A Hybrid Android Frontend Development Approach with Traditional Nesting Layouts and Constraint Layout

Year 2022, Volume: 6 Issue: 2, 245 - 254, 30.12.2022

Yusuf Özçevik

https://doi.org/10.46460/ijiea.1116222

Abstract

Android operating system is a mobile platform that draws attention with the variety of devices it supports and its widespread use. On the other hand, devices with different sizes and screen resolutions require application developers to consider multi-screen support. For this, different layout objects in the Android Software Development Kit (Android SDK) are used by dividing them into parts in certain proportions. While using traditional nested layouts in old Android SDK versions; it is recommended to use constraint layout in recent the versions. On the other hand, converting structures in existing projects to entirely constraint layouts creates both a maintenance cost for the project lifecycle and a learning cost for the developers. Accordingly, this study proposes a hybrid multi-screen support approach using traditional nested layouts and the constraint layout together. The performance of the proposed approach is compared with the screen loading times of the traditional method and the contemporary method. As a result, it is observed that there is no significant performance difference, especially on new generation devices with up-to-date hardware; whereas it is revealed that devices with old generation hardware experience performance problems when the number of nested layouts used increases. Thus, appropriate use cases for the proposed hybrid approach are discussed.

Keywords

Android programming, Multi-screen support, Traditional nested layouts, Constraint layout

Geleneksel İç İçe Yerleşimler ve Kısıt Yerleşimi İçeren Melez Android Ön Yüz Geliştirme Yaklaşımı

Abstract

Android işletim sistemi, desteklediği cihaz çeşitliliği ve yaygın kullanım oranı ile dikkat çeken bir mobil platformdur. Öte yandan, farklı boyut ve ekran çözünürlüğüne sahip cihazlar, uygulama geliştiricilerin çoklu ekran desteğini dikkate almalarını gerekli kılar. Bunun için, Android Yazılım Geliştirme Kiti (Android YGK) içerisinde bulunan farklı ön yüz nesneleri belirli oranlarda parçalara bölünerek kullanılmaktadır. Eski Android YGK sürümlerinde geleneksel iç içe yerleşimler kullanılırken; güncel sürümlerde ise kısıt yerleşimi kullanımı tavsiye edilmektedir. Öte yandan, mevcut projelerdeki yapıların tamamen kısıt yerleşimi içeren ön yüzlere dönüştürülmesi, hem proje yaşam döngüsü için bakım maliyeti hem de geliştiriciler için öğrenme maliyeti oluşturmaktadır. Buna göre, bu çalışmada, geleneksel iç içe yerleşimler ile kısıt yerleşiminin kullanıldığı melez bir çoklu ekran desteği yaklaşımı önerilmektedir. Önerilen yaklaşımın performansı, geleneksel yöntemin ve güncel yöntemin ekran yükleme süreleri ile kıyaslanmaktadır. Sonuç olarak, özellikle güncel donanıma sahip yeni nesil cihazlarda kayda değer bir performans farklılığı yaşanmadığı görülürken; kullanılan iç içe yerleşimlerin sayısı arttıkça, eski nesil donanıma sahip cihazlarda performans sorunları yaşandığı ortaya konmaktadır. Böylece, önerilen melez yaklaşım için uygun kullanım durumları tartışılmaktadır.

Keywords

Android programlama, Çoklu ekran desteği, Geleneksel iç içe yerleşimler, Kısıt yerleşimi

References

• Ensmenger, N. (2018). The environmental history of computing. Technology and culture, 59(4), S7-S33.
• DeFranco, J. F. (2022). From Calculations to Computations: A Look Back at the First Computer. Computer, 55(1), 82-87.
• Teshome, A. K., Kibret, B., & Lai, D. T. (2018). A review of implant communication technology in WBAN: Progress and challenges. IEEE reviews in biomedical engineering, 12, 88-99.
• Comer, D. E. (2018). The Internet book: everything you need to know about computer networking and how the Internet works. Chapman and Hall/CRC.
• Sharma, T. N., Beniwal, M. K., & Sharma, A. (2013). Comparative study of different mobile operating systems. International Journal of Advancements in Research & Technology, 2(3), 1-5.
• Adekotujo, A., Odumabo, A., Adedokun, A., & Aiyeniko, O. (2020). A Comparative Study of Operating Systems: Case of Windows, UNIX, Linux, Mac, Android and iOS. International Journal of Computer Applications, 176, 16-23.
• Sarkar, A., Goyal, A., Hicks, D., Sarkar, D., & Hazra, S. (2019). Android application development: a brief overview of android platforms and evolution of security systems. In 2019 Third International conference on I-SMAC (IoT in Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud)(I-SMAC) (pp. 73-79). IEEE.
• Akkara, J. D., & Kuriakose, A. (2018). Innovative smartphone apps for ophthalmologists. Kerala Journal of Ophthalmology, 30(2), 138.
• Venkataraman, S., & Rajkumar, J. (2019). Development of Cell phone-Android applications for the execution of Teacher Education Curriculum. Think India Journal, 22(4), 9284-9289.
• Sweidan, S. Z., & Darabkh, K. A. (2018). VREG: A virtual reality educational game with arabic content using android smart phone. Journal of Software Engineering and Applications, 11(10), 500-520.
• Dieter, M., & Tkacz, N. (2020). The patterning of finance/security: A designerly walkthrough of challenger banking apps. Computational Culture, (7).
• Matic, A., & Gomez-Marin, A. (2019). A customizable tablet app for hand movement research outside the lab. Journal of Neuroscience Methods, 328, 108398.
• Papadakis, S., Kalogiannakis, M., & Zaranis, N. (2018). Educational apps from the Android Google Play for Greek preschoolers: A systematic review. Computers & Education, 116, 139-160.
• Maher, C. T., Oja, E., Marshall, A., Cunningham, M., Townsend, L., Worley-Hood, G., ... & Larson, A. J. (2019). Real-time monitoring with a tablet app improves implementation of treatments to enhance forest structural diversity. Journal of Forestry, 117(3), 280-292.
• Aafer, Y., You, W., Sun, Y., Shi, Y., Zhang, X., & Yin, H. (2021). Android {SmartTVs} Vulnerability Discovery via {Log-Guided} Fuzzing. In 30th USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 21) (pp. 2759-2776).
• Skorupska, K., Núñez, M., Kopec, W., & Nielek, R. (2018). Older adults and crowdsourcing: Android tv app for evaluating tedx subtitle quality. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 2(CSCW), 1-23.
• Jisha, R. C., Mathews, M. P., Kini, S. P., Kumar, V., Harisankar, U. V., & Shilpa, M. (2018). An android application for school bus tracking and student monitoring system. In 2018 IEEE International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Computing Research (ICCIC) (pp. 1-4). IEEE.
• Pajic, N., & Bjelica, M. (2018). Integrating Android to Next Generation Vehicles. In 2018 Zooming Innovation in Consumer Technologies Conference (ZINC) (pp. 152-155). IEEE.
• Munasinghe, T., Patton, E. W., & Seneviratne, O. (2019). Iot application development using mit app inventor to collect and analyze sensor data. In 2019 IEEE International Conference on Big Data (Big Data) (pp. 6157-6159). IEEE.
• Özçevik, Y. (2022). Human robot interaction as a service for combatting COVID-19: an experimental case study. Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Humanized Computing, 1-10.
• Septian, I., & Alianto, R. S. (2018). Comparison analysis of android gui testing frameworks by using an experimental study. Procedia Computer Science, 135, 736-748.
• Biørn-Hansen, A., Rieger, C., Grønli, T. M., Majchrzak, T. A., & Ghinea, G. (2020). An empirical investigation of performance overhead in cross-platform mobile development frameworks. Empirical Software Engineering, 25(4), 2997-3040.
• Yang, B., Xing, Z., Xia, X., Chen, C., Ye, D., & Li, S. (2021). UIS-Hunter: Detecting UI Design Smells in Android Apps. In 2021 IEEE/ACM 43rd International Conference on Software Engineering: Companion Proceedings (ICSE-Companion). IEEE, 89ś92.
• Ismail, I. (2021). New iOS 15 to offer better user experience and on-device intelligence. New Straits Times.
• Guan, J., Mao, B., & Jiang, X. (2020). The feature selection based on AndroidManifest. xml. In Journal of Physics: Conference Series (Vol. 1634, No. 1, p. 012027). IOP Publishing.
• Chen, S., Fan, L., Chen, C., Su, T., Li, W., Liu, Y., & Xu, L. (2019). Storydroid: Automated generation of storyboard for Android apps. In 2019 IEEE/ACM 41st International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) (pp. 596-607). IEEE.
• Mondal, S. K., Pei, Y., Dai, H. N., Kabir, H. D., & Sahoo, J. P. (2020). Boosting ui rendering in android applications. In 2020 IEEE 20th International Conference on Software Quality, Reliability and Security Companion (QRS-C) (pp. 285-286). IEEE.
• Hunt, J. (2021). Android Layouts and Events. In Beginner's Guide to Kotlin Programming (pp. 485-501). Springer, Cham.
• Bielik, P., Fischer, M., & Vechev, M. (2018). Robust relational layout synthesis from examples for Android. Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages, 2(OOPSLA), 1-29.