We have already explored the primary Android UX. Here we focus specifically on navigation within an android application, examining some typical patterns. In particular, we explore navigation within a single application, which can yield some interesting and surprising subtleties.

The Activity is at the heart of almost all android applications. You have already experience in designing and implementing a number of simple ones. Here we review the general nature of activities and define the principle the concerns of the programmer has to bear in mind.

In a significant update to the app, we introduce navigation within the app using an Action Bar. This will allow us to create new residences, or navigate to existing ones. Additionally, we will explore a simple date picker dialog to allow the user to select a registration date for the residence.

Introduce into MyRent a serialization mechanism to save and restore the residence list to and from a file. The app will load the contents of this file on launch and update the file if residence data is updated.

Navigation notes from week 2 (included for reference here).