As of August 31, 2023, all apps that help Put on OS should meet Put on OS app high quality necessities so as to be printed on the Google Play Retailer.
This weblog put up walks you thru obtainable instruments and libraries — together with the Horologist library, the Put on OS emulator in Android Studio, and adaptive icons — that can assist you extra simply meet a few of these necessities.
Horologist is an open supply challenge, constructed on prime of Jetpack Compose, which helps builders speed up app improvement. We suggest adopting Horologist to facilitate compliance with the next Google Play Retailer necessities.
When a display is scrollable, a scrollbar ought to seem as a result of this means to customers that there’s extra content material on the display.
Use Horologist’s ScreenScaffold to routinely add a place indicator to your app’s scrollable screens and make the scrollbar seen when the consumer is scrolling. Moreover, use AppScaffold from Horologist to protect the scroll place when navigating between screens and animate the TimeText factor when shifting between pages.
See an instance on how one can use Horologist ScreenScaffold and Horologist AppScaffold within the Put on OS pattern on GitHub.
A Put on OS app ought to show all the contents of visible parts; textual content and controls shouldn’t be minimize off by the display edges.
To ensure parts on the prime and the underside of the display are absolutely seen, use the Horologist rememberResponsiveColumnState() with a ScalingLazyColumn, as proven within the instance under:
Moreover, the rememberResponsiveColumnState() handles the rotary enter routinely.
For a full instance, see the ComposeStarter pattern on Github.
The Put on OS emulator, obtainable in Android Studio, is useful each through the improvement of your app and as a instrument for testing. Use the emulator to assist your app meet the next necessities.
Ranging from the Android Studio Hedgehog launch, the Put on OS emulator permits you to take Play itemizing suitable screenshots. These screenshots don’t embrace any masking, comparable to machine photos, and use a black background.
You’ll be able to generate Play suitable screenshots by finishing these steps:
1) Begin an occasion of the emulator.
2) Take a screenshot.
3) Within the drop-down menu close to the highest of the screenshot preview, choose the “Play Retailer suitable” choice:
Your textual content content material ought to scale accurately when a consumer modifications the textual content dimension within the watch settings. Just like the watch shapes necessities, when the consumer modifications textual content sizes, your app’s visible parts shouldn’t overlap, or be minimize off on the display edges. By adopting Horologist responsive parts, comparable to rememberResponsiveColumnState(), you can also make positive your parts are responsive.
You should use the emulator to visually confirm that your app’s content material behaves as anticipated. To pick out a unique textual content dimension, go to Settings > Accessibility > Textual content Measurement and choose completely different sizes, as proven from the emulator screenshot under. Moreover, it’s best to take a look at your app’s content material scaling conduct on completely different show sizes. The emulator helps a number of show sizes, together with Put on OS Small Spherical (192x192dp) and Put on OS Giant Spherical (227x227dp).
Along with performing guide visible checks (which you’ll obtain by utilizing Compose Previews), add automated screenshot testing to catch regressions on completely different resolutions. See an instance in Put on OS samples checks, which makes use of Roborazzi to implement screenshot testing.
Lastly, keep tuned for the brand new screenshot testing preview instrument, launched at #TheAndroidShow (minute 8:53) and described in additional element at DroidCon London. This instrument is coming quickly to Android Studio.
Beginning in Put on OS 4, the system routinely exhibits the app icon because the splash display icon, except your app makes use of a customized theme and must hold the splash display on-screen for longer durations. When you’re utilizing a customized theme, migrate to the SplashScreen API.
Adaptive icons, launched in Android 8.0, let builders present icons that adapt to varied display sizes and shapes. By utilizing Adaptive icons, you possibly can extra simply meet the splash display high quality guideline, which requires that your app’s splash display icon should be a spherical icon and match the icon proven within the record of apps on a Put on OS machine.
See a full working instance within the Put on OS pattern on GitHub.
On this blogpost, we reviewed how completely different instruments and libraries — together with the Horologist challenge, Put on OS emulator in Android Studio, and adaptive icons — might help you meet the Put on OS app high quality necessities, together with:
For extra developer and design steerage go to d.android.com/put on. We stay up for seeing the unbelievable experiences you create subsequent in your Put on OS app!