Anko is a Kotlin library which makes Android application development faster and easier. It makes your code clean and easy to read, and lets you forget about rough edges of the Android SDK for Java.
Anko consists of several parts:
- Anko Commons: a lightweight library full of helpers for intents, dialogs, logging and so on;
- Anko Layouts: a fast and type-safe way to write dynamic Android layouts;
- Anko SQLite: a query DSL and parser collection for Android SQLite;
- Anko Coroutines: utilities based on the kotlinx.coroutines library.
Anko Commons is a "toolbox" for Kotlin Android developer. The library contains a lot of helpers for Android SDK, including, but not limited to:
Anko Coroutines (wiki)
Anko Coroutines is based on the kotlinx.coroutines
library and provides:
bg()
function that executes your code in a common pool.asReference()
function which creates a weak reference wrapper. By default, a coroutine holds references to captured objects until it is finished or canceled. If your asynchronous framework does not support cancellation, the values you use inside the asynchronous block can be leaked.asReference()
protects you from this.
Anko has a meta-dependency which plugs in all available features (including Commons, Layouts, SQLite) into your project at once:
dependencies {
implementation "org.jetbrains.anko:anko:$anko_version"
}
Make sure that you have the $anko_version
settled in your gradle file at the project level:
ext.anko_version='0.10.8'
If you only need some of the features, you can reference any of Anko's parts:
dependencies {
// Anko Commons
implementation "org.jetbrains.anko:anko-commons:$anko_version"
// Anko Layouts
implementation "org.jetbrains.anko:anko-sdk25:$anko_version" // sdk15, sdk19, sdk21, sdk23 are also available
implementation "org.jetbrains.anko:anko-appcompat-v7:$anko_version"
// Coroutine listeners for Anko Layouts
implementation "org.jetbrains.anko:anko-sdk25-coroutines:$anko_version"
implementation "org.jetbrains.anko:anko-appcompat-v7-coroutines:$anko_version"
// Anko SQLite
implementation "org.jetbrains.anko:anko-sqlite:$anko_version"
}
There are also a number of artifacts for the Android support libraries:
dependencies {
// Appcompat-v7 (only Anko Commons)
implementation "org.jetbrains.anko:anko-appcompat-v7-commons:$anko_version"
// Appcompat-v7 (Anko Layouts)
implementation "org.jetbrains.anko:anko-appcompat-v7:$anko_version"
implementation "org.jetbrains.anko:anko-coroutines:$anko_version"
// CardView-v7
implementation "org.jetbrains.anko:anko-cardview-v7:$anko_version"
// Design
implementation "org.jetbrains.anko:anko-design:$anko_version"
implementation "org.jetbrains.anko:anko-design-coroutines:$anko_version"
// GridLayout-v7
implementation "org.jetbrains.anko:anko-gridlayout-v7:$anko_version"
// Percent
implementation "org.jetbrains.anko:anko-percent:$anko_version"
// RecyclerView-v7
implementation "org.jetbrains.anko:anko-recyclerview-v7:$anko_version"
implementation "org.jetbrains.anko:anko-recyclerview-v7-coroutines:$anko_version"
// Support-v4 (only Anko Commons)
implementation "org.jetbrains.anko:anko-support-v4-commons:$anko_version"
// Support-v4 (Anko Layouts)
implementation "org.jetbrains.anko:anko-support-v4:$anko_version"
// ConstraintLayout
implementation "org.jetbrains.anko:anko-constraint-layout:$anko_version"
}
There is an example project showing how to include Anko library into your Android Gradle project.
If your project is not based on Gradle, just attach the required JARs from the jcenter repository as the library dependencies and that's it.
The best way to submit a patch is to send us a pull request. Before submitting the pull request, make sure all existing tests are passing, and add the new test if it is required.
If you want to add new functionality, please file a new proposal issue first to make sure that it is not in progress already. If you have any questions, feel free to create a question issue.
Instructions for building Anko are available in the Wiki.