Pre-work - ToDoApp

ToDoApp is an android app that allows building a todo list and basic todo items management functionality including adding new items, editing and deleting an existing item.

Submitted by: Mangala Savadi

Time spent: 4 hours spent in total

User Stories

The following functionality is completed:

• [X] User can successfully add and remove items from the todo list
• [X] User can tap a todo item in the list and bring up an edit screen for the todo item and then have any changes to the text reflected in the todo list.
• [X] User can persist todo items and retrieve them properly on app restart

The following optional features are implemented:

• [ ] Persist the todo items into SQLite instead of a text file
• [ ] Improve style of the todo items in the list using a custom adapter
• [ ] Add support for completion due dates for todo items (and display within listview item)
• [ ] Use a DialogFragment instead of new Activity for editing items
• [ ] Add support for selecting the priority of each todo item (and display in listview item)
• [ ] Tweak the style improving the UI / UX, play with colors, images or backgrounds

The following additional features are implemented:

• [ ] List anything else that you can get done to improve the app functionality!

Video Walkthrough

Here's a walkthrough of implemented user stories:

GIF created with LiceCap.

Project Analysis

As part of your pre-work submission, please reflect on the app and answer the following questions below:

Question 1: "What are your reactions to the Android app development platform so far? Compare and contrast Android's approach to layouts and user interfaces in past platforms you've used."

Answer: I find Android app development is very interesting. One of the reasons being it is open source and also it has a very large and active developer community. Compared to other platforms, layout is not easy to design and it is a little confusing. Android's activity life cycle management is similar to other platforms but saving data on configuration change is not intuitive.

Question 2: "Take a moment to reflect on the ArrayAdapter used in your pre-work. How would you describe an adapter in this context and what is its function in Android? Why do you think the adapter is important? Explain the purpose of the convertView in the getView method of the ArrayAdapter."

Answer: Adapter is a design pattern used in Android to bind data to views, here ArrayAdapter is used to bind list of data to ListView. Adapter is used to efficiently communicate changes in data to the view, and the view cna refresh itself with new data.

When the list view needs to show a new row, getView is called to get the view that needs to be shown with appropriate data. ConverView is the old view that was inflated and used to show a different row in listview. It can be reused to show the new rows data and we dont have to inflate another view again.

Notes

Describe any challenges encountered while building the app.

License

Copyright 2017 Mangala Savadi

    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.