Steady As She Goes

Another hurdle I had previously, was how you take an idea and make it a thing.  Bring it to life. Where do you even start, basically.  How do you know what all you'll need to make it happen?

After more videos though, I'm starting to get the picture.  I'm beginning to understand the idea of a "life cycle" for an "activity", and how to use .xml files to create layouts for basic screens.  I get the idea that every screen is an activity, and that you can pause it, stop it, destroy it and so on.  I'm still nowhere near taking an idea, especially for a game, and turning that into anything on my own, but I feel like I can at least make a basic screen that says something, haha.  It is a start.

I also thought I'd mention that we made the switch from using the Eclipse IDE to Android Studio, in light of learning that Google would no longer be supporting the Android Developer Tools (ADT) plugin for Eclipse.  So far, we're both liking Android Studio, I don't think either of us (my brother or I) have any major issues or dislikes with it.  Honestly to me it looks and feels pretty similar to Eclipse, and I'm learning it little by little as I go just as I was with Eclipse.

Other than that, it's been pretty steady as she goes lately. I've been working on a few various tutorial apps with following these videos, from Hello World ones to playing with different layouts, and a basic registration form, all while testing on my phone and an emulator.  I guess my next challenge would be simply figuring out how to make things like buttons work, and opening up new activities from a Main Activity.