Introduction

Please carefully read this guide in order to fully configure this template, and remember to test it on a Real Device – the Emulator may fail.

An internet connection is required.

IMPORTANT: The backend of this template is the DBase API.

A VPS Server, minimum 2GB RAM, 1 vCPUs is required to run the DBase API.
I strongly recommend you to use AWS Lightsail with Ubuntu 18.04, solid servers and good prices
In case you want to use a different backend, you'd need to change 80% of the code. Please note that I will not be responsible for any bug encountered after editing the original source code

Quick Start

BEFORE running this app on your own device via Anroid Studio and test it, you must do the following:
  • Copy the path (URL) where you’ve hosted the DBase files - ex: https://mydomain.com/dbasefiles - and replace the string of the DATABASE_PATH variable in the DBase.java file with your URL: 
     public static String DATABASE_PATH = "http://xsgames.co/__apps/xsnews/";
  • Enter the _Tables folder on your server and delete the Users.json and Posts.json files
  • Upload the JSON files included in the Tables folder of this template’s package into the _Tables folder
Your app is now connected to your DBase backend!

General

Android Studio

This template has native Android Java/XML code so you can edit it only with Android Studio. If you don’t have it, download it for free.

Download Android Studio
PLEASE NOTE that you’ll need the latest official version of Android Studio, NO BETAS, because Betas are always buggy and never work properly.
Please make sure you have installed the following SDK Tools:

Change App Name

Enter the string.xml file – it’s into the res/values folder in Android Studio – and replace the App Name of this line with your new one: 
 <string> string name="app_name"> XSNews </string>

Change the Package Name

  • In the Project panel on the left side, click on the little gear icon.
  • Uncheck the Compact Empty Middle Packages option.
  • Your package directory will get separated into single directories, I'd suggest you to leave the com folder as it is and rename the other ones.
    So, for each directory you want to rename:
    • Right-click on it
    • Select Refactor -> Rename...
    • Click Rename Package in the popup
    • Enter a new name in the text field and click Refactor
    • Click Do Refractor in the Refactoring Preview tab on the bottom
    • Android Studio will update the changes, it may take a few seconds, just wait for the process to be done.


Next, open build.gradle (the Module app one) in Android Studio and rename the applicationId into your new package name, then click Sync Now on the top-right corner.

Reskin the UI design of the app

This project contains .xml files stored into the res/layout folder. Those files are the ones where you can edit all Views, Buttons texts, TextView’s strings, and all Views attributes – position, font color, size, etc.

Alert messages are located in the code, they can be edited only in the .java files.

All images are stored in the drawable folders, where the app icons are stored into the mipmap folders.

Terms of Use and Privacy Policy

Open the tou.html file form the left-side panel’s list in Android Studio and edit it accordingly to your own Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Also, replace the APP_NAME words with the new name you assigned to your App.

Please also pay attention to this line: 
 "mailto:support@yourdomain.com">support@yourdomain.com
There are a few identical lines like that in the tou.html file, so you must replace support@yourdomain.com with a valid email address where people can contact you for any question, feedback or in case they want to delete their account.

Delete a User’s account upon request

Accordingly to GDPR Terms, you have 24 hours to delete an account after receiving a deletion request. In order for you to delete an account, you first need to identify the user’s row in the Users table of your Database, keep a note of its ID_id value, select that row and click the Delete Row(s) button.
Then, just search for that ID_id value you’ve previously noted in all the other Tables of your database, check out all the rows until you’ll find that ID_id and delete it – this happens in case it appears into some Array type columns.

Use the Search filters function to find an ID_id in your database:

Reported content

People are allowed to report inappropriate/offensive News or Comments.
Once a News gets reported, the Admin will also receive an email about it, so he’ll be able to check if an article is not good and remove it. When a comment gets reported, no email is sent, anyway, the best thing to do is to daily check your database for the AR_rportedBy column in both the News and Comments tables, and if some ID is present, take action for it asap, Accordingly to GDPR Terms, which may be to delete the reported row by selecting it and clicking the – Delete Row(s) button.

Configurations

• The strings.xml file

You can find this file into the res/values folder in Android Studio. Open this file and keep reading this guide, you’ll have to perform some edits in this file in order to get your template ready to run.

App Name

Replace the following name with the new one you want to give to this app in this line: 
 <string> string name="app_name"> XSNews </string>

AdMob Ads

Replace the values of these variables with your own Interstitial Unit ID and App ID strings. 
 <string>name="ADMOB_INTERSTITIAL_UNIT_ID">ca-app-pub-3940256099942544/1033173712
 <string>name="ADMOB_APP_ID">ca-app-pub-3940256099942544~3347511713
You have to create your Unit ID at apps.admob.com
Follow the instructions on the AdMob’s website in case you don’t know how to generate an AdMob Unit ID.

• The DBase.java file

Open this file in Android Studio and keep reading this guide, you’ll have to perform some edits in this file in order to get your template ready to run

DBase database and admin panel

To install and configure the DBase admin panel into your VPS server, please follow the instructions of its README file
Once you’ll have the DBase files ready in your own server, enter the _Tables folder and:
  • Delete the Users.json and Posts.json files
  • Upload the JSON files included in the Tables folder of this template’s package
In this way, you’ll get all the necessary Tables and columns for this app to work, without having to manually create them in the DBase Dashboard.
Data will be empty, so after you’ll get this app’s configurations done, you’ll be able to sign up with test Users, post items, and all the other features.

Custom Colors

You can edit the HEX values of the following variables as you wish, change the numbers before the # symbol. The main color of the app and some UI will be affected by your change: 
 public static String MAIN_COLOR = "#d44e68";
   public static String BLACK_COLOR = "#252525";
   public static String DARK_BROWN_COLOR = "#32292E";
   public static String LIGHT_GREY =  "#F2F3F7";
PLEASE NOTE that not all views will be affected by changing the HEX values above, you may still need to go through some XML file and adjust the colors on your own with the right-side Attributes panel.

Custom fonts

This App uses some custom fonts for Buttons, TextViews and EditTexts. The font files are stored into the app/src/main/assets/font folder and are declared in this line: 
 public static Typeface psBold, psRegular, psItalic, psBoldItalic;
These fonts are initialized into the onCreate() function as follows: 
 psRegular = Typeface.createFromAsset(getAssets(),"font/Product Sans Regular.ttf");
psBold = Typeface.createFromAsset(getAssets(),"font/Product Sans Bold.ttf");
psBoldItalic = Typeface.createFromAsset(getAssets(),"font/Product Sans Bold Italic.ttf");
psItalic = Typeface.createFromAsset(getAssets(),"font/Product Sans Italic.ttf");
In case you want to add a new font, you have to first drag your .ttf or .otf font file into the app/src/main/assets/font folder.
Then instantiate it at the end of the public static Typeface line that’s into the onCreate() function – let’s pretend you have a font file called Helvetica-Bold.ttf, you may add an instance called hBold (it’s just an example, name it as you wish since it’s a variable): 
 public static Typeface popBold, popSemibold, ... hBold;
Lastly, import its path into the onCreate() function like the existing ones. Based on the font example above, your new line of code may look like this: 
 hBold = Typeface.createFromAsset(getAssets(),"font/helvetica-Bold.ttf");

Admin email

Replace the email address of this variable into the one you want users to get in touch to: 
 public static String ADMIN_EMAIL = "admin@email.com";

List of Categories

The array below contains all the categories of this application, you are free to edit its elements as you wish – they are just Strings – but DO NOT remove the first 2 elements, since they search for the latest and most viewed articles. Also, remember to insert lowercased strings, no uppercase strings allowed, as shown below: 
 // LIST OF CATEGORIES
   public static String[] categoriesArray = {
      // THESE 2 CATEGORIES MUST STAY IN THIS POSITION AND CANNOT BE DELETED
      "latest",
      "trending",
      
    
      //---------------------
      // CATEGORIES:
      "world",
      "health",
      "tech",
      "movies",
      "politics",
      "music",
      "business",
      "games",
      "books",
      "sport",
      "science",
      "education",
      
    // YOU CAN ADD NEW CATEGORIES HERE, ALL LOWERCASED...
 };


Create Author and News data in the database

You can manually create users as Authors and post News/Articles that will be shown in the app.
Creating one or more Authors will allow you to grab their ID's and assign them to the articles you’ll post – that’s because an Article must have an owner.

So in your database, Add a Row in the Users table and fill the empty fields for the Author you want to insert (username, password, email, list of social links - comma-separated, no spaces).

Then, in the News table, click Add Row and fill the empty fields with the HTML code of your news (I suggest you to use htmleditor.io to create your articles and grab their HTML code), a title, and image, a category name (all llowercase characters), the author pointer ID (you can copy an ID_id form the Users table).

Utility Functions

Unless you are familiar with iOS programming, you should leave the code below this comment as it is: 
 // MARK: - TABLES & COLUMNS NAMES

DBase Backend

The backend of this template is DBase, you have to install it on your own VPS server - AWS Lightsail is strongly recommemnded - and configure it by following the README instructions.

Update the php.ini file (optional)

You may need to update the php.ini file of your server in order to increase the upload_max_filesize limit (you may set it to 40M, for instance), and the post_max_size limit (set it to 60M, for instance).
In this way, your app will be able to upload big-sized video files, in case they’ll exceed the 2MB file size (usually the default upload_max_filesize)


PLEASE NOTE: If you already bought the iOS version of this template, you don’t need to create a new database, just set the DATABASE_PATH into the DBase.java file
IMPORTANT: Please also note that if you want to edit the code to make this template work with a different backend (Firebase, Parse, SQL, etc.), you must do it on your own, and I will not be responsible for any bug you may encounter after editing the original source code, nor I can offer support to fix issues

Google Sign In

  • Go to console.cloud.google.com/apis/credentials on your browser, log in with your Google account
  • Create a Project (unless you already have one)
  • Click the + CREATE CREDENTIALS button
  • Select the OAuth client ID option
  • On the next page, select Android, choose a name for your Client ID
  • Paste your own SHA-1 key – follow this tutorial to get it on your Terminal: Getting SHA1 Fingerprint for Google API Console
  • Paste the package name of your project
  • Lastly, click the Create button:
  • Once your Client ID has been created, just click the OK button on the popup ans you’ll be set:
  • You can now test the Google Sign In in your app in Development mode.
Once you’ll publish your app on the Play Store, you may need to get the Live SHA1 key and replace the existing one with your new one.
You can obtain the Live SHA1 key in this way:
  • Place the Signed .apk file of your app in your Desktop
  • Open the Terminal and navigate to the Desktop folder with the cd command
  • Use this command: 
     keytool -printcert -jarfile YourApkName.apk
    [Replace YourApkName with the name of your .apk file]
  • Hit return
    You should get the new SHA1 key, like this example:
  • Replace the existing key you have set in your Google Developer Console with the new one, so the Google Sign In will work on your Live app.
You may also find alternative ways to get the SHA1 key in this thread: stackoverflow.com/questions/15727912/sha-1-fingerprint-of-keystore-certificate

Push Notifications

Follow these steps to create a Firebase project and grab the GCM Sender ID and Server Key strings, in order for the app to send/receive Push Notifications:
  • Login to your Firebase account and click on + Add project
  • In the popup window that will show up, enter your app name.
  • Select the country where you live in
  • Check the Use the default settings for sharing Google Analytics for Firebase data option
  • Check the I accept the controller-controller terms option as well
  • Then click Create project
  • When Firebase has created your project, click Continue
  • On the top-left corner of the page, next to Project Overview, click the gear icon and select Project settings from the menu
  • In the Project settings page, click the Cloud Messaging tab, here’s where you can copy the Server Key
  • Open the _config.php file of the DBase API in your server and paste the Server Key you just copied in this variable, then save the file: 
     $FCM_SERVER_KEY = '[paste the Server Key here!]';
  • Now go back to yourt Firebase dashboard, in the General tab, click the Add app button
  • Select the Android icon in the popup window
  • In the next page, paste the package name of your Android Studio project, your app name, and click the Register app button
  • Download the google-services.json file and click Next
  • Click the Next button for the two other steps to return to your Firebase dashboard
  • Move the google-services.json file in the app folder of the Android Studio project:
  • Done. Your app is ready to send/receive Push Notifications

Useful stuff


DBase backend

F.A.Q.

Should I use the DBase API to make this template work?

The code of this app template is written using the DBase SDK for Android – included in the project – so you must download and install the DBase backend in your won VPS server to make it work the way it is.
If you’re an experienced developer and want to implement a different backend in the code, you can still buy this app and do it on your own, since UI/UX is already built.

Anyway, as mentioned earlier, please note that I will not be responsible for any bug encountered after editing the original source code to implement a different backend or extra features not included in the original source code

If I buy this app template, can I use for multiple projects?

No, only 1 app/purchase.
In case you want to publish more than 1 application using this template, you must purchase a License for each project you want to publish on the App/Play Store, either the Regular ot the Extended one

Can I use the DBase API for different projects/apps than this one?

Yes, you can use it in any other application or project

What kind of support is offered?

Free support is offered in case of bugs encountered in the original template, either in the code or the UI design.
In case you have edited the code – and so created bugs because of your editing – I may apply some fee to fix your bugs by a remote connection through AnyDesk, or by you sending me your source code for verification.
This doesn't apply in case you changed the code to implement a different backend than DBase

Should I use Android Studio to edit this template?

Yes, you must always use the latest stable official version of Android Studio to edit this application – NO Betas, they don’t work properly!
Download Android Studio

I’ve performed all configurations mentioned in this Guide, but something is wrong. What should I do?

  • Double-check all your configurations, probably you have missed something
  • Always check the Logcat in Android Studio if the app crashes, usually the error messages are shown in red color
The Logcat helps you to debug your app, it’s really important!

How do I remove AdMob ads?

It’s super easy, just open the Find in Files... tool in Android Studio by clicking Edit -> Find -> Find in Files..., and search for: 
 fireInterstitialAd;


The Find in Files window will show you a list of files where that string is located.
Just comment out (or delete) the following line of code in each file and the app will not show AdMob ads on next run: 
 fireInterstitialAd(ctx);
NOTE: In order to comment a line of code, just add // in the beginning: 
 // fireInterstitialAd(ctx);

Support

PLEASE NOTE: I can offer FREE support for bugs/errors encontered in the original code.

Email me through my Profile's Contact Form on Envato