In the previous section, you created an Android app that contains the Guestbook Mobile SDK and Liferay Screens. You also used Login Screenlet to implement authentication to Liferay DXP. That’s all your app does though. It doesn’t display any Guestbook portlet content. In this section of the Learning Path, you’ll create Guestbook List Screenlet to retrieve and display the portlet’s guestbooks in your app’s navigation drawer.
Creating your own Screenlets brings additional benefits. Since you use a consistent, repeatable development model to create them, you can often reuse code when creating other Screenlets. You can also package and reuse Screenlets in other apps. What’s more, Screenlet UIs are fully pluggable. This lets you change a Screenlet’s appearance quickly without affecting its functionality. In summary, Screenlets are pretty much the greatest thing since sliced bread. Now it’s time to make a sandwich.
As background material, the following materials are helpful:
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Getting started: creating the Screenlet’s package, and model class.
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Creating the Screenlet’s UI (its View).
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Creating the Screenlet’s Interactor. Interactors are Screenlet components that make server calls.
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Creating the Screenlet class. The Screenlet class governs the Screenlet’s behavior.
Before beginning, you should read the following tutorials:
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Architecture of Liferay Screens for Android: Explains the components that constitute a Screenlet, and how they relate to one another.
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Creating Android Screenlets: Explains the general steps for creating a Screenlet.
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Creating Android List Screenlets: Explains the general steps for creating a list Screenlet. This section of the Learning Path follows this tutorial.
Note that these tutorials explain Screenlet and list Screenlet concepts that this Learning Path doesn’t cover in depth. Although it’s possible to complete this Learning Path without reading these tutorials, they explain how Screenlets work in more detail. By reading them you’ll be better able to apply the Learning Path material to your own Screenlets.
If you get confused or stuck while creating Guestbook List Screenlet, refer to the finished app that contains the Screenlet code here in GitHub.