The list below defines some of the basic terminology of the Android platform. Here are other sources for definitions of key terms:
- Android Compatibility Definition Document (CDD) Build Parameters section
- Audio Terminology
- App Developer Vocabulary
- .apk file
- Android application package file. Each
Android application is compiled and packaged in a single file that
includes all of the application's code (.dex files), resources, assets,
and manifest file. The application package file can have any name but
must use the
.apkextension. For example:myExampleAppname.apk. For convenience, an application package file is often referred to as an ".apk".Related: Application.
- Android Runtime (ART) and Dalvik
- The Android runtime (ART) is the managed runtime used by applications and some system services on Android. The Android runtime (ART) is the default runtime for devices running Android 5.0 (API level 21) and higher. ART and its predecessor Dalvik were originally created specifically for the Android project. ART as the runtime executes the Dalvik Executable format and Dex bytecode specification. ART and Dalvik are compatible runtimes running Dex bytecode, so apps developed for Dalvik should work when running with ART.
- .dex file
- Compiled Android application code file.
Android programs are compiled into .dex (Dalvik Executable) files, which are in turn zipped into a single .apk file on the device. .dex files can be created by automatically translating compiled applications written in the Java programming language.
- Action
- A description of something that an Intent sender wants done. An action
is a string value assigned to an Intent. Action strings can be defined by Android or by a
third-party developer. For example, android.intent.action.VIEW for a Web URL, or
com.example.rumbler.SHAKE_PHONE for a custom application to vibrate the phone.
Related: Intent.
- Activity
- A single screen in an application, with supporting Java code, derived
from the
Activityclass. Most commonly, an activity is visibly represented by a full screen window that can receive and handle UI events and perform complex tasks, because of the Window it uses to render its window. Though an Activity is typically full screen, it can also be floating or transparent. - adb
- Android Debug Bridge, a command-line debugging application included with the SDK. It provides tools to browse the device, copy tools on the device, and forward ports for debugging. If you are developing in Android Studio, adb is integrated into your development environment. See Android Debug Bridge for more information.
- Application
- From a component perspective, an Android application consists of one or more activities, services, listeners, and intent receivers. From a source file perspective, an Android application consists of code, resources, assets, and a single manifest. During compilation, these files are packaged in a single file called an application package file (.apk).
- Canvas
- A drawing surface that handles compositing of the actual bits against
a Bitmap or a Surface object. It has methods for standard computer
drawing of bitmaps, lines, circles, rectangles, text, and so on, and is bound to a
Bitmap or Surface. Canvas is the simplest, easiest way to draw 2D objects
on the screen. The base class is
Canvas. - Content Provider
- A data-abstraction layer that you can use to safely expose your
application's data to other applications. A content provider is built on
the
ContentProviderclass, which handles content query strings of a specific format to return data in a specific format. See Content Providers topic for more information.Related: URI Usage in Android
- Dialog
- A floating window that acts as a lightweight
form. A dialog can have button controls only and is intended to perform a
simple action (such as button choice) and perhaps return a value. A dialog
is not intended to persist in the history stack, contain complex layout,
or perform complex actions. Android provides a default simple dialog for
you with optional buttons, though you can define your own dialog layout.
The base class for dialogs is
Dialog.Related: Activity.
- Drawable
- A compiled visual resource that can be used as a background, title, or
other part of the screen. A drawable is typically loaded into another UI
element, for example as a background image. A drawable is not able to
receive events, but does assign various other properties such as "state"
and scheduling, to enable subclasses such as animation objects or image
libraries. Many drawable objects are loaded from drawable resource files
— xml or bitmap files that describe the image. Drawable resources
are compiled into subclasses of
android.graphics.drawable. For more information about drawables and other resources, see Resources. - Intent
- An message object that you can use to launch or communicate with other
applications/activities asynchronously. An Intent object is an instance of
Intent. It includes several criteria fields that you can supply, to determine what application/activity receives the Intent and what the receiver does when handling the Intent. Available criteria include the desired action, a category, a data string, the MIME type of the data, a handling class, and others. An application sends an Intent to the Android system, rather than sending it directly to another application/activity. The application can send the Intent to a single target application or it can send it as a broadcast, which can in turn be handled by multiple applications sequentially. The Android system is responsible for resolving the best-available receiver for each Intent, based on the criteria supplied in the Intent and the Intent Filters defined by other applications. For more information, see Intents and Intent Filters.Related: Intent Filter, Broadcast Receiver.
- Intent Filter
- A filter object that an application declares in its manifest file, to
tell the system what types of Intents each of its components is willing to
accept and with what criteria. Through an intent filter, an application
can express interest in specific data types, Intent actions, URI formats,
and so on. When resolving an Intent, the system evaluates all of the
available intent filters in all applications and passes the Intent to the
application/activity that best matches the Intent and criteria. For more
information, see Intents
and Intent Filters.
Related: Intent, Broadcast Receiver.
- Broadcast Receiver
- An application class that listens for Intents that are broadcast,
rather than being sent to a single target application/activity. The system
delivers a broadcast Intent to all interested broadcast receivers, which
handle the Intent sequentially.
Related: Intent, Intent Filter.
- Layout Resource
- An XML file that describes the layout of an Activity screen.
Related: Resources
- Manifest File
- An XML file that each application must define, to describe the application's package name, version, components (activities, intent filters, services), imported libraries, and describes the various activities, and so on. See the AndroidManifest.xml File for app information and repo Manifest Format for platform development.
- Nine-patch / 9-patch / Ninepatch image
- A resizeable bitmap resource that can be used for backgrounds or other
images on the device. See
Nine-Patch Stretchable Image for more information.
Related: Resources.
- OpenGL ES
- Android provides OpenGL ES libraries for hardware-accelerated 3D rendering. For 2D
rendering, Canvas is the simpler option." OpenGL ES is available in the
Android Native Development Kit (NDK)
for ease of use. The
android.openglandjavax.microedition.khronos.openglespackages expose OpenGL ES functionality. - Resources
- Nonprogrammatic application components that are external to the
compiled application code, but which can be loaded from application code
using a well-known reference format. Android supports a variety of
resource types, but a typical application's resources would consist of UI
strings, UI layout components, graphics or other media files, and so on.
An application uses resources to efficiently support localization and
varied device profiles and states. For example, an application would
include a separate set of resources for each supported local or device
type, and it could include layout resources that are specific to the
current screen orientation (landscape or portrait). For more information
about resources, see Resources
and Assets. The resources of an application are always stored in the
res/*subfolders of the project. - Service
- An object of class
Servicethat runs in the background (without any UI presence) to perform various persistent actions, such as playing music or monitoring network activity.Related: Activity
- Surface
- An object of type
Surfacerepresenting a block of memory that gets composited to the screen. A Surface holds a Canvas object for drawing, and provides various helper methods to draw layers and resize the surface. You should not use this class directly; useSurfaceViewinstead.Related: Canvas
- SurfaceView
- A View object that wraps a Surface for drawing, and exposes methods to
specify its size and format dynamically. A SurfaceView provides a way to
draw independently of the UI thread for resource-intensive operations
(such as games or camera previews), but it uses extra memory as a result.
SurfaceView supports both Canvas and OpenGL ES graphics. The base class is
SurfaceView.Related: Surface
- Theme
- A set of properties (text size, background color, and so on) bundled
together to define various default display settings. Android provides a
few standard themes, listed in
R.style(starting with "Theme_"). - URIs in Android
- Android uses URI (uniform resource identifier) strings as the basis for requesting data in a
content provider (such as to retrieve a list of contacts) and for requesting
actions in an Intent (such as opening a Web page in a browser). The URI
scheme and format is specialized according to the type of use, and an
application can handle specific URI schemes and strings in any way it
wants. Some URI schemes are reserved by system components. For example,
requests for data from a content provider must use the
content://. In an Intent, a URI using anhttp://scheme will be handled by the browser. - View
- An object that draws to a rectangular area on the screen and handles
click, keystroke, and other interaction events. A view is a base class for
most layout components of an Activity or Dialog screen (text boxes,
windows, and so on). It receives calls from its parent object (see
ViewGroup) to draw itself, and informs its parent object about where
and how big it would like to be (which may or may not be respected by the
parent). For more information, see
View.Related: View Hierarchy, ViewGroup, Widget
- View Hierarchy
- An arrangement of View and ViewGroup objects that defines the user interface for each component of an app. The hierarchy consists of view groups that contain one or more child views or view groups. You can obtain a visual representation of a view hierarchy for debugging and optimization by using the Hierarchy Viewer that is supplied with the Android SDK.
- ViewGroup
- A container object that groups a set of child views. The view group is
responsible for deciding where child views are positioned and how large
they can be, as well as for calling each to draw itself when appropriate.
Some view groups are invisible and are for layout only, while others have
an intrinsic UI (for instance, a scrolling list box). View groups are all
in the
widgetpackage, but extendViewGroup.Related: View, View Hierarchy
- Widget
- One of a set of fully implemented View subclasses that render form
elements and other UI components, such as a text box or popup menu.
Because a widget is fully implemented, it handles measuring and drawing
itself and responding to screen events. Widgets are all in the
android.widgetpackage. - Window
- In an Android application, an object derived from the abstract class
Windowthat specifies the elements of a generic window, such as the look and feel (title bar text, location and content of menus, and so on). Dialog and Activity use an implementation of this class to render a window. You do not need to implement this class or use windows in your application.