Backend, desktop, and web developer here. Been tr...

# android

[Brendan Campbell-hartzell]

Backend, desktop, and web developer here. Been trying to put together a mobile version of a very, very simple notepad-like application the passed few days. This is awful 😭

[Landry Norris]

What tech have you been using? The newer libraries are much easier to work with.

[Brendan Campbell-hartzell]

I was somewhat used to Compose from desktop, so I tried getting that to work, but it's still in early stages and, in the desktop version of this, I had to use a Swing component to actually make the text styling work. Not sure if compose for android will have the same limitations, so I ended up just trying to use an EditText component with the declarative xml layout.

Honestly, it's probably just the learning curve of getting to know a new framework. Just seems like simple things I could do in HTML, JavaFX, compose, etc. are significantly harder to do in the xml-based GUI (like a toggle button that just has an icon)

[Brendan Campbell-hartzell]

(also, why can't I get the full android dev support in intellij community when I'm working on a cross-platform project? had to install android studio just for this module)

[Landry Norris]

I’d recommend Compose over XML right now, since that’s the direction Android’s going. Compose for Android was the first platform Compose supported, and also currently the most stable.

[Sam]

I've not worked with desktop apps in a while but I've got a good amount of experience of front end web development and can firmly say that Android UI development (both XML based and compose, though I also recommend compose) is just as good as the tools available on web.

Android studio is also one of the best ides I've used.

With respect, I agree with what you said about the learning curve of a new framework, I'm pretty certain this is almost entirely that

[Brendan Campbell-hartzell]

I've been using intellij community edition for everything for a long time, absolutely love it. My frustration came from having to install specifically android studio just to work with this one module of my project. It's the same IDE, just has more android-focused plugins that aren't available for community edition.

[Sam]

Understandable, but I'd imagine Android studio will probably run your other modules as well as intellij, so you could probably just switch from intellij to Android studio and everything would pretty much work the way you're used to.

To be honest I think we're slightly spoilt by how good intellij is for so many different things that it seems inconvenient when things like this happen. Wait until you have to use XCode for iOS 😉

[Landry Norris]

Interesting. I’ve been using IntelliJ community almost exclusively, but I have to be a few AGP versions out of date.

[K Merle]

There is a JetBrains Toolbox app that sets you up any JetBrains IDE in short time, if your internet connection is good.

[Henri Langenhoven]

I’ve been trying to do something similar. It’s been pretty rough going with getting resources to work etc. I do think it’s mostly due to having to learn Compose on Android and Desktop at the same time in my case. I hope anyway