William Francis, TechRepublic

William Francis

TechRepublic

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Recent:
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Past:
  • TechRepublic

Past articles by William:

More Android material design drop shadow woes

William J. Francis lists pain points he faces when working with the Android material design framework's drop shadows. And yet, he's still a fan of the spec. → Read More

Android Lollipop material design trick offers a more polished UX

Learn how to work around a caveat when using elevation from the Android 5.0 material design spec to create a shadow effect. → Read More

Pro tip: Add more style to Android app images with Lollipop's bitmap tinting API

With Android Lollipop's drawable tinting capabilities, you can add definition of a common color theme across components, and enable dynamic styling to be brand or content aware. → Read More

Four handy Android Studio shortcuts for Eclipse users

With the recent 1.0 milestone for Android Studio, more developers are moving from Eclipse to Android Studio and are having trouble finding their hotkeys. These tips should help. → Read More

Android Studio eclipses Eclipse on Google's developer tools page

William J. Francis says there's a lot to love in Android Studio 1.0. Also, he advises that you migrate from Eclipse sooner rather than later. → Read More

Pro tip: Use this hack to open a specific Facebook page from your Android app

A try-catch-block is the key to deep linking your Android app to Facebook regardless of whether the user has the native Facebook app on her device. → Read More

Let down by Android 5.0's half-baked screen pinning API

Read this programmer's perspective on why he finds a much-needed update in Android 5.0 frustrating and disappointing. → Read More

Promote your app on social more effectively with this PHP redirect

A simpler way to get your app users to the right app store when promoting it on social media is to use this PHP redirect script. → Read More

Pro tip: Use Google Now to launch your next Android app

Here's how to harness the power of Google Now in your Android app -- without writing Java code -- by letting users launch your app using voice commands. → Read More

Hands-on with Android's material design: App theming

Follow along as William J. Francis dips his toes into the shallow end of the Android material design pool and tests the waters of styles.xml. → Read More

Android Studio: A stable environment and a UI designer that knocks my socks off

William J. Francis shares his first impressions of making the jump from ADT Eclipse to Android Studio as his main development machine. → Read More

Android gaming partnership develops from TechRepublic column

TechRepublic contributing writer William J. Francis and TR member Francisco Marzoa bond over Android gaming, beer, and comedy when Francisco travels from Spain to Texas for a visit. → Read More

Pro tip: Make sense of pan vs. resize in the Android manifest

In response to a reader's question, William J. Francis helps clarify the difference between Android's software input values "adjustPan" and "adjustResize." → Read More

Pro tip: Use the IME manager to show and hide Android's virtual keyboard

See how simple it is to show and hide the Android virtual keyboard when appropriate by using the input method (IME) manager. → Read More

Pro tip: Install Google Play Services on Android emulator Genymotion

Follow this tutorial to have your Genymotion Android emulator up and running Google Play Services in no time. → Read More

Pro tip: Unify your Android text watchers with this handy technique

When validating an entire form declaring and assigning each EditText widget on your Android layout, here's a way to declare a single private class that can handle validation for each field in your form. → Read More

Pro tip: Save hours of frustration with this Android TableLayout solution

If you're new to Android or if you stopped using TableLayout because it was maddening, this quick tutorial on layouts might save you from pulling out your hair. → Read More

Visual cues with Android's multi-line EditText widget

William J. Francis shows you a couple of quick, painless ways to add bounding to a multi-line Android EditText widget. → Read More

Pro tip: Convert Android pixels to inches

A common question amongst Android developers about supporting multiple screens is: How do I convert pixels to inches? Here's a simple way to accomplish that task. → Read More

Pro tip: Use Google's Static Maps API to illustrate location in your Android apps

This tutorial shows how simple it is to use Google's free static map SAAS in your Android apps if the Google Maps API requires too much overhead for the desired functionality. → Read More