How to build an Android Calendar App - Hive Programmers

Greetings to my favorite science community online, StemSocial.

It's been about two days since I posted a blog about my series on Android App development tutorials for beginners.

I was fully engaged in a whole lot of other events so I couldn't really work on Hive. However, I'm thrilled to be back to continue my series.

Because I have skipped two days on the calendar, in a funny way I have been inspired to share a tutorial blog on how to build an Android Calendar App.

Original Image Source by Pexels from Pixabay

Calenders are very necessary not just for remembering or marking dates but also as a way to remind as of important events ahead of us. As part of the process in developing a reminder app, we would definitely need to build calendar.

Let's get started with today's blog shall we

Setting Up Your Project

Please ensure that you have successfully installed Android Studio and Java Development Kit, JDK on your computer to be able to build the calender App.

As we've been doing with all our blogs in the past, we'll start by creating a new Android Studio project and also configure the necessary dependencies in the build.gradle file.

In order to build a fully functional Calendar application, we would need certain API services which would require us to use the following dependencies in our project.

Here's the codes to add to the build.gradle file.

implementation 'com.google.android.material:material:1.4.0'
implementation 'androidx.recyclerview:recyclerview:1.2.1'

After adding the dependencies, a sync button will appear at the top of your Android Studio screen. Click on that button to sync the dependencies.

Designing the UI

Now that we're through with setting up the project and adding the dependencies, it's time to work on the front end or design part of our calendar aop

Since it's still tutorial of the basics of Android App development, we'll design a simple user interface for the Calendar App. The design part or development of the frontend layout will be done in the activity_main.xml file.

We'll use a RecyclerView element to display the calendar events.

Here's how your code should look like

(html comment removed:  activity_main.xml )
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:orientation="vertical">

    <androidx.recyclerview.widget.RecyclerView
        android:id="@+id/recyclerView"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>

</LinearLayout>

Creating a Data Model

In order for us to have a working Calendar, we would need to define a data model for the calendar events
We'll create a java class file to do this. Let's name the file EventModel.

The purpose of this class is to represent each event with its title, date, and other relevant details.

Here's how your code should look like

// EventModel.java
public class EventModel {
    private String title;
    private Date date;

    // Constructor, getters, and setters
}

Implementing RecyclerView Adapter

We now have to create a custom adapter class for the RecyclerView. This class will handle the list of events.

What the adapter will do is to inflate the layout for each item and bind data to the views. It's a pretty simple code guys and this step is really necessary in making show that the calendar data shows.

Here's how your code should look like inside the calendar adapter class

// CalendarAdapter.java
public class CalendarAdapter extends RecyclerView.Adapter<CalendarAdapter.ViewHolder> {

    private List<EventModel> events;

    // Constructor and methods

    static class ViewHolder extends RecyclerView.ViewHolder {
        TextView titleTextView;
        TextView dateTextView;

        ViewHolder(View itemView) {
            super(itemView);
            titleTextView = itemView.findViewById(R.id.titleTextView);
            dateTextView = itemView.findViewById(R.id.dateTextView);
        }
    }
}

Populate RecyclerView

We would need to populate the Recycleview and that step will be done inside the MainActivity.java file.

The code below will do a couple thimgs including initializing the RecyclerView, creating a list of events, and setting up the adapter.

// MainActivity.java
public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

        RecyclerView recyclerView = findViewById(R.id.recyclerView);
        recyclerView.setLayoutManager(new LinearLayoutManager(this));

        List<EventModel> events = generateDummyEvents(); // Implement this method to generate sample events
        CalendarAdapter adapter = new CalendarAdapter(events);
        recyclerView.setAdapter(adapter);
    }

    // Implement the method to generate sample events
    private List<EventModel> generateDummyEvents() {
        // Generate and return a list of sample events
    }
}

Running The Calendar App

Congratulations guys. We are done building our basic calender application. You can build and run the App either using a physical Android device or an emulator.

Like I always keep promising, we will be rebuilding more advanced versions of these apps after we're through with the basics.

In future updates, we will add functionalities like new events, deleting events, and navigating through the months in the calendar App.

The Android Calendar API or third-party libraries can be used to handle date-related operations.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read today's blog. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial guys. As always, if you're having a trouble installing Android Studio and JDK, writing the code or running the finished app, let me know in the comments section below and I'll be of help.

Have a lovely day and catch you next time on StemSocial. Goodbye ❤️

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