NYTimesSearch is an android app that allows a user to search for articles on web using simple filters. The app utilizes New York Times Search API.
Time spent: 15 hours spent in total
The following required functionality is completed:
- User can search for news article by specifying a query and launching a search. Search displays a grid of image results from the New York Times Search API.
- Used the ActionBar SearchView or custom layout as the query box
- User can click on "settings" which allows selection of advanced search options to filter results
- User can configure advanced search filters such as:
- Begin Date (using a date picker)
- News desk values (Arts, Fashion & Style, Sports)
- Sort order (oldest or newest)
- Subsequent searches have any filters applied to the search results
- User can tap on any image in results to see the full text of article full-screen
- User can scroll down to see more articles. The maximum number of articles is limited by the API search.
- User can share an article link to their friends or email it to themselves
The following optional features are implemented:
- Improved the user interface and experiment with image assets and/or styling and coloring
- Replaced Filter Settings Activity with a lightweight modal overlay
- Implements robust error handling, check if internet is available, handle error cases, network failures
- Use the RecyclerView with the
StaggeredGridLayoutManager
to display improve the grid of image results
The following stretch features are implemented:
- For different news articles that only have text or only have images, use Heterogenous Layouts with RecyclerView
- Apply the popular Butterknife annotation library to reduce view boilerplate.
- Use Parcelable instead of Serializable using the popular Parceler library.
- Replace Picasso with Glide for more efficient image rendering.
- Leverages the data binding support module to bind data into layout templates.
- Uses retrolambda expressions to cleanup event handling blocks.
- Leverage the popular GSON library to streamline the parsing of JSON data.
- Leverage the popular Retrofit networking library to access the New York Times API.
The following additional features are implemented:
- Utilized okhttp and rxjava for networking
- Utilized Icepick for storing and restoring state during rotation
Here's a walkthrough of implemented user stories:
GIF created with LiceCap.
I used Jackson to parse JSON into Parcelables and generate model using Yelp's Parcelgen. It's indeed more reliable than GSON created from the online parser. The app would crash on opening URL after a few rotations.
- Okhttp - An easy-to-use HTTP client
- Glide - Image loading and caching library for Android
- Icepick - An Android library that eliminates the boilerplate of saving and restoring instance state.
- Butterknife - Field and method binding for Android views
- Retrofit - An Android network library
- RxJava - a library for composing asynchronous and event-based programs by using observable sequences
Copyright [Jiafang Jiang]
Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at
http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.