Hello world, today we are going to see the top 10 libraries for the android developer that they should know about. You can use these libraries or you can also use their equivalent libraries if you like. These top 10 libraries are based on my experience this list can be different from person to person. The top 10 libraries every Android developer should know are listed below.
- Fast Android Networking Library
- Glide
- Room Persistence Library
- Firebase Cloud Firestore
- Crashlytics
- LeakCanary
- ExoPlayer
- Firebase Auth
- Firebase Storage
- Facebook Shimmer
1. Fast Android Networking Library
Fast android networking as the name suggests this library is used for making HTTP requests. But what makes this library stand out of other libraries is its simplicity of use that everyone can start using it without any other requirement or follow any pattern.
Just add this library to your project and start using it. It uses OkHttp and Okio which makes it fast also supports RxJava.
Top features of Fast Android Networking Library:
- You can upload or download file with progress,
- You can cancel any request easily,
- Support RxJava,
- Uses OkHttp and Okio as core dependency,
- JSON handling is super easy,
- Can customize requests for example timeout etc.
- Can Load images from the internet so no need to use any other library for image loading from the internet.
Here is a simple example of how you can make a request and get JSON.
See the official documentation here.
2. Glide
Glide is a fast, smooth, and efficient way to load images from the internal with super caching mechanism implementation. It uses very little memory to work and provide other functions for cropping and resizing the image.
It supports animated GIFs. There are other libraries for image loading that I have used but the Glide is different and advanced from other libraries and I become a fan of this library.
The top Features of Glide are:
- Fast and efficient image loading,
- Amazing caching implementation,
- Can crop the image,
- Can resize the image,
- Support animated GIFs
Here is a simple example of Gilde.
You can read more on how to use glide in android here.
Official documentation here.
3. Room Persistence Library
If you ever worked with the SQLite database in the android then you understand that it is back pain to write code for SQLite.
To rescue you from this situation you can use Room Persistence Library which provides an abstract layer to easily work with the SQLite database with all operations.
Room Library is a part of Android Architecture Components which means it belongs directly to Google. You can use it with RxJava.
The 3 major components of the Room are:
- Database
- Entity (act as Table)
- DAO (to perform database actions)
Check official documentation here.
4. Firebase Cloud Firestore
Firebase Cloud Firestore is a NoSQL database hosted on the cloud and it is offered by Google. Firestore is a highly scalable and flexible database with expressive queries that help to get a specific document from the database.
Firestore can listen to the realtime value change so that you can make realtime applications very easily. Not only this you can use your application even if your device is offline thanks to offline support from Firestore.
With all these features you can definitely deliver a high-quality app to your users.
Firebase Cloud Firestore top features:
- NoSQL Database
- Highly Scalable and Flexible
- Realtime Update
- Expressive query to get specific data
- Offline support
- Deliver a high-quality experience to the users
- Integrate with other technologies e.g IOS, Web and Server
Check this a basic example of Firebase Cloud Firestore.
You can read a detailed tutorial on working with Firestore in android here.
Official documentation can be found here.
5. Crashlytics
Crashlytics is a realtime crash reporting system for making your app high quality and can solve critical errors in the user’s mobile. In simple words, you can get the error or crash report if it happens on any device.
Crashlytics only supports Android, IOS, and unity based games. Crashlytocs is not for web and servers. But crashlytics is a must library that you should use in your app, because it lets you know how your app is performing and what was the error in the user’s device and these errors will be displayed on your crashlytics panel in the firebase console.
So you can deliver a crash-free app to your users. To integrate crashlytics you just need to add this library in your project and you are done and rest of the things crashlytics will do for you.
The top features of Crashlytics are:
- Realtime reporting
- Easy Error Grouping
- Device info where Error occurred
- Better dashboard for tracking crashes
Official documentation can be found here.
6. LeakCanary
The memory leak can be a big issue. Memory leak caused when your app makes space in the memory for data and later when you don’t need that data but it is still in the memory and Garbage Collectors unable to clear that data from the memory because Garbage Collectors thinking that it is still in use and this will keep happening and this will lead crash your app and raise out of the memory exception.
So it is our responsibility to know if there is any memory leak in the app. To detect memory leaks in the android app we can utilize this amazing library that is LeakCanary.
Just add this library and run and use your app if any memory leaks are happing in the app then this library will give a notification in your device to notify you for the memory leaks and you can take better actions.
Features of LeanCanary are:
- Easy to use
- Efficiently detect memory leaks
- Notify if any leak detect through notification
Here you read on their official website.
7. ExoPlayer
In today’s world, video consumption is increasing as we have faster internet speed than before. The biggest video consumption platform is youtube.
As a developer if you are curious about how youtube plays video from the internet. How it handles the video stream then you should look at exoplayer because youtube is built with the exoplayer.
Youtube uses exoplayer for playing the video and the good news is you can too use exoplayer for making the app for video playing.
Another good app is TikTok which is famous worldwide too. By using the exoplayer you can make any video-based apps.
Exoplayer can paly video very smoothly and support adaptive playback.
Some features of Exoplayer are:
- Easy to customize
- Support DASH, Progressive, Smooth Streaming and HLS
- Adaptive Playback
- Play video from local or from internet
Read more about ExoPlayer on the official site here.
8. Firebase Auth
Sometimes we need authentication for the user to save the data according to the different users. To do that we need some kind of a login system and this login system helps to authenticate the users for certain actions like we discussed above.
There can be any use case for using the authentication. If you don’t know the server backend language or you want a fast implementation then Firebase Auth is definitely a choice to go with.
Firebase auth supports many site logins including Google, Facebook, and GitHub, etc or even you can authenticate users by phone number or OTP based authentication.
You should give it a shot if you haven’t already.
Some amazing features of Firebase Auth are:
- Support almost every site logins
- Easy to integrate
- No need to write login logic at the server backend
- Firebase UI for making implementation fast.
The official documentation is here.
9. Firebase Storage
Uploading file handling on android devices as well as the server-side can be hard for beginners or even intermediate developers. To make uploading functionality for your app and keep things simple and manageable way, you should use Firebase Storage.
Firebase Storage is very easy to use to upload any file to the Firebase storage bucket. After uploading you can save the file link in your database for later use. You can show a progress bar to the users to notify how much a file uploaded.
Firebase Storage provides you resume and pause functionality and if there is any interruption while uploading then it will resume the uploading when getting the right internet connection.
Top features of Firebase Storage are:
- Resume/Pause Functionality
- Smooth implementation
- Fast uploading as it uses Google’s servers.
- Easy to use
Above is the sample code of the Firebase Storage.
Check this tutorial on How to upload a file using Firebase Storage.
Here is the official documentation: Cloud Storage.
10. Facebook Shimmer
If you load data from the server then it is obvious that it will take some time to fetch the data from the server and show that data in the view.
In the meanwhile fetching the data user will see nothing on the screen which is a bad user experience you should indicate the user to wait for the data to be load.
To indicate the user o loading the data we can use a progress bar to show circular loading but making a more professional app we need something more.
If you ever nothing in the Facebook android app when the data is load there is a placeholder in grey color with some animation. Look below for more clarity.
This animation can be achieved by using the Facebook Shimmer library.
Check this Tutorial to make facebook shimmer in your app.
The official site is here.
This brings us to the end of this article. Thank you for reading, hope you learned something new or it helped you in some way.
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