Top 5 Android Libraries — May 2017

The best Android libraries to try out this month.

Hey fellow Android enthusiasts, you already know the drill. New month — new libs! So far we’ve had some pretty cool ones, and we are glad to see people are actually trying them out. Your feedback is what inspires us to continue doing this! Once again, we’ve checked out lots and lots of nice libs and tried to pick the best. Here they are, this month’s favorites:

0. MaterialChipsInput

Interesting library which shows the list of selectable contacts, in quite a fancy way. It also contains ChipView and EditText. Among other options, it’s possible to add avatar icon, make view deletable, change background colour, or enable/disable touching a chip which open a full detailed view.

1. SpruceAnimations

’cause we just love our animations, don’t we? :) When designers set up complex multi-view animations, this is the lib to call out for help. Spruce provides 8 SortFunction (change the order in which views animate) implementations, but there is a possibility to make more. For example:

Animator spruceAnimator = new Spruce

.SpruceBuilder(parentViewGroup)

.sortWith(new LinearSort(/*interObjectDelay=*/100L,

/*reversed=*/false, LinearSort.Direction.TOP_TO_BOTTOM))

.animateWith(DefaultAnimations.shrinkAnimator

(parentViewGroup, /*duration=*/800)).start();

Try all sorts of functions to find the one that is perfect for you!

2. DiscreteScrollView

If you need to show one item from the list in a center of the screen, while keeping other items partially or fully visible, try DiscreteScrollView. Current item can be changed using swipes. To set up this:

add DiscreteScrollView to your layout using xml or code

create your implementation of RecyclerView.Adapter

set the adapter

3. CircleMenu

Hamburger icon may sometimes come as boring, but with cool icons around it and a circular layout, it can get way more elegant. Create a simple menu on the screen using just a few icons and enjoy the animations!

4. StateProgressBar

Do you need to show a progress of some process? StateProgressBar does exactly that, but with the spice of a cool animation. In this view, you can add max state number, background colours of state and state number, state description colour, add/remove animation, and so on.