Alexander Portillo

Apr 21

Room Database Migration in Kotlin

There are two migrating options that Room supports. There are automated migrations and manual migrations. You can use automated migrations when you are deleting or renaming a table or column, updating the primary key, adding a new column or table, etc. If you are working with a more complicated change…

Kotlin

2 min read

Apr 14

LiveData in Kotlin

LiveData is used to get real-time updates from activities, fragments, or services. The LiveData only notifies the activity or fragment about an update if they are in a Started or Resumed lifecycle state. The ability of LiveData to understand the lifecycle of the app components makes LiveData so powerful. Benefits …

Kotlin

2 min read

Apr 8

Extension Functions in Kotlin

Extension functions make our code look more readable and clean. Kotlin allows us to extend the functionality of a class without having to inherit from the class. I will be showing you how to create an extension function and why you should start using them as you code. We will…

Kotlin

1 min read

Mar 3

Fused Location Provider in Kotlin

I will be showing you how to use the fused location provider to get the device’s current location. 1. Add the dependency Go to your build.gradle (Module: app) file and add this. implementation 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-location:19.0.1' Enable view binding in your build.gradle file also. viewBinding { enabled = true } 2. Add the permissions Go to your AndroidManifest.xml …

Kotlin

3 min read

Aug 20, 2021

Floating Action Buttons

FABs (short for Floating Action Button) are very important to understand and can be a very useful tool to use in our apps. I will be talking about the basics of how they work and a couple of tips on when you should add a FAB into your app. Types…

2 min read

Jul 29, 2021

Using Git on Command Line

Knowing how to use git in the command line is not necessary but I would recommend using it so you know how Git actually works. Here are some of the basic commands that are used a lot. Initializing a Local Git Repository Make sure you are in the folder that…

2 min read

Jul 13, 2021

Chains in ConstraintLayout

In this article, I will explain how chains work and you will see why they are so useful. So you may be wondering when to use chains in your layouts. It is very helpful when you are looking to evenly space out views in your layout. …

2 min read