How to build a SnapChat clone on Android

👻 Hello! Lets Build a Clone of SnapChat

In this tutorial, I will walk you through on how to build an app similar in design like SnapChat on Android.

This tutorial only highlights similar design pattern used in major destinations of SnapChat App.

Here are some screenshots from the final app:

Video:

The development were in stages, I created different branches for each stage.

I made a twitter thread of stages as I was developing, you can check here

Full code on GitHub

Alright, let’s get started 👐 :

STEPS

• Set Up Android Studio
• Setup Dependencies and Assets
• Set up Splash Screen
• Setup Bottom Navigation
• Build Camera Screen
• Build Chat Screen
• Build Discover Screen
• Build Maps Screen
• Build Stories Screen
• Build View Stories Screen

SETUP ANDROID STUDIO

• Download Android Studio
  Download Android Studio and SDK tools | Android Developers
• Create a new android studio project
  - File — New — New Project — Empty Activity — Input Project name — Finish

SETUP DEPENDENCIES AND ASSETS

Dependencies

• Open build.gradle(app)
• Inside the plugins block, add these:

plugins {
    id 'com.android.application'
    id 'kotlin-android'
    //add this line
    id 'kotlin-android-extensions'
    //and this line (safe args)
    id 'androidx.navigation.safeargs.kotlin'
}

• In the android block { }, add these:

buildFeatures {
    viewBinding true
}

• Add the following dependencies in the dependencies block:

• Open build.gradle(project), add these inside the buildscript dependencies block { }:

//Safe args navigation component
def nav_version = "2.3.4"
classpath "androidx.navigation:navigation-safe-args-gradle-plugin:$nav_version"

• In allprojectsblock { }, add this:

maven { url “https://jitpack.io" }

Please check full code for all the dependencies:
full code

Assets
Check res/drawable directory for all drawables used, most of them were made by me 💁. Please, they are very important if you want to achieve similar design pattern.

Also check the values directory for colors, strings and themes

SETUP SPLASH SCREEN

• Add these to themes.xml (under res/values directory)

<!-- Splash screen theme -->
<style name="splashScreenTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar">
    <item name="android:windowBackground">@drawable/splash_screen</item>
</style>

• Open MainActivity in OnCreate method add this:
  setTheme(R.style.Theme_SnapchatClone)
• Open AndroidManifest.xml add this in mainActivity block:
  android:theme=”@style/splashScreenTheme”

Run the app, and your splash screen should show:

SET UP BOTTOM NAVIGATION

• We will be making use of navigation component to set up our bottom navigation, so make sure the dependencies are added.
• First create six new fragments — Name them:
  CameraFragment, ChatFragment, DiscoverFragment, MapFragment StoriesFragment and ViewStoriesFragment (The ViewStoriesFragment isn’t part of the bottom nav)
• Right click res — Select New, New Android Resource Directory
Directory name — menu
  Resource type — menu
• In the newly created menu directory, right click and select New, New Menu resource file, name the file bottom_navigation.xml
• In bottom_navigation.xml, add these:

• Right click res — Select New, New Android Resource Directory
Directory name — navigation
  Resource type — navigation
• In the newly created navigation directory, right click and select New, New Navigation resource file, name the file nav_graph.xml
• Now open bottom_navigation.xml file you just created and add these:

Now Open MainActivity.kt file, add a method for initialising and setting bottom navigation, your whole MainActivity.kt file will look like this:

• With this, your bottom nav will be up and running, run the app and you would see it :

BUILD CAMERA SCREEN

• For the main camera screen, we will be using Google’s android Camera X, so make sure the dependencies have been added
• Open fragment_camera.xml add the following code:

• Now open CameraFragment.kt, modify the code there, Comments are added to the code for clearer explanation.:

With that, you have successfully set up a basic camera system.
— You can take a photo through the front or back camera, which will be saved in your gallery.
— The crazy SnapChat filter system wasn't implemented (Hopefully, I hope I have more time to work on it 🤔 )

BUILD CHAT SCREEN

• For fragment_chat.xml , I wont be pasting the code for this layout here (there are over 900 lines of codes written in that file)
• On an ideal world, a single RecyclerView will be used or a model but I had to populate the data with custom views (Not the best practice, I know 💇)
• Here is the link to activity_chat.xmlfile:
  Click here
• No changes were made to ChatFragment.kt file
• Once you’ve done that, you should end up with something like this:

BUILD DISCOVER SCREEN

• For fragment_discover.xml Check here for full code
• No changes were made to DiscoverFragment
• You should have something like this:

BUILD MAPS SCREEN

• 🗺 SnapMap — Spoiler 👽 (I could not make a custom map view similar to SnapChat, I ended up using Google Maps)
• Watch this video on how to set up Google Maps
• Open fragment_map.xml

• Open MapFragment.kt add the following code:

• With this, you should be able to get a map view — not so identical as the location map view shown on SnapChat 😒

BUILD STORIES SCREEN

• Click this link for full fragment_stories.xml code
• Open FragmentStories.kt file, we are going to be setting up click event on the stories view to ViewStoriesFragment
• Full FragmentStories.kt code

BUILD VIEW STORIES SCREEN

• To implement stories kind of design, I used a library: StoriesProgressView
• Open fragment_view_stories.xml use the following code for your layout:

• Open ViewStoriesFragment.kt and modify the code there, (The code is pretty much self explanatory)

You should end up with something like this:

With this, we have been able to clone major destinations found in SnapChat app.

I hope to improve on this when I have more time, but for now 👻

CONTACT ME

https://linktr.ee/Ibrajix

Thanks for reading 👌