Android app development has become a widely used platform to create outstanding apps. While developing an android app, there are certain frameworks and libraries that need to be considered. Without having knowledge about libraries, one can never build a remarkable app as lots of issues and problems arise in the process. Implementations of libraries make a considerable difference in the designing of user-interface and back-end android development. There are several android libraries for documentation, message templates, the configuration of data, pre-written code, values, classes, subroutines. You just name it and there is a library available on the android platform making your development easier and quicker.
By using libraries can reduce your additional efforts providing every functionality that is already built-in. Have a look at the six must-have android libraries that smooth the app development process.
1. Dagger 2
Dagger 2 is a fully static library for compile-time dependency injection into the android application. It relies on Java annotation processors to a great extent and helps in estimating different dependencies. There are several other dependency libraries available based on Java but usually contain certain limitations. While using this dependency injection library, you’ll be free from facing run-time dependency issues or performance penalties during startup. The access to shared instances is made easy with this library giving most advantages to android applications. It automatically generates sub-components saving the time of android developers.
2. Retrofit
Network communication is an essential component in android applications. One of the best libraries for this purpose is Retrofit which is a type-safe REST client for Java and Android. It maps the API into the interface on client-side smartly using annotations making the process comparatively easier. Previously, for a network request, HttpsUrlConnection was used after the successful execution of the Async task class. It was performed to fetch data, though it failed as it doesn’t operate perfectly when handling large data sets of APIs. Retrofit allows to effortlessly add request body parameters, select request methods and parsing to POJOs.
3. Picasso
Image loading libraries combat with the memory-related issues within the android application. ‘Out of memory’ is certainly the most faced problem among android developers that prevents them to develop an outstanding app. This option shows up on the screen when multiple images are being loaded at the same time. Picasso is the best Android image library that fixes many issues efficiently including hassle-free image loading. Some other facilities that Picasso library provides contain complex image transformation to fit the layout using minimum memory, automatic detection of adapter reuse making it a popular choice for developers.
4. Glide
Glide is another image loader library appreciated due to its vast number of features. It is among the newest Android libraries but certainly the best as compared to others. This library makes the scrolling process smooth, managed by Bumptech and recommended by technology giant Google. Glide helps in fetching, decoding, displaying images, GIFs and video calls. It gives GIF support along with handling image loading issues and caching that is not offered by most of the libraries. When it comes to API, it is flexible and allows developers to integrate any network stack while keeping HttpUrlConnection as default.
5. Zxing
To integrate scanning functionalities into the android applications, developers prefer the ZXing library. It is a barcode image-processing library used inside apps to increase the functionality level. It is implemented completely in Java while it contains ports based on other programming languages. This library provides support to 1D industrial, 1D product and 2D barcodes. Google uses this android library to make a large number of barcodes on the web well-indexed. It is integrated into Google products and Google Book Search also works as the basis of Barcode Scanner Android apps.
6. ButterKnife
Another major area of Android application is consumption by view binding. There are certain libraries that assign views to variables that arose while reducing boilerplate code . The most prominent android library for this purpose is butterknife, developed by Jake Wharton. It is a well-known view binding library that effortlessly assigns ids to views removing the need to use findViewById. Butterknife works on automatically injected code and eliminates onTouch and onClick. The view binding library is just like the dependency injection library Dagger. It possesses the difference of just boilerplate code generation.
Conclusion
In the end, we can state now that the above information is appropriate for business app developers. Nowadays, android application Development Company is well-aware about the need for libraries in the android application. It enhances the behavior of the overall android app making it function properly and efficiently. It makes the app development process quicker without any unnecessary actions that previously required much time. Developers now don’t need to write code for everything and integrate functionality from scratch as there are multiple pre-written codes available. Wide range of libraries is available on the android platform benefiting developers in various ways.