sagar2305 / todo

Your handy TODO list app!

Pre-work - TODOist

TODOist is an android app that allows building a todo list and basic todo items management functionality including adding new items, editing and deleting an existing item.

Submitted by: Sagar Mutha

Time spent: 4 hours spent in total

User Stories

The following required functionality is completed:

• User can successfully add and remove items from the todo list
• User can tap a todo item in the list and bring up an edit screen for the todo item and then have any changes to the text reflected in the todo list.
• User can persist todo items and retrieve them properly on app restart

The following optional features are implemented:

• Persist the todo items into SQLite instead of a text file
• Improve style of the todo items in the list using a custom adapter
• Add support for completion due dates for todo items (and display within listview item)
• Use a DialogFragment instead of new Activity for editing items
• Add support for selecting the priority of each todo item (and display in listview item)
• Tweak the style improving the UI / UX, play with colors, images or backgrounds

The following additional features are implemented:

• Add support for marking tasks complete!

Video Walkthrough

Here's a walkthrough of implemented user stories:

GIF created with LiceCap.

Project Analysis

As part of your pre-work submission, please reflect on the app and answer the following questions below:

Question 1: "What are your reactions to the Android app development platform so far? Compare and contrast Android's approach to layouts and user interfaces in past platforms you've used."

Answer: The activity lifecyle in android is very well defined and doesn't need a lot of work getting used to. The layouts editor is very different compared to the iOS storyboard. The iOS storyboard allows you to build the complete app flow within it whereas the android layout editor does not. Also I did not find the android layout editor very user friendly in building the UI. I preferred to use the xml layout to build it.

Question 2: "Take a moment to reflect on the ArrayAdapter used in your pre-work. How would you describe an adapter in this context and what is its function in Android? Why do you think the adapter is important? Explain the purpose of the convertView in the getView method of the ArrayAdapter."

Answer: The adapter in android is used to hold the data that is used to populate the views. It is the one responsible for showing content on the list and also decides how the data must be shown. The adapter is important so that the views do not hold any data or business logic and only worry about the presentation.

The convertView parameter is used to reuse old android View objects. The adapter calls getView on each row of the ListView. The convertView are initially null and are created to fill up the views visible on the screen.Once these objects go out of the screen, they are reused. This helps improve the performance of the app.

Notes

Describe any challenges encountered while building the app.

License

Copyright 2017 Sagar Mutha

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at

    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.

todo's Issues

Project Feedback!

Hello Sagar,

Looks good, this exercise is intended in part to give you an introduction to the general rhythm of this course. The course is entirely project-based with an app being assigned each week and then due the following week. Each project builds on the last to help each engineer learn the practical elements of Android development and best practices as quickly as possible. We also do a code review for each submitted project once the program begins.

Great to see you were able to complete some extensions to your app already. The extension tasks available on each project are often the most valuable learnings since they dive deeper into common real-world Android use cases. We encourage you to continue working on extensions to your todo app as a way to further explore Android development.

See if you can expand the functionality of the app or instead work on improving the user interface by experimenting with colors, spacing, styling, icons, etc. Be sure to take a look through our organizing your source files guide for additional tips on structure as well. You can re-submit on the application dashboard anytime and we'll take another look.

We'll be following up with you again shortly to outline the next steps in the admissions process.