mtl3jx/android-tech-challenge-2

HTTP Request and JSON Parsing

Assignment 2: HTTP Request and JSON Parsing

This assignment, the second in the series, will familiarize the student with HTTP based network communications and XML parsing on the target platform.

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Learning Objectives
• Prerequisites
• Grading Criteria
• Helpful Resources
• Submission Instructions
  • Git Workflow
• Help and Discussion

Overview

In this tech challenge, you will be creating an app that displays a list of earthquakes retrieved by the U.S. Geological Survey. Selecting an item in the list will allow the user to folow a link to further infromation on the USGS website in their browser.

Learning Objectives

When completed the student should have an understanding of the following concepts:

• HTTP request and response handling
• JSON parsing
• String manipulation
• Display theming and modifications including custom table rows
• Table row manipulation

Prerequisites

Before starting this tech challenge, a student should be familiar with the follow concepts and have the following environment

• All prior Android Assignments are completed
• The Android SDK installed on the development device
• Android Studio (the latest stable release) installed on the development device

Grading Criteria

Here are some specific requirements the graders will be looking for in your submission in order for your submission to be accepted:

The application must do the following:

• Retrieve historical earthquake data from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and produce a table displaying information about earthquakes that have occurred in the past 30 days. The recommended approach section has a URL for the data.
• The view of earthquake events must be sorted in descending date order.
• Each item must display the following information in a pleasing and easy to read format:
  • The USGS title for the quake
  • The latitude and longitude of the quake
  • The time the quake occurred in local time
• The user must be able to force a reload of the view.
• When the user reloads the view, the server should be re-queried and the view reloaded with all quake data received from the server
• The user must be able to selectively delete table items using a gesture familiar to uses of that platform.
• If the user selects a row the app should open an internal web browser control (native only) with a link to the full quake information at the USGS site.
• The items with an earthquake of magnitude 5 or higher must be shaded in light red.
• The items with a quake of magnitude 7 or higher must be shaded in red.
• The application must cleanly and correctly handle network failures or the absence of a network.
• The application must display some indicator that the application is busy during data loads.
• The application UI must remain responsive to user input during the data load process.
• The application must not crash or leak memory.
• The structure of the application must be well structured and understandable.
• If you’re completing this task using the mobile web technology, there may be no server side logic other than delivery of HTML/JS/CSS content to the phone. All other logic, storage, etc. must occur on the phone itself.

Helpful Resources

These are some helpful documentation links and resources to help you be successful in completing this tech challenge:

• Data feed:
  • http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/feed/v1.0/summary/all_month.geojson
  • http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/catalogs/
• Web resources
  • http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/layout/listview.html
  • https://developer.android.com/reference/android/support/v7/widget/RecyclerView.html
  • https://developer.android.com/training/material/lists-cards.html
  • http://developer.android.com/training/basics/network-ops/connecting.html
  • http://developer.android.com/reference/android/util/JsonReader.html

Submission Instructions

Please provide these specific items when submitting your tech challenge, placing them inside of your repository where your grader can easily find them:

• An application that meets the above requirements running on the target mobile device is required for completion of this assignment. Please place the .apk file of the completed app in the base directory of your repository.
• The code for your submission should be at the base directory of the repo, or within a specified child directory.

Git Workflow

• When you start a tech challenge, the tech challenge admin will create a private repository for you.
• There will be two branches in the repo, master and develop.
• Do all your work in the develop branch.
• As you work, push your changes up to your GitLab repo.
• When you are finished, make a merge request to the master version of your private repo.
• At this point, the graders will review your merge request and offer comments where needed.
• You may be asked to push updates, corrections to your develop branch in response to the coments by graders. You don't need to create another merge request.
• When the grader is satisfied, he will merge your code into the master branch of your private repo.
• Now celebrate, the Tech Challenge is completed!

Help and Discussion

If you need help on this Tech Challenge or would like to discuss it / leave feedback, please check out the Mobile Tech Challenges team in Microsoft Teams, especially the Help and Discussion channel.