Preface

Jetpack Compose is a paradigm shift in Android development and introduces a lot of new concepts that are essential for any Android developer to learn. It solves a lot of pain points that are associated with Android development, and it is touted to be the default way to build Android apps over the next few years.

Using practical examples, you will learn about the fundamental concepts of Jetpack Compose and how to use them when you build your own Android applications. The book starts with an in-depth explanation of the declarative approach, its differences, and its advantages over traditional UI frameworks. Having laid this foundation, we will get practical and write our first composable functions. After that, we will cover layouts, an important core component of every UI framework. Having mastered them, we will move on to more advanced topics such as animation, testing, and architecture best practices.

The second edition has been thoroughly updated to reflect all changes and additions that were made by Google since the initial stable release. All examples are based on Material 3 (also named Material You).