Android Framework?
Are there any frameworks out there which make it even more easy than it is to build Android applications and would you be interested in one?
Solution 1:
Soon there will be!
I am working on DroidFu, an Android shared library which will give you:
- tons of utility functions available directly in Activities (and Services), such as spawning list and error dialogs, checking for Intent availability, and other workarounds/replacements for cases where Android lacks desired functionality
- easy handling of asynchronous tasks (takes care of resurrecting dialogs after orientation changes)
- Easy XML parsing using a convention over configuration based XML pull parser
- new adapters and widgets, such as as ListAdapterWithProgress (rendering a loading spinner as the last element when loading something) or a GalleryItem widget which will lazy load an image via a URL while rendering a spinner
- an ImageLoader which can load images from the web asynchonously, backed by a FIFO cache, great for rendering avatars in lists and stuff
I plan to make this available on GitHub.
stay tuned.
update (Feb 2013) Sorry to say that no one is working on this anymore. All people involved in the project have moved on, and since the lib was mostly used in the Qype app, no one feels like maintaining it anymore (Qype got acquired by Yelp btw, so I'm not even sure if we would be allowed to, since most of it was developed during my working hours at Qype.)
For anyone who feels like salvaging it, sources are here.
Solution 2:
I just found out about App Dev Wiki. As described on its website:
This wiki is meant to collect links, tools, libraries, and anything that is useful for mobile development.
Currently listed android frameworks are:
- ignition
- droid-fu
- RoboGuice
- Commonsware
- ActionBarSherlock
- Spring Android
- DroidParts
Solution 3:
One of the best right now IMHO is Appcelerator
Free and open-sourced, develop one app for all major platforms (cross-platform), compiles the app to native code, has a rich API...
I enjoyed playing with it.. very easy to learn :)
Hope this help!
P.S.: even though it sounds like I work there, I don't... unfortunately for me :(