This post is sponsored by Practical Jetpack Compose. The ability to Preview Jetpack Compose composables within Android Studio is possibly one of my favorite things about this new way of building apps. Previews allow us to build, style and polish our composables without needing to run our app. The annotation offers a range of ways… Continue reading
Exploring Jetpack Compose: Card
This post is sponsored by Practical Jetpack Compose. The Card composable is a surface that can be used to present content and actions focused on a single topic. When it comes to displaying a Card, there is a single composable function that can be used to do so. Here we can see that there are… Continue reading
Server Driven UI, Part 1: The Concept
I’ve recently been having some conversations with developers from the community about GraphQL and how it is being used in their work, with the aim to influence some of the changes we are making in our stack at Buffer. During one of these chats with Maria Neumayer, there was some experience shared of designing GraphQL… Continue reading
Exploring Jetpack Compose: Column
This post is sponsored by Practical Jetpack Compose. The Column Composable provides us with the functionality of displaying a collection of composables in a vertically sequenced format, where each composable is displayed simultaneously one after the other. If you’re enjoying my posts on Jetpack Compose, check out some details on the book I’m writing on Compose! When… Continue reading
Exploring Jetpack Compose: Padding Modifier
This post is sponsored by Practical Jetpack Compose. When it comes to the composition of composables, we may want to apply additional spacing to a composables size constraints. For this we can utilise Padding – padding adds this additional space to the specified sides of the composable, essentially making it larger in size. This area… Continue reading
Exploring the Google Play In-App Review API
When it comes to the Google Play store, app ratings and reviews are a pretty important marketing tool – they can have a huge influence on whether someone downloads our app, so ensuring that we do not miss out on good reviews is important. However, I’ve felt like there has always been a lot of… Continue reading
Follow Guidelines, not rules
Learning a new way of doing something is a very powerful tool – not only does it open our eyes to new perspectives, but it has the potential to improve on a previous approach we may have taken to solving a problem. The more we learn, the more perspectives we have in place to creating… Continue reading
Exploring Android 11: Data Access Auditing
When building applications, user privacy is shifting more and more to the core of development values throughout the ecosystem. Aligned with this, Android 11 brings in a collection of changes to help improve the approaches to the privacy of user data in our apps. Amongst these changes are the introduction of the new Data Access… Continue reading
Ask a question, don’t give the answer
When presented with a question, it’s natural for us to want to help – sometimes this can be in the form of providing a solution to the problem. Someone asks a question, we provide the answer and they have a solution that unblocks them. Whilst that solves a problem and clears their path for the… Continue reading
Building an Exploding FAB Transition With Jetpack Compose
When interacting with apps on our devices, animations not only add delight to our experience but they also help to create a sense of connection between the destinations being animated. One of the animations on Android which I’ve always enjoyed is the exploding Floating Action Button animation. Here, the user clicks the FAB and it… Continue reading