Nowadays, Android is not just on tens of thousands of different phones and tablets. It’s on your wrist, in your living room, in your car, and as soon we start assigning IP addresses to inanimate objects, it is going to be pretty much everywhere around us. A lot of ground for even an experienced Android developer to cover!

Also there are over one million apps on Google Play, not counting Amazon AppStore or markets we are not generally interested in.

So, how can an independent developer create a successful app in this huge market with big players? I have no idea, I haven’t made a successful app! But, I have made a cute one, and I’d like to share my story with you.

Few Android Studio Tips, Tricks & Resources you should be familiar with, as an Android Developer

The reason of this article, is to list helpful tips, tricks, shortcuts and resources for Android Studio that will improve your overall efficiency and performance.

1.Material Colors theme for Android Logcat

To change Android Studio Logcat you need to go to:Preferences (Settings on Windows / Linux machines) → Editor → Colors & Fonts → Android Logcat and change the foreground color for every type of log.

2. Prevent Android Studio Logcat from clearing the log for the current application when it crashes. 

To do that you need to go to theAndroid Monitorpanel and chooseEdit filter configurationon the right side dropdown.

3. Apply a proper code style to your IDE (IntelliJ / Android Studio). 

Go toPreferences → Code Style → Javaand in aSchemedropdown you can choose your code style (or set up a new one).

2 styles which are especially worth to mention:

Square Java Code Styles with Android

Google Java Code Style.

4. Use split screen for increasing efficiency.

To turn this feature on, you need to right mouse click on the tab of your main screen and choose Split Vertically / Horizontally feature.

But to be as efficient as possible we need to set up a custom keyboard’s shortcut. To do that go to Preferences → Keymap and search for Split Vertically. Then open a context menu and click Add Keyboard Shortcut. 

It is shown on a gif below. You can define the shortcut for a horizontal split view as well.

5. Distraction Free Mode. 

You can enable it by going to: View → Enter Distraction Free Mode

6. Use Live Templates

you can use many already defined templates, like for Toasts or if conditions.

you can use your own custom templates. Here is a great reference article by Reto Meier. You can also refer to the IntelliJ IDEA documentation.

Learn XML And Java

Extensible markup language (XML) is a markup language that’s the foundation for the Android user interface (UI) and elements. Java is the back-end coding language of the Android platform, and it’s used with binding functionality with your XML layouts. Let’s take a look at a small example.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <layout xmlns:android=http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"> <data> <variable name="user" type="com.example.User"/> </data> <LinearLayout android:orientation="vertical" android:layout_width="match_parent" android:layout_height="match_parent"> <TextView android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:text="@{user.firstName}"/> <TextView android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:text="@{user.lastName}"/> </LinearLayout> </layout>

This small layout has one data object defined as “User.” For developers used to binding elements in even web design, this should be intuitive for you. The data element is defined in Java, and then the object data is bound to the front-end layout element. In this example, we have a first and last name. The following Java code is an example of a User class used for the binding.

public class User { public final String firstName; public final String lastName; public User (String firstName, String lastName){ this.firstName = firstName; this.lastName = lastName; } }

Notice that the constructor takes a first and last name variable and binds the data to the public class properties. When the screen opens on the device, this data is then bound to the front-end elements.

Before you get started in Android Application development, you should be expert in both of these technologies. Understanding the fundamentals of XML formats is relatively easy, but Java is an object-oriented language and object-oriented programming (OOP) can be challenging if you’re not familiar with the concept. A newer language and framework, Kotlin, has been introduced to help advance Android app development. It can also be used with legacy Java apps as Kotlin co-operates with Java code.

The best way to learn Java is to dive into someone else’s code. GitHub is filled with open-source projects that help you understand Java and OOP concepts. The better your OOP skills are, the easier it will be to create a better coded, less buggy Android app.

Understand Memory Limitations

Mobile devices don’t have the high memory limitations that desktops have. In mobile programming, you must learn to code with smaller memory limitations in mind. If you carelessly use memory on an Android device, you run the risk of your app crashing due to “out of memory” errors.

To work around this, use services on the device sparingly and release memory resources when your app is hidden. You can release memory resources by overriding the onTrimMemory event although you should know that this isn’t a magic solution that allows you to ignore other performance optimization throughout your code. The following is a small sample of pseudocode that shows you how to override the event.

@Override public void onTrimMemory(int level) { if (level >= TRIM_MEMORY_MODERATE) {

//release resources here } }

Google also recommends that you avoid or at least reduce the use of bitmaps to lower the memory use when your app is running on the device. 

Don’t Use The Emulator For Real-World Testing

The Emulator in Android Studio is good for development and even debugging, but it doesn’t fully simulate a working Android device. You can consider basic environment features with the Emulator, but when it comes to testing, you should always use actual devices.

Of course, this is a huge investment for an Android developer, but it will make the entire development and testing life cycle much more efficient. It also ensures that you’re able to test your applications in various conditions as the user changes settings on the actual device. You can, however, use automated cloud solutions such as Amazon’s Testing platform.

Testing should never be taken lightly. It should be a major part when you design and deploy apps for your clients. Fewer bugs means happier users, and it can also mean a more successful app in Google Play. This doesn’t mean that you need to buy every device on the market to test your app on, but you should account for some of the more popular ones and the most common screen sizes.

Kind words are worth much and cost little. This creates opportunity: when you can’t out-spend the competition, the solution is to out-support them.

Here are 14 tips from the support documentation of world leaders in providing best customer service. I hope these will help you in improving your customer service.

1. Practice sympathy, Patience, and Consistency: Some of your customers will be full of queries, some just chatty, and others plain mad. You must be ready to handle all of them and provide the same level of service every time.
2. Good customer Service may be a Continuous Learning process: Every customer is unique and each support situation is totally different. In order to handle surprises, sense a customer’s mood, address new challenges consequently, you've got to be willing to stay learning. Strive to have a deep understanding of your customer’s challenges and still search for better ways to deal with them.
3. Train customer service agent for understanding product detail: The training and development program must cover all aspects of how to deal with issues, talk to customers, and resolve problems.  Apart from that, your team should believe in and understand your product before they are sent out with the task of pacifying a customer. If your team does not know the product or the service well enough, then they will not have enough knowledge to tackle an issue.
4. Solving a problem as soon as possible: When customers complain, your team must acknowledge the issue quickly and try to resolve it timely.
5. Use technology to assist them: Customer support can only be performed accurately if we mix the technology with the humanistic approach.
6. Add live chat to your website: Live chat can help your customer support team to interact with the customer in depth so that the customer can get resolved his queries easily.
7. Use customer service templates: It’s important to keep your standards high and your response times low. Don’t waste keyboard strokes for every basic and common question. Build professional templates so you can respond to customer with ease and professionalism.
8. Maintain a positive attitude: It is very important that your team keep a positive and bright attitude when managing your customers. If you maintain an accommodating and inviting attitude, then you will easily avoid conflicts.
9. Apologize for any inconvenience: Whatever the issue, and whatever role your company played in the issue, you need to apologize to the customer. If the consumer’s credit card did not work, tell them you’re sorry for their inconvenience or that it happened.
10. Listen to your customer: One of the simplest ways in which to serve your customer is by listening to them from the beginning. Most customers contact or reach bent on your support team to when they want to convey a message or a problem. Therefore, the first and most important thing you can do is to hear them out completely.
11. Never say “I don’t know”: When your team represents your business, they need to speak as if the business itself is speaking. So, once an executive says “no”, Customer instantly diminishes the value of your business. “No” isn't an answer. If a customer is facing a difficulty, then your team should try and resolve it, one way or another.
12. Admit your mistakes: If you mess up, admit it, even if you discover your mistakes before your customers do. Admitting you messed up builds trust and restores your customer’s confidence in your service. It also allows you to control the situation, re-focus the customer’s attention, and fix the problem.
13. Follow up after a problem is solved: Follow up with your customers to ensure their issues were resolved properly and that they were satisfied with the service. Give them a call, send them an email etc.
14. Always close conversations correctly: Every conversation you close with a customer should end with you saying “Is there anything else I can do for you today? I’m happy to help!”

Everyone should be feeling the customer’s pain points. When your whole company is encouraged to be involved in customer service, knowledge of problems, bugs, and features becomes illuminated for the entire team. There’s no faster way to make improvements that drive your business forward.

Whenever there is a discussion regarding storing information on a 3rd party's database system, questions on security follow. Entrusting another company to stage your valuable information safe is a massive step. Once that information is in your control, you are aware of the protection measures in place to keep it safe.

Google assures users that it keeps all information safe and personal unless the user chooses to share files with others. As a part of its security measures, Google does not discuss its approach to security very well. Since users should have a Google account to access Google Docs, and since all accounts need passwords, we all know that at least one stage in Google's security plan depends on password protection.

Google Docs is the free data processing software that comes with a Google account. It’s designed to be easy to use. It can be used to create documents with rich formatting, images, and tables and features like footnotes, headers and footers, and page numbering. You can create your documents more engaging with pictures, drawing objects, and tables in Google docs.

Why Google Docs is the best way to create blog

If you're a professional blogger, all that you write must obviously be a result of your thorough research and will basically involve hard work. Whether it's Blogspot or WordPress, text editors of each of those blogging platforms are up to notch. Each text editors not only automatically save the post you are writing but also provide sufficient resources for content data formatting that helps you present well your content. Google Docs offers you the easiest and simplest way to format your content, provide blog templates, share it with collaborators, and even upload immediately to whichever CMS you use.

Integrate google keeps with google docs

Google Keep has officially been labelled as a part of the Google Suite of tools. It’s currently very easy to keep notes for a document you're working on. Along with the Explore feature, Google Docs has become a seriously impressive tool for business, education, and just about the other purpose that requires note keeping as you write. Google docs provide a tool to integrate google keep notes into document.

Migrate google docs to Microsoft word

Google Docs are in a web format, we can’t simply import them into Word! To open Google Docs in Microsoft Word, we need to need to convert Google Docs to Word’s DOCX format, then transfer it afterward. You can easily perform this conversion from Google Docs.

Google Docs has been around for a little while now. Businesses are adopting the tool as the way to extend efficiency and usability of information. I have yet to work for a business that actively uses Google Docs on a day to day, however I will definitely see the benefits of google docs.

1. Accessibility: With Google Docs, staff can access the information 24/7 where they have an internet connection. This kind of flexibility is very useful, particularly for workers who are typically travelling and working from mobile devices.
2. Version Control: Collaboration have a lot of importance within the workplace. Being able to not only access information from anyplace, but to be able to control the version of any document your staff are working on is a huge asset to your company. Google Docs permits you to add and take away collaborators. You can control exactly who can make changes to the document. In addition, multiple users can access and edit the same document at the same time.
3. Easy to Learn: Google Docs is very straightforward and easy to pick up. If you have any experience with a word processor or programs such as Word, Excel, etc.
4. Import/Export Flexibility: Google Docs imports and exports most file types, giving you the flexibility, you need when sending and receiving files from colleagues.

Hire Google Docs experts on Toogit.