I guess you mean it's own file, because it's already a class. Not really sure why I'd want this adapter in a different place, though, since it's only relevant to FeedItems.

Seems like some of these were added as copy/paste error, but just checking.

[codepathreview]

• Hint text for textviews like "tvFeedItemTimestamp" and "tvLikesCount"can be externalized as when you use localization, these hints might change accordingly.
• My bad, that was a typo, should read "good job". updated.
• Yes, I meant own file. Generally better to have the code organized into correct packages. You will see it in future assignments as the same adapter might be used in multiple places.

Excellent job overall though :+1: