Android Framework?

Question

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?

Answer 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 I realize I never followed up on this... here's the link to the project page. Very much a WIP, API is not stable yet, but I have been getting some very positive feedback so far. We use it all over our own application (Qype for Android).

Answer 2

Not really a 'software framework', but a tool to create simple apps easily (that's what Google says):

http://appinventor.googlelabs.com/about/

I don't use this tool since I'm not a big fan of this approach, but you could give it a try.

You can build many different types of apps with App Inventor. Often people begin by building games like MoleMash or games that let you draw funny pictures on your friend's faces. You can even make use of the phone's sensors to move a ball through a maze based on tilting the phone.

But app building is not limited to simple games. You can also build apps that inform and educate. You can create a quiz app to help you and your classmates study for a test. With Android's text-to-speech capabilities, you can even have the phone ask the questions aloud.

To use App Inventor, you do not need to be a developer. This is because instead of writing code, you visually design the way the app looks and use blocks to specify the app's behavior.

Answer 3

There's also phonegap, which you can use to write android apps using html+javascript.

Answer 4

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 :(

Answer 5

http://www.motherapp.com/ apparently converts 'HTML' to 'applications'.

Answer 6

There are several frameworks of different scope and purpose to make mobile application development faster, or cross-platform, or code-free.

Technology thrives on competition and new ideas, so please don't take the presence of several other solutions as a deterrent from making your own if you think you can build a rounder wheel.