A Story of the Garden and the Gardener: Understanding Android Activity Lifecycle

Imagine your Android application as a beautiful garden 🌼. In this garden, there are different sections, like a flower bed for "Home" and a vegetable patch for "Work". Each section represents a screen in your app.

The Activity in Android is like the gardener 🧑‍🌾 who tends to the garden. The gardener's job is to manage the garden's state during the different "seasons" (or lifecycle stages). Let's follow this gardener through their day to understand how an Activity's lifecycle works.

The Lifecycle Seasons of the Gardener

1. Spring: onCreate() 🌸

• The gardener arrives at the garden for the first time, ready to begin work.
• They prepare the garden by planting seeds, setting up tools, and making the garden ready for visitors.
• In your app, this is when the Activity is created. You set up the screen layout (e.g., setContentView()), initialize variables, and prepare the data the screen needs.

2. Summer: onStart() ☀️

• The garden is open, and visitors can see it, but the gardener is still getting everything ready.
• The gardener ensures everything is visible and appealing.
• In your app, this is when the Activity becomes visible to the user, though it may not yet be interactive.

3. Autumn: onResume() 🍂

• The garden is now fully active, with the gardener engaging with visitors and ensuring everything is running smoothly.
• Visitors can interact with the gardener and enjoy the garden.
• In your app, this is when the user can fully interact with the screen—clicking buttons, entering data, etc.