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Your first Android App with Chat21 SDK

Introduction

With this tutorial you will learn how to create a fully functional chat as a Single View Application

The full code of this tutorial is available on GitHub:

Download Source Code

Prerequisites

Before you begin, you need a few things to set up in your environment:

• Android Studio 3.0.0 or later
• Android SDK Build-Tools 26.0.2 or later
• A Firebase project correctly configured and the Chat21 Firebase cloud functions installed. Detailed instructions here

Configure authentication

Enable email signin in Firebase console

Create a user to test chat functions

Choose email and a password

Add the user with “ADD USER” button.

Create the Android Studio project

This first tutorial will focus on the creation of a simple single view application. In the next (upcoming) tutorial we will approach the creation of a more realistic multi tab application (similar to Whatsapp).

First open Android Studio, select Start a new Android Studio Project and insert the project info using MyChat as project name and insert your team

NOTE: Take note of the Package name, it will be used in the following steps

Select the Phone and Tablet > API Android 19: 4.4 (Kitkat) as minimum SDK

Select Empty Activity

Insert the Activity and the Layout name

Create the Firebase Android App

Switch on project on Firebase, go to the Firebase Console > Project Overview and add a Android App to your project by clicking on “Add Android App” and follow the setup steps.

When prompted, enter your app’s Package name (you have pinned previously ). It’s important to enter the Package name your app is using, this can only be set when you add an app to your Firebase project.

At the end, you’ll download a google-services.json file. You can download this file again at any time.

Now add this file to your Android project App root
.

Add Firebase libs to the project

Now go back to your Android project and add firebase libraries to your project.

First, add rules to your root-level build.gradle file, to include the google-services plugin and the Google’s Maven repository:

buildscript {
    // ...
    dependencies {
        // ...
        classpath 'com.google.gms:google-services:3.1.1'
    }
}

allprojects {
    // ...
    repositories {
        // ...
        google()
    }
}

Then, in your module Gradle file (usually the app/build.gradle), add the apply plugin line at the bottom of the file to enable the Gradle plugin:

apply plugin: 'com.android.application'
// ...
dependencies {
    // ...
    implementation "com.google.android.gms:play-services:11.8.0"
}
// ... 
apply plugin: 'com.google.gms.google-services'

NOTE: the complete guide to add Firebase libs to you project is available here: https://firebase.google.com/docs/android/setup

Install Chat21 libraries

Add the following to your app/build.gradle file:

defaultConfig {
// ...
multiDexEnabled true
}
dependencies {
// ...
compile 'com.android.support:multidex:1.0.1'
compile "com.google.android.gms:play-services:11.8.0"
compile 'com.android.support:design:26.1.0'
compile 'org.chat21.android:chat21:1.0.10'
compile 'com.vanniktech:emoji-ios:0.5.1'
}
// ...
configurations.all {
    resolutionStrategy.eachDependency { DependencyResolveDetails details ->
        def requested = details.requested
        if (requested.group == 'com.android.support') {
            if (!requested.name.startsWith("multidex")) {
                details.useVersion '26.1.0'
            }
        }
    }
}

Create a custom Application class

public class AppContext extends Application {

@Override
protected void attachBaseContext(Context base) {
    super.attachBaseContext(base);
           MultiDex.install(this); // add this
    }
}

and add it to the Manifest.xml