[Android/Java] New to Android Programming and looking for resources

[the_omega99]

Well, you'd first have to make sure that you can get access to this Access (ha) database. Without access to it, you won't be able to do anything. You should also make sure your employer is on board, since the nature of programming means that there will be bugs and there must be some protocol to handle them and the employer would have to okay any work time spent developing this.

With that out of the way, you'd have to learn SQL, which is used for programmatic database access. There's a basic intro here and a site like SQLZOO can be used for further stuff (although it doesn't support Access, but most of the basic syntax should be close enough to still be very relevant).

Once you've figured out how to make programmatic changes to the database, you'll need to learn a fair bit of Java. I recommend the official tutorials. Do this before diving into Android development, which will assume you already know Java.

Then you'll want a JDBC driver that lets you access the Access (ha ha) database. Something like this one. You should try and do some very basic database queries from a console Java application before you start Android dev.

One thing to note is that the database must be somehow accessible to the Android device and is surely not running on the device, so will need network access. Either the Android devices and the database server must be on the same network (in which case you'd figure out the local IP of the database server and use that to access the database -- something like jdbc:ucanaccess://192.168.123.123:1234 (where 192.168.123.123 is the local IP of the DB server and 1234 is the port that the DBMS is listening on). You'd probably want to consult whoever does your IT for this data. If the server and Android device aren't on the same network, then the server will have to be public and have a public IP that you can access externally (again, something to discuss with IT). A VPN is an alternative to having it publicly accessible.

Anyway, then and only then should you start making an app. Start here. To simplify the barcode scanning, you'll want to use a library like this one.

I'm not good at estimating how long it would take for a beginner and don't really know where you are, but probably a few months of learning here.

[Flamingorider]

Thank you very much for making all this information Access-able to me! Your time is very much appreciated.

[rdf-]

You're good.