Welcome to the world of Android development! Today, we’ll explore how to create the CoolWeather app, a robust Android application structured using clean architecture principles. This app is designed with Kotlin, utilizes Kotlin Coroutines, and integrates Android Architecture Components with Hilt for Dependency Injection. Ready to dive in? Let’s go!

Understanding the Architecture Layers

The backbone of the CoolWeather app is its layered architecture. To understand how this works, you can think of an organization:

• The Presentation Layer is akin to the marketing department, showcasing products (app features) to consumers (users) without needing to know the intricacies of production.
• The Domain Layer is like the engineering team that creates the technical specs of products. It ensures that everything is designed for purpose and functionality.
• The Data Layer serves as the supply chain, sourcing data and delivering it to various departments without getting involved in the details of each department’s operations.

Presentation Layer

The presentation layer employs the Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) architecture.

• ViewModels provide LiveData, acting as a single source of truth for the views.
• Events emitted are wrapped in a Result class, utilizing Kotlin’s sealed classes to express various application states in a clear way.

This clean separation allows for a responsive UI without the ViewModel needing to know its consumers, promoting a loosely coupled architecture.

Domain Layer

In this layer, we define UseCases that represent specific tasks essential for business logic.

• Each UseCase exposes a suspend operator fun invoke that returns a Result.
• ViewModels interact with these UseCases to execute the necessary business logic.
• This layer includes repository interfaces and domain entities, which are stable and unlikely to change when external factors shift.

Importantly, this layer should not depend on other layers, ensuring that it remains the core of your application’s logic.

Data Layer

The data layer implements the repository interfaces defined in the domain layer.

• This layer provides a single source of truth for the app’s data, effectively managing data retrieval and storage.
• It hides the data origin details, facilitating clean checks and caching mechanisms without contaminating upper layers.

Whether using a custom caching method or an SQLite database, the data layer ensures efficient and organized data handling.

Getting Started: Build Instructions

To run the CoolWeather app, follow these setup instructions:

• Register at OpenWeatherMap API to obtain an API Key.
• Configure the gradle.properties file with the obtained API Key (apiToken).

This structure means you’ll have a maintainable and scalable application that’s easy to enhance as your user base grows.

Troubleshooting

If you encounter issues while building or running the app, consider the following tips:

• Ensure your API Key is valid and correctly set in the gradle.properties file.
• Double-check all dependencies in your build.gradle files for any version conflicts.
• Run a clean build in your IDE to eliminate any potential cache issues.

For more insights, updates, or to collaborate on AI development projects, stay connected with fxis.ai.

Conclusion

By following the Clean Architecture principles in our Android app, we can create apps that are not only functional but also easy to maintain and extend. At fxis.ai, we believe that such advancements are crucial for the future of AI, as they enable more comprehensive and effective solutions. Our team is continually exploring new methodologies to push the envelope in artificial intelligence, ensuring that our clients benefit from the latest technological innovations.