Developing Android Applications with Arctis

Abstract

The focus of this thesis is the design of Android applications from building blocks in Arctis. The Arctis tool is used for modeling applications with UML activities, which already can be deployed on the Java ME and Java SE platforms. State machines and a runtime support system are generated. Creation of a generator for Arctis, enabling deployment to the Android platform, is the key element in this work. The Android platform is presented using an example application. A discussion on challenges, solutions and architectures for the design and implementation of Android applications using Arctis is presented. Then, the example application is redesigned using Arctis building blocks and deployed as a Java project using the existing code generator for Java SE. The adaptations necessary for turning the Java project into a runnable Android project is studied in detail and serves as a basis for the development of our code generator, along with the discussion. After describing our code generator, several building blocks are designed for an Android building block library. Demonstration of the code generator and the building blocks are done by designing and deploying an Android application named emph{TwitterFromAndroid}.