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10 Useful Android Libraries for Developers

 July 6  | 0 Comments

Introduction to Android Libraries

While developing Android apps, we do use many third-party Android libraries. Some of them are very popular and often used in every Android project. Different Android libraries have different purposes but all of them are very useful for a developer to build apps easily and it will make life easier for developers.
In this blog, we will discuss some Android libraries that are very popular, widely applicable and can be set up to build apps easily.

1. okHttp

okHttp is a library that is very efficient with HTTP and can be used when the network is in trouble. During this time, it will silently recover the data from the common connections. If you have multiple IP addresses, this library will give you an alternate address if your first connection fails or disconnects.
It supports Android 2.3 or higher versions.
okHttp library allows:
⦁ HTTP/2 support
⦁ Connection pooling
⦁ Shrinks download sizes
⦁ Response caching
The same can be download from this link https://github.com/square/okhttp

2. Volley

Volley is a HTTP library that makes networking for Android apps easier and this library is very fast. Some of the features provided by Volley Library are:
⦁ Automatic Scheduling of network requests
⦁ Support for request prioritization
⦁ Multiple concurrent network connections
⦁ Ease of customization. For example, retry and back-off.
⦁ Debugging and tracing tools.
The same can be download from the link: https://github.com/mcxiaoke/android-volley

3. Google GSON

Gson is a Java library used for serializing and de-serializing different Java objects from and into JSON. You can refer to link given below to know more about Android development using GSON library.
https://acadgild.com/blog/android-app-development-use-gson-to-work-with-json/
We mostly use JSON library because it is lightweight and much simpler than XML.
It can be download from the following link: https://github.com/google/gson

4. Picasso

You can load the image from a URL by using Picasso library and it is very simple and easy. You need to just add ImageView and your work is done. Picasso simplifies the process of loading images. If your application needs to deal with runtime image transformation, you should check for the problem, OutOfMemoryException and this is where Picasso comes into the picture to deal with it.

5. Universal Image Loader

Universal Image Loader is a library which gives asynchronous, out of the box loading and caching of images.
Usage: imageLoader.displayImage(imageUri, imageView);
By using the URL configuration, you will find that everything can be confirmed automatically. You can add them into dependencies in your build.

6. Retrofit

Retrofit library provides a powerful framework for security purpose like authentication & interaction with APIs. This library is used for downloading JSON or XML data from the web. When the data is downloaded, it is parsed into POJO (Plain Old Java Object), which will be defined for us for each resource in the response. You can use Retrofit in dependencies like “compile ‘com.squareup.retrofit2:retrofit:2.1.0’ “.
The same can be download from the following link:
https://github.com/square/retrofit

7. Jitpack.io

JitPack can build any GitHub Project and publish Maven repository into it. It will help you to save time and makes building dependencies easier. This is one of the best ways to publish GitHub project as Maven Dependencies.
This library is developed by the team at Stremetry Ltd.
Link for the same is: http://jitpack.io/

8. ActiveAndroid

 

ActiveAndroid is an ORM (Object Relational Mapping) for Android app development. It is an abstraction for SQLite database on a device without the usage of SQL Statements for connecting database in Android apps.
To save the data into a database using this library:
user.save();
Example for retrieving all users:
SELECT Name,Address,City From Users;
Link to download the same: https://github.com/pardom/ActiveAndroid/downloads

 

9. ActionBarSherlock

This library is designed for using the action bar design pattern across different versions of Android OS with a single API. We can use ActionBarSherlock to provide a single API using getSupportActionBar().
Link to download the same:
https://github.com/JakeWharton/ActionBarSherlock

10. ViewPagerIndicator

 

ViewPageIndicator is compatible with the ViewPager from the Android Support Library and AndroidBarSherlock to improve discoverability of content. When we are using ViewPager widget, it is not always clear to the user whether there are adjacent views that they can navigate to. After implementing this library, you can provide an indicator that there exists additional content which user can click or swipe on it.
Link to download the same:
https://github.com/JakeWharton/ViewPagerIndicator

 

Conclusion

Using Android Libraries helps us to create a better experience for users. Finally, all Android libraries have different usages according to functions. Using Android libraries in Android app building is a great way of adding a functionality to your Android app. This way you can save a lot of time in developing apps. Any design related library can instantly create new ways to interact with your app.
Hope this blog helped you in knowing the top 10 Android libraries.
Keep visiting our site www.acadgild.com for more updates. Click here to Become An Android App Developer in 12 Weeks.

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