So, apparently Google has released a neat utility library for Android devs who use the Kotlin language.
It is basically a collection of utility functions that make common boilerplate code unnecessary.

How to start

So how do you start using the new library: simply include it as a dependency

repositories {
    google()
}

dependencies {
    implementation 'androidx.core:core-ktx:0.1'
}

Now you can use make use of all the cool utility functions.

Examples

ViewTreeObserver

Old way:

view.viewTreeObserver.addOnPreDrawListener(
    object : ViewTreeObserver.OnPreDrawListener {
        override fun onPreDraw(): Boolean {
            viewTreeObserver.removeOnPreDrawListener(this)
            actionToBeTriggered()
            return true
        }
    })

New way:

view.doOnPreDraw {
     actionToBeTriggered()
}

Writing shared prefs

Old way:

sharedPreferences.edit()
    .putBoolean("key", value)
    .apply()

New way:

sharedPreferences.edit {
    putBoolean("key", value)
}

Others

There are tons of new extension functions an more to come in the future. For a complete list of currently supported extension function look here: https://android.github.io/android-ktx/core-ktx/

Summary

I found some really useful extension functions in this new library that I will definitely use in the future (Context.systemService(), View.toBitmap(), ViewGroup.forEach(...), just to name a few).

If you got any questions or comments, let me know in the comments below. Also let me know if you want to read more #androiddev content on Steemit!