Category: Tools & Tips

Android Pick/Select Image from Gallery with Intents

Sometimes in your Android application you’ll want the user to choose an image from the gallery that’ll be displayed by the application (and even uploaded to your servers) after the selection is made. In this article we’ll see how to invoke a single interface from which the user is able to select images across all his apps (like Gallery, Photos, ES File Explorer, etc.) and folders (Google Drive, Recent, Downloads, etc.) using Intents.

Continue reading “Android Pick/Select Image from Gallery with Intents”

Android Themes, Styles and Attributes

One thing that bugs me from time to time is the appearance and disappearance of the Action bar or the change in its UI with similar XML code and Java API calls but with different themes. I was somehow managing till now but then decided that it’s probably a good time to understand the concept of themes and styles in android to make sure I know why there’s that frustrating difference just by a small change in the theme name (res/values/styles.xml then used in AndroidManifest.xml) that you sometimes do not even realize while creating new projects as it is set automatically based on the API levels you target.

Continue reading “Android Themes, Styles and Attributes”

Android Debug Bridge (adb) Wireless Debugging Over Wi-Fi

We mostly connect our Android device to our computers with a USB cable for debugging purposes. It is possible to use adb over a wifi connection than a USB to save some wire-related hassles in our lives. The process is super simple, let’s go through it quickly.

Continue reading “Android Debug Bridge (adb) Wireless Debugging Over Wi-Fi”

Android ListView (Scrolling ViewGroup) Hide/Disable Scrollbars

In Android, if you’ve ever wanted to sort of disable the scrollbars of a scrolling ViewGroup like a ListView, GridView, ScrollView, etc. then there are a few tricks to do that. I’ve tried to compile a set of such tricks to disable (or just hide) scrollbars for such scrolling View Groups.

Continue reading “Android ListView (Scrolling ViewGroup) Hide/Disable Scrollbars”

Android Scroll to Top of ScrollView with ListView and Other Child Views (Initial Jump Issue)

In my Android app, I was working in an Activity where I had a ScrollView containing a LinearLayout (could be a RelativeLayout too though) that had a few Views at the top followed by a ListView in the end that was long enough to move out of the bottom edge and add scrollbars to itself. Since I’d set a height to the ListView the ScrollView gained it’s vertical scrollbars.

Continue reading “Android Scroll to Top of ScrollView with ListView and Other Child Views (Initial Jump Issue)”

Android Contain ListView (Without Scrollbars) In a ScrollView With Other Views

When a ListView is put inside a ScrollView with (or without) other views it takes as much space is available in the ScrollView. So let’s say there are three elements like this:

Continue reading “Android Contain ListView (Without Scrollbars) In a ScrollView With Other Views”

Android Push Notifications with Parse.com

Update: Parse is shutting down. So you should start migrating.

If you want to send messages upstream and downstream from your Parse backend to your app and vice-versa then thankfully Parse does allow you to do that. Parse allows you to send unlimited push notifications to 1 million unique recipients (devices). Then they charge $0.05 per 1000 recipients extra. That’s awesome!

Continue reading “Android Push Notifications with Parse.com”