Terminology in Android

Android is not tougher if you already know Java, as it resembles most parts of it. We need to understand the bits and pieces of the android related concepts and ways to run them.   

Before Starting into it We need to understand some important Terms in Android Terminology.   

  

Activity: An activity is the entry point for interacting with the user. It represents a single screen with a user interface.  

  

Services: A service is a general-purpose entry point for keeping an app running in the background for all kinds of reasons. It is a component that runs in the background to perform long-running operations or to perform work for remote processes.   

  

Broadcast receivers: A broadcast receiver is a component that enables the system to deliver events to the app outside of a regular user flow, allowing the app to respond to system-wide broadcast announcements. Because broadcast receivers are another well-defined entry into the app, the system can deliver broadcasts even to apps that aren't currently running.    

  

Content providers:A content provider manages a shared set of app data that you can store in the file system, in an SQLite database, on the web, or on any other persistent storage location that your app can access. Through the content provider, other apps can query or modify the data if the content provider allows it. For example, the Android system provides a content provider that manages the user's contact information.  

  

The manifest file: Before the Android system can start an app component, the system must know that the component exists by reading the app's manifest file, AndroidManifest.xml. Your app must declare all its components in this file, which must be at the root of the app project directory.  

  

App resources: An Android app is composed of more than just code—it requires resources that are separate from the source code, such as images, audio files, and anything relating to the visual presentation of the app. For example, you can define animations, menus, styles, colors, and the layout of activity user interfaces with XML files. Using app resources makes it easy to update various characteristics of your app without modifying code. Providing sets of alternative resources enables you to optimize your app for a variety of device configurations, such as different languages and screen sizes  

  

Intents and Intent Filters: An Intent is a messaging object you can use to request an action from another app component. Although intents facilitate communication between components in several ways.

  

Explicit intents specify which application will satisfy the intent, by supplying either the target app's package name or a fully-qualified component class name. You'll typically use an explicit intent to start a component in your own app, because you know the class name of the activity or service you want to start. For example, you might start a new activity within your app in response to a user action, or start a service to download a file in the background.  

  

Implicit intents do not name a specific component, but instead declare a general action to perform, which allows a component from another app to handle it. For example, if you want to show the user a location on a map, you can use an implicit intent to request that another capable app show a specified location on a map.