Greetings to my favorite science community online, StemSocial.
I'm happy to be back to continue my exciting series on Android Programming tutorials for Beginners.
It's been about a week since I started this tutorial and every single day we've been building amazing Android apps that not only teach new concepts in Android app development but allows us to create Basic Android apps and have fun as well.
For today's blog tutorial, we're going to be building an Android Camera app that would allow us to take pictures and display it in the app.
At the end of the tutorial, you would be able to run the app directly on your Android device and take a nice picture.
Let's get into the steps needed to build our Android Camera App
As usual, you would need to ensure that the following are downloaded on your computer and properly installed.
Android Studio IDE
Java Development Kit (JDK)
The Android Studio software is the platform we'll be using to write our code and the programming language we'll be using is Java and XML. We would need to ensure that JDK is installed and setup up properly in order for our computer to be capable of executing the Java codes.
If you're having trouble downloading or installing any of the softwares on your computer, please let me know in the comments section below.
Alright guys, I'll assume all my readers have successfully downloaded and installed Android studio.
Now, first open the Android Studio software and create a new project. At this stage you can choose an appropriate project template and set up your project details. I'll still recommend selecting "Empty Activity" template just like I do in almost all my tutorials. This is to avoid any confusion in writing the codes as a beginner.
Alright guys, since we're going to be building a Camera app, we would need to set the Android camera permission so thatbour app can have access to the camera of the Android Device.
The Permission code will be written in AndroidManifest.xml page. So open it and add the following permission for the camera.
Here's how the code should look like
<uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.camera" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.CAMERA" />
Now that we have permission to use the Android device camera, it's time for us to design the User Interface of our camera. This is what the user will see when he or she opens our app.
The user interface will be designed in the activity_main.xml page.
Now in order to make things simple since this is a tutorial for Beginners, I'll be using a SurfaceView for previewing the camera feed and a Button for capturing photos. When the user presses the button, the app will take the picture.
Here's how the code for your camera user interface should look like
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
tools:context=".MainActivity">
<SurfaceView
android:id="@+id/surfaceView"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent" />
<Button
android:id="@+id/btnCapture"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="Capture"
android:layout_alignParentBottom="true"
android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
android:layout_marginBottom="16dp"/>
</RelativeLayout>
Now in order for our camera app to be able to actually take pictures, we would need to implement camera functionality by using either the Camera class or CameraX API.
This will be done in our MainActivity.java page
We would use the CameraX API because we're trying to build modern applications. The Camera class is deprecated which means they are not going to function effectively on newer android versions and no updates will be made for that class.
Here's how your code should look like
// For Camera API (Deprecated)
// Camera mCamera;
// For CameraX API (Modern)
ListenableFuture<ProcessCameraProvider> cameraProviderFuture;
@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
// For Camera API (Deprecated)
// mCamera = getCameraInstance();
// For CameraX API (Modern)
cameraProviderFuture = ProcessCameraProvider.getInstance(this);
SurfaceView surfaceView = findViewById(R.id.surfaceView);
Button btnCapture = findViewById(R.id.btnCapture);
// Set onClickListener for capturing
btnCapture.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
@Override
public void onClick(View v) {
// Capture logic
takePicture();
}
});
}
So guys, at this point, we have successfully be able to implement the camera functionality so it's now time to handle the camera capture.
In order for our app to be able to take pictures or photos, we would need to implement the takePicture() method which would handle capturing the photo, save the image and display it in the app.
It's a really simple step and here's how your code should look like
private void takePicture() {
// For Camera API (Deprecated)
// mCamera.takePicture(null, null, mPictureCallback);
// For CameraX API (Modern)
// TODO: Implement CameraX photo capture logic
}
Our work is done guys, we have been able to complete our basic Android Camera app. It's time to run the application. You can either run your app directly on your own Android device or by using the Android Studio Emulator.
I usually prefer to use my Android Device so I can see how the app will look like on a real device. You need to make sure USB debugging is turned on on your Android phone to be able to run the app.
If you're having troubles running thr application or writing the code, please let me know in the comments section below and I'll gladly be of help.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read today's blog. I hope you enjoyed reading and also building your very first Android Camera. As you keep learning from these tutorials I share daily, you'll soon become a professional Android app developer.
Have a lovely day and catch you next time in StemSocial. Goodbye 👨💻
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