Introduction

Welcome back! We’re excited that you want to move onto the next step of learning Android.

By the end of this course, you’ll be able to make an Android app with buttons and text fields that a user can interact with. Together we’ll make the Just Java app, which allows a user to fill out a form to order coffee.

We picked this project because nearly every popular app involves accepting some type of user input and doing something with that data. For example, in a chat app, you type in a message and it gets sent to a friend. Hence, knowing how to accept user input is a critical milestone on the way to becoming an experienced app developer.

To build the Just Java app, we’ll introduce you to the basic fundamentals of Java and computer science, as well as how to debug and fix errors in the code. We’ll explore more of what the Android platform offers, by building more complex user interfaces, adding support for another language, and taking advantage of other apps on the device. We have a vocabulary glossary that accompanies this course, and if you need help, you can ask questions on the class discussion forum.

If you’re just joining us for the first time, note that the content presented here used to be part of a larger course (called Android for Beginners), which got broken up into 2 courses. So this course will contain Lesson 2, Practice Set 2, and Lesson 3. If you aren’t sure how to create user interface layouts in Android with XML, we recommend that you first take the Android Basics: User Interface course and then return here. You should also have Android Studio already on your computer (if not, check out these installation instructions).

As a reminder, this course is intended for people with little to no programming experience. Course topics include variables, data types, methods, classes, and object-oriented programming. If you’re an experienced developer already, consider checking out the Developing Android Apps course.

We’ll be your instructors guiding you through the course, so let’s get started!