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I need to create an Android application, I'm not sure which is a better way of doing this by better I mean should I use the WebView or create an application .

I need to implement the existing application which is a ASP.NET application which mainly consists of a login screen, once the user logs in he will see a list a items in probably a gridview based on the selection from the gridview. He then will be shown more detailed info about the selected item.

The above is a web application I need to implement this as a app on Android phone.

Also there will be a need to use the GPS where based on the GPS values the department will be selected and also use the camera to take a picture and save it on to the server .

A solution which I was thinking of was to expose .NET web services and then access it in the android phone!

But I am very new to Android development and really do not how to go about this. Is there any better solution?

Can anyone help me as to how do I go about this ?

laurent
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francis
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  • I think the better approach is to use native android sdk and make app In which you will get all related information.let me know if you have any problem will ready to help you. – Anand Jan 18 '11 at 09:58

2 Answers2

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Pros:

  • Android App may work faster then web applications (but still depends on web page complexity)
  • By the help of this community and android developer site you can complete your app within a 2-3 weeks.
  • As you stated picture capture/upload and GPS etc are advantages of the smart phone app.

Cons:

  • Later, you may need iPhone, Blackberry apps!

Instead of .Net web service which typically returns XML, you can go for HTTP call with JSON response (I've seen it in Asp.net MVC). So that you can easily parse the data on android app.

Added:

HTTP call:

HttpClient httpClient = new DefaultHttpClient();
HttpContext localContext = new BasicHttpContext();
HttpGet httpGet = new HttpGet(getString(R.string.WebServiceURL) + "/cfc/iphonewebservice.cfc?returnformat=json&method=validateUserLogin&username=" + URLEncoder.encode(sUserName) + "&password=" + URLEncoder.encode(sPassword,"UTF-8"));
HttpResponse response = httpClient.execute(httpGet, localContext);

BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(response.getEntity().getContent(), "UTF-8"));
String sResponse = reader.readLine();
JSONObject JResponse = new JSONObject(sResponse);
String sMessage = JResponse.getString("MESSAGE");
int success = JResponse.getInt("SUCCESS")
Vikas
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  • Hi Vikas, Thanks for your reply . Can you point me to an example for the HTTP call with JSON response and how do i parse in an Andriod App ? Thanks – francis Jan 18 '11 at 11:44
  • There are lost of blog on that.. [one](http://lukencode.com/2010/04/27/calling-web-services-in-android-using-httpclient/) and [second](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3605077/how-can-i-parse-this-json-in-android/3605169#3605169) – Vikas Jan 18 '11 at 11:56
  • Thank you Vikas. will use those . – francis Jan 18 '11 at 13:24
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There are two approaches available to you:

  1. Build an Android app.
  2. Build a webapp, using W3C geolocation to access GPS coordinates. (see geo-location-javascript)

If you go for option (1), you'll want to expose your .NET service as a simple REST API (using JSON as Vikas suggested to make it just that bit simpler!)

Android already comes with all the components needed to access and parse such a REST API, specifically the Apache HTTP and JSON packages, and can be iterated on rather quickly once you have the basic request/parse framework in place.

Dave
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