rocketinsights/android-base

A base Android project to start Rocket Android projects off of.

Rocket's Kotlin Android Architecture Components Example

This is the first version of a mock application that hopefully will evolve into the base project for Rocket's Android application.

Important branches:

• main - This branch represents the current state of the project. It's under regular maintenance. Use stable version of Android Studio to open the project.
• canary - This branch is for trying out Android preview features. Some features might be merged from this branch to master branch in the future. It is not under regular maintenance. Use canary version of Android Studio to open the project.

Functionalities:

• REST API integration - Retrofit library is used as a type-safe HTTP client. Suspending functions are used in Retrofit interfaces. Moshi is used as a JSON to Kotlin converter.
• Saving data locally - Room persistence library provides an abstraction layer over SQLite to allow database access. Suspending functions and Flows are used in Room DAO-s. DataStore is used to save user preferences.
• Scheduling background tasks - WorkManager is used to schedule deferrable, asynchronous tasks that are expected to run even if the app exits or the device restarts. MessagesUpdateWorker is a CoroutineWorker and an example of recurring background work. Koin's WorkManagerFactory is used instead of default one.
• Dependency injection - Koin is used as a dependency injection framework.
• Navigation - Android Jetpack's Navigation component is used to implement navigation between fragments. Nav graph contains splash screen, main graph and auth graph. Auth graph represents sign-in flow, and main graph represents main application flow.
• Splash screen - SplashFragment contains Rocket Insights logo.
• Login screen - LoginFragment contains welcome message and login button which calls FirebaseUI sign-in flow.
• View binding - Android Jetpack's View binding allows writing code that interacts with views.
• Image loading - Coil is an image loading library for Android backed by Kotlin Coroutines.
• Taking a picture - ActivityResultContracts.TakePicture class is used to register 'take picture' action which calls camera app. Check MainFragment and PhotoFragment for an example.
• MotionLayout animation - AnimationsFragment contains an example of MotionLayout animation. It is a ConstraintSet animation which runs automatically when the fragment is visible.
• Lottie animation - AccountSetupAnimationFragment contains a simple example of Lottie animation from LottieFiles.
• Property animation - PropertyAnimationFragment shows examples of View property animations with ViewPropertyAnimator and ObjectAnimator.
• Material design - Material design components and theming are used.
• Transitions - Material motion transitions are used throughout the app. There are also examples of slide and grow (shared element) transitions between MainFragment and SecondFragment.
• App Widget - AnimationWidget is an example of app widget. It provides shortcuts to animation screens.
• Leak detection - LeakCanary is used for memory leak detection.
• Network traffic monitoring - Chucker is used for inspection of HTTP(S) requests/responses fired by this app.
• Logging - Timber is used for logging to make sure that puppies live :)
• Google services - We use several of the most common Firebase services, such as crash reports, analytics, push notifications. There are several classes that allow us to customize the different channels and the behavior of notifications easily.
• Google Maps - We've implemented utilities that allow us to quickly add points, draw routes, get directions and more.

Build Types & Flavors

We've defined two different build types:

• Debug: The code is not obfuscated and it also does not remove unused resources. Used during development as the building process is faster.
• Release: The apk is signed using the debug keystore, since the final signature is done in our Continuous Integration environments (Github Actions, Bitrise, etc ...). The code is obfuscated and the resources optimized to obtain a lighter apk.

To configure the rest of the environment variables, such as which API environment to use, which Firebase configuration and others, we've defined two product flavors:

• Dev: Used during the development process as it points to the development/test servers. It also adds a suffix to our package name so we can have the dev and prod app installed at the same time, and adds the suffix “Dev" to the name to identify it. In order to have the same application with different flavor installed (which would technically be different when changing the application ID), it is also important to define a unique File Provider and Work Manager for each environment.
• Prod: Used for the production environment. To avoid tracking development errors, analytics that are not produced by our end users, we must avoid using this environment for testing and only use it when we are sure that it already works well in the dev environment.

Therefore the possible variants for now are: devDebug, devRelease, prodDebug, prodRelease.

The ideal is to have a flavor for each API environment to use, that is, if our api has a dev, staging and prod environment, we would have to add the flavor of staging.

Finally, after testing our environments in Debug mode, it is important to test them in Release mode, since it may be necessary to add some rules in our ProGuard files to prevent certain classes that are serialized from being obfuscated.

Architecture

We like to be at the forefront and at the same time generate solid products capable of scaling and adapting to changes quickly.

For that we use a series of design patterns and recommendations from the Google team that we consider key when developing a mobile app. We use several of the Android Jetpack libraries that allow us to make the most of the Android SDK.

At the architecture level we use MVVM with a series of Design Patterns that we list below:

• Repository Pattern,
• Dependency Injection,
• Dependency Inversion.

This allows us to have a clean, decoupled code, and easy to mock up.

CI & CD

Continuous Integration services that we use:

• GitHub Actions: The workflow configurations can be found in .github/workflows.
• Bitrise: We attach the configuration file in the root directory (bitrise.yml) just to have a reference. It is not necessary to have it in the repository since it's automatically managed by Bitrise.
• Travis: The configuration file is located in the root directory (travis.yml).
• Circle CI: The configuration file is in the directory .circleci (config.yml).

Important: All CI environments are NOT configured in the same way.

The Rocket team has a preference for Bitrise, Github Actions and Circle CI according to the project requirements.

Application Installation

Below are the instructions on how to install the Android app.

Enable Installation from Unknown Sources

First, for any given device, it'll need to have installation from unknown sources enabled.

1. Open the Settings app.
2. Tap on Security.
3. Scroll to Unknown sources and turn the setting on.

Next, there are a few ways to get the latest application.

Via qa@yourdomainname.com

Whenever the newest build is available, (Bitrise|CirchleCI|AppCenter|Travis) emails qa@yourdomainname.com with a link to the latest apk. Tap on that link from the device. Once it has downloaded, tapping on the app should show a prompt to confirm the installation of the application. Occasionally, depending on device or manufacturer, you need to go to the Downloads application and install from there. If there's an issue installing from the mail application, try that.

Via Slack Channel

Whenever a new build is available, the #androidslackchannel slack channel has an automated message sent to it. Open the link in that message from the device and follow the above instructions.

Request a Specific Build

If you want a specific build, let me (Android developer) know and I can send you that build directly on (Bitrise|CirchleCI|AppCenter|Travis). From there, you can follow the directions for qa@yourdomainname.com.

Via Android Studio

If you get set up with Android Studio and the GitHub repo on your local machine, you'll be able to install it directly from there. If you need help with this, feel free to let me (again, Android developer) know and I'd be happy to walk you through it.