So many question, so little time. - Android Software Development

Hello all,
I am new to the Android scene and I wanted to find out if there are any good tutorials on app/rom development, what are the programming languages used, etc... I know learning from scratch is probably a long and bumpy road, but it is something I am interested in. I have already rooted and flashed my phone, good times that was. Thank you all for your help.
Th3Cap3

What's your existing programming experience? You could do worse than check out the anddev forums. App development is principally in Java though you can write parts of apps in C or even assembler.

My existing programming consist of very very very basic python, and some web stuff like HTML and CSS, I would basically have to learn how to program the ones you have mentioned from scratch, I have books for most of those though. I will go check out those forums and see what I can dig up Thanks for the info.

I bookmarked that page thank you, I just got a hold of their Eclipse software and all of their beginner tutorials I can't wait to dive into this stuff.

Me too. I know C, but only have a passing acquaintance with Java & Linux; Android I know even less about, not having encountered it till getting my Hero in February. I'm working my way through Thinking in Java (Eckel) to be followed by Professional Android 2 Application Development (Meier).
Even if your grasp of Python is basic it's still a start - you don't have to struggle again with fundamental procedural programming concepts like conditional execution, program flow control & so forth. Plus Python is an OOP language, aiui (I don't know Python) so you have a head start there too
I've installed Java, Eclipse & Android's SDK on this Windows box, but I'm thinking of dual booting Ubuntu as some things just work better in Linux, especially if one wants to cross compile ROMs. Aiui Cygwin, which I already use, can be a little problematic & when one is likely to be asking for help at times, it's useful to be using a similar set up to most devs.

I have been thinking about dual booting again, I just havent had to time to partition my drive and install some sort of linux release, UBuntu is the one I am most familiar with, which isnt very, but its a start.
I am going through those video tutorials from anddev.org right now, it seems to be similar to Python in the way the coding is done, I am excited.
I have also downloaded the Eclipse program, but I have the pulsar version, it seems to be geared more towards mobile development and I have gotten the Android toolkit installed and I have had the Android SDK from when I rooted my Hero (Which is awesome, running the newest Damage Control) good times.
I think I may have a java book on PDF somewhere as well, I will have to go look.

Atm I can't make up my mind between dual boot & Virtual Box, or maybe both, to see if I can wean myself off m$

I have been thinking about the dual boot option a lot since you mentioned it, not sure what to do, I may wait till this quarters class is over so that if something goes missing. it Sony be a big deal
Sent from my HERO200 using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk

Related

How challenging is making an app?

I am not to sure if this is the correct area for this. But I am wondering how hard it is to make a Android game? This isn't something I want to just jump into, but learn while I am doing it and take my time.
So how challenging is it to someone who has no experience?
Thank You
Do you have any programming experience at all?
If you know languages like C++ or Java you're pretty close already. Android is programmed in Java, and you need to be familiar with Java's memory management to understand what happens behind the scenes since memory is critical on a mobile device. Also you should get some experience with multithreaded programming, since most times you'll need threads to complete tasks without getting the UI stuck.
Android uses a component based architecture that might be a bit unfamiliar in the beginning, since there's no 'main' entrypoint and you have to split your app into 'activities' that talk to each other through 'intents'.
Games present additional challenges, since they often require you to take care of several things involved with graphics and audio, so maybe they're not the ideal first step into programming.
I started programming for my phone on my Touch HD (windows mobile 6.5, using c#). I'd done some java (not a lot, really, and I hated it), some c (a bit, liked it much more) and quite a few script languages.
I have to say, I got into c# with the compact .NET framework VERY easily. It was very straightforwards, nicely syntaxed ... it was just programming as I'd known it. I've made some office apps, one or two games (just for fun, although the apps were meant to be sold ... **** MS for going wp7 and incompatible!; they were solid pieces of software engineering, if I say so myself)
Two weeks ago I got my Desire HD and a few books on programming Android ( O'Reilly, Sam's) and went looking through developer.android.com .
And I have to say, I find it hard! The concepts and how they work together are a bit ... uhm ... distributed. Good software design, but hard on the programmer (and ****ing verbose to actually type in the porgamming! Sheesh!). It took me a while to grok how all these systems are fitting together: to be honest, I'm still trying to make it all jell. All these intents, services, activities, broadcast receivers ... very interesting, but just thinking of the best (or even correct!) way of setting up your porgram is kinda difficult.
But, that's just me, in two weeks time in my spare time. I am getting it now and it is interesting (and, actually, very well set up for what they want android to do/be). c# was just easier, friendlier and faster to get into.
Sorry if this sounds negative: learning a new language isn't EASY, but it is FUN And very informative. If you have a few hours to start off with and then an hour a day, go for it ... but keep in mind there are easier/more straightforwards programming languages/environments than android (or so I think).
I would like to know this too because I got my HTC Wildfire for a few months now and I just rooted my phone yesterday to get into the whole development and modding.
I would like to learn how to make a widget first and then move onto a app/game. My goal would be to know how to create a 2D based side scroller, I would like to recreate "Bio Menace" for the Android. (I have the sprites and maps, now I only need to learn to make it into a game). (Bio Menace was my all-time favorite game when I was a child and I sometimes still play it on dosbox, but I would like to take it with me on transits to work)
I have no experience in Programming at all, I only did graphical stuff (Photoshop, 3DS Max) I know a little html for basic websites, but this was also more in Dreamweaver with the layout to designer.
So I found these books on android, but before I begin to read any of them. Can somebody tell me which book is best to start on first or which book to skip? I also like a video tutorial, but has anybody seen it? Is it any good?
Ebooks
Apress: Beginning Android 2 http://apress.com/book/view/9781430226291
Apress: Pro Android Games http://apress.com/book/view/9781430226475
Apress: Pro Android 2 http://apress.com/book/view/9781430226598
CommonsWare LLC The Busy Coders Guide to Android Development http://commonsware.com/Android/
Sam's Sams Teach Yourself Android Application Development in 24 Hours http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Yourself-Android-Application-Development/dp/0321673352
O'Reilly Media: Building Android Apps with HTML CSS and JavaScript http://oreilly.com/catalog/0636920010067
O'Reilly Media: Hello Android 3rd Edition http://oreilly.com/catalog/9781934356562
Video tutorial
O'Reilly Media: Developing Android Applications with Java, Part 1 http://oreilly.com/catalog/0636920001690
Sorry to threadjack you, but it made no sense to me to start a new thread on the same topic. There really should be an own section for noobs or a good sticky with this kind of information for noobs.
lol Im in the process of learning java right now, basic java though.
Mathods
Interfaces
Static Methods
Im pretty interested in what I need to know for development on the andriod platform. By mid/late spring I should know quite a bit more. Taking an Advanced java course. Current I only know C#, C++, and Visual Basics.
Never worked on a GUI before =(.

What do you use to develop with?

I have been trying to learn how to do some android development for work and keep running into problems. I find it hard to believe that people are able to create a lot of these apps with the Google development tools in such poor condition.
I have set up a development system with eclipse and the android tools. One of the first problems I ran into is ADB crashing whenever I tried to debug and there was a device attached to the system. Didn't matter if I was trying to debug on the device or emulator, ADB would crash. I was finally able to get the problem fixed by using the Composite ADB interface driver instead of the plain ADB interface (would it really hurt Google to add one sentence to the directions to tell people this?)
Now every time I go to debug, the emulator comes up in Chinese/Japaneses. I type in English and it converts it. I can fix it by changing the input method, but I have to do it every time I start the emulator. I have Googled looking for a solution and have found this is a known problem that has been around for almost a year and there is no resolution with it. The bug reports I have found on the android site even lists them still as NEW!
When trying to debug a problem, I wanted to delete the shared preference file for the app as it seems like it had become corrupted and every time it went to read it, the app would force close. (And when this happen, the debugger perspective would come up but for the life of me, I could not find any information as to what caused the fault or any sort of stack trace to look back and see where in my code it failed).
If you are an app developer, are you running into these issues? Have you found ways to work around the problems? I just can't believe that this is the way people develop for this platform. I'm ready to tell my boss that we forget about the platform unless we can find some stable development tools, otherwise we will be spending more time fighting with the tools than working on the app.
If anyone has any suggestions, I would really like to hear them. I'm not a noob when it comes to software development (20+ years as a software engineer), but I have never seen development tools for such a major platform, be this poorly done. What am I missing?
I'm a professional developer as well too. 20 years or so as a C/C++ developer, but I've worked most of my career as a Unix developer. Naturally, I use linux where possible and my Eclipse setup on Gentoo linux is pretty stable. I tried on Win7-64 but it was buggy as heck. I believe that the problem is with Java. There seems to be so many ways to set it up wrong that I'm not sure you can set it up right under windows.
I find it ironic that Oracle is trying to sue Google for making a JVM that actually works!
I havent had any of your mentioned issues. I am running eclipse on a 32 vista machine and a 64 bit windows 7 machine.
Not sure what I may have done different that you for setup. But I followed the Android application development for dummies book. The author goes step by step of what to download and how to install and configure. Even though your software experience is way beyond this book maybe its worth picking it up to read the install notes.
FreeTheWorld said:
I havent had any of your mentioned issues. I am running eclipse on a 32 vista machine and a 64 bit windows 7 machine.
Not sure what I may have done different that you for setup. But I followed the Android application development for dummies book. The author goes step by step of what to download and how to install and configure. Even though your software experience is way beyond this book maybe its worth picking it up to read the install notes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I picked up the book, "Sams Teach Yourself Android Application Development in 24 Hours" and it has a section for setting up the environment too. Followed it to the letter several times and always had this problems. I think the issue comes down to the books were written using version 6 and 7 of the SDK and the current version, 8, has introduced some problems the books don't cover. For example, the tools directory has been split into two directories, tools and platform-tools. When you first download the SDK, you don't get everything you had like before until you update the SDK.
I have talked to several other people who also had the problem with the ADB crashing like I did, even started a thread here about it. No one could get any help anywhere on resolving the issue. I think the problems I have that others don't see is because they started with an earlier version of the SDK.
Gene Poole said:
I'm a professional developer as well too. 20 years or so as a C/C++ developer, but I've worked most of my career as a Unix developer. Naturally, I use linux where possible and my Eclipse setup on Gentoo linux is pretty stable. I tried on Win7-64 but it was buggy as heck. I believe that the problem is with Java. There seems to be so many ways to set it up wrong that I'm not sure you can set it up right under windows.
I find it ironic that Oracle is trying to sue Google for making a JVM that actually works!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have also setup the development platform on a linux system and haven't had the problems I have with Windows 7 64bit. I also feel a lot of the problems have come from the Windows 64bit platform and even windows in general. I tried installing on a clean 64bit and 32bit Windows 7 and was still having the ADB problem. As soon as I get my tax refunds, I'm going to get a work desk setup at home so I can try using my linux system (it sits on the floor with no monitor and is my network server). Boss will really love it if I tell him we have to set up linux platforms to develop on. Guy is a bit of a tight wad when it comes to equipment.
edboston said:
If you are an app developer, are you running into these issues?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope, I didn't have any stability problems with SDK. I use linux 32-bit, didn't try to work on a Windows, MacOS and/or 64-bit arch.
I've not seen any of your problems, either.
FYI, I followed these instructions to set up the env:
http://developer.android.com/resources/tutorials/hello-world.html
(Environment - WinXP/32 netbook)
Eclipse is buggy. The most annoying issue with it is that the auto complete freezes your computer at times.
An alternative is IntelliJ. They offer a free community addition. I work with one dev that swears by it.
I use Windows7x64 and Ubuntu 10.10 to develop my apps. I use IntelliJ mostly because I find Eclipse to be convoluted overcomplicated mess. I think the Android integration in Eclipse is better, especially around editing some of the key XML files but I despise how projects are organized in Eclipse.
The OS you use really doesn't matter the results are the same, once you're up and running the work will be the same so the OS becomes irrelevant. The IDE becomes the differentiator.
I haven't met with the issues you mentioned, but as you said it can be because I installed the sdk a long time ago (after google anounced the eclair). I'm using eclipse and yes, that program is full of bugs, but I read an article about developing for android in Netbeans (my personal favorite). You can read it here: http://androidportal.hu/2011-01-09/fejlesztes-androidra-netbeans-segitsegevel (it's hungarian, but google translate is our friend)
Sent from my GT-I5700 using XDA App
MotoDev Studio 2.01
stick to 32-bit Galileo
for the slow autocomplete problem, I've made sure to use eclipse Galileo, something in Helios was causing massive lag. Also make sure you're running the 32-bit version of eclipse, even if your machine is 64-bit, there are definitely some bugs last time I tried to install ADT on 64-bit eclipse.
the new tools directory was a bit of a pain after updating to the latest API but nothing too bad once you figured it out.
I haven't had many of the other problems you mentioned. I always debug with adb logcat from terminal, and you can always hop into the device with adb shell.
I use eclipse every day at work so I've kind of gotten used to all the little quirks. I had the chinese text problem with the emulator, but I do most of my testing on a real phone. I use the emulator just to try out different resolutions.

Where to start in Android application development?

Hello everybody, long time lurker, first time poster. I'm posting to ask about where to get started in developing Android applications? I have half a degree in computer science, am familiar with coding, and work in Android software QA, but I'm trying to get my skillset up to the next level and actually start developing applications on Android. Is there any specific books or literature I should read to get me started on my journey? I'm also a long time IT guy on both Windows and Unix-based systems, so I'm by no means computer illiterate. I'm also a long time phone modder as I've been tweaking Android phones since the original G1 running 1.0. Thanks in advance!
Take a look at the Android Developer guide. It has samples and tutorials. If you google, there are also several free PDFs on the subject.
A good Java book will also help a lot. Just start to write a few trial apps and you will get there quickly!
The best place to learn for me, is android web page:
Here you have everything to start:
http://developer.android.com/guide/index.html
And to set up the environment for developing:
http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html
If you want to learn from the scratch, the links I posted are your point. You can also take a look to the tutorials:
http://developer.android.com/intl/es...llo-world.html
You can also start with java, if you want.. I reccomend you take a look to this:
http://download.oracle.com/javase/tu...ava/index.html
http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/
and start from Java SE 6 (http://download.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/)
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/ja...sp-135888.html
I don't know what your college classes are like for CS, but you should have the basics of programming, why not start writing some Android apps?
Start with the basic "Hello World". Get used to working with main.xml and TextViews, EditViews, ListViews, Buttons and Listeners. Android is mostly JAVA, some Android-specific operations and your xml files.
Take some of your CS 101 type programs and try to write them on Android. The more programs you write, the more you learn.
Try to learn something new everyday and in no time at all you'll be impressed with how far you have come.
Rootstonian said:
I don't know what your college classes are like for CS, but you should have the basics of programming, why not start writing some Android apps?
Start with the basic "Hello World". Get used to working with main.xml and TextViews, EditViews, ListViews, Buttons and Listeners. Android is mostly JAVA, some Android-specific operations and your xml files.
Take some of your CS 101 type programs and try to write them on Android. The more programs you write, the more you learn.
Try to learn something new everyday and in no time at all you'll be impressed with how far you have come.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes this is really a good advice
Just start writting little programs and you will go up soon
You could use the sample code that comes with the sdk, and start with different things: First, layout, xml and the like. You could then start with some othe things, like services, broadcast receivers, content providers, to get the feel of them. And finally, work with the hardware: Internet (wifi or 3g), bluetooth..
Hey guys, Sorry to get off Track but I've been trying to Complete my ROM for Everyone that's Currently using it. Anyways... Reading All the Posts in this Thread it seems to me that there Definitely are some Well-Seasoned Veteran Developers here, so Forgive Me but I have to ask, Is there Anyone that can maybe Help assist me with getting FlashLite Working on my Rom.... Please?
The link to my Rom Thread is in my Signature... and my phone is a (CDMA) Sprint Hero!
Thanx in Advance!!
*Sent on My*
Fast as its Ever Been....
"Sprint" Hero.... Running My, *ExEnHeroC* Rom, w/Kifno's Twist, Also The XDA-BLUE.apk!! "Page 10" of My Thread!!
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=957867
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=WTMLMK6M
http://www.mediafire.com/?bb1axugm0bw7oro
http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=/&gl=US#/profile?user=PMGRANDS
At Barnes and Noble there is a book called Android App Development in 24 Hours. It is a freaking great book. Helped me a lot when I started. It breaks down the chapters in to hours with exercises and explanations. Being familiar with Java fundamentals would be good, but not necessary. The first couple hours(chapters) explains the a general overview of the history of the OS and helps you build your first app. My favorite part of the book is how it teaches you to build and app piece by piece over the rest of the chapters adding new features each hour. So, by the end you have and app with quite a bit of features that work and you actually understand how and why. At the end, you have an app that has a lot of Android features as well as knowledge of how they work and can be used. It doesn't go into the more advanced features, but it is well worth the money for beginners. I still use it as a reference because of the easy to understand instructions. Sometimes, the Internet guides assume you have been using Java for 10 years and skip how and why they are doing something. And even then I doubt every veteran Java programmer remembers everything. I am half asleep so forgive any grammar errors.
Ken
Sent from my iPhone with the bigger Gee Bees.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVZ1P35xgNQ
Really good tutorial for the first basic steps. In terms of installing eclipse/java and hello world. He continues with his tutorial in part 2, part 3 and so on.
Android/fruItphone app. idea needs help...
If there is anyone who has knowledge on building apps for Android, I would be extremely interested to share with them an idea for an app. I'd hope this app would be able to work on that other fruIt based dumbphone, too.
Well, there is planty of developers out here I'm one of them (thought not the smartest ) so, if you want to share the knowledge, feel free to PM me

[Q] need help from a developer

I need a push start!!
i have created a circle composed of 12 concentric rings.
i want to make a live wallpaper with these rings slowly spinning in opposite directions.
i have been studying numerous web threads on how to create live wallpaper, but it just seems to me that each one assumes that the reader knows a lot more about developing in java for android using eclipse than i do.
please help me get started.
i understand the basics. i have created a couple of text based applications that i've ran on the emulator and installed on my droid x. they worked as planned!
i'd be very appreciative and willing to donate lots of time and even cash to a developer who will work with me online or offline to get this project started.
i am a veteran of 30 years software development for the VMS operating system. I've also created 2 dozen or more clock applications in lua for the windows mobile operating system. i've developed management applications for monitoring and configuring over 1200 windows 2003 servers in java, vbscript, c#, .aspx, html, perl and so forth. i'm no dummy, i can code!
i've written code in just about everything, even java, but the use of xml, manifest files, the android graphics interface has me baffled. maybe it''s just too many ways to get it done that confuses me.
anyway, i'm in need of a push start and am willing to donate to someone who will patiently get me going in the right direction.
thank you!
Although I can't give you much help, I can recommend that you look through the samples that come with the Android SDK for base source code for live wallpapers.
And also, even though the many option make it seem difficult, one you play with it for a while it gets simple.
I hope that I've helped at all. Good luck!
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App
anybody?!
well this sure isn't the response i thought i was going to get!!!!
bump!
You'd be better off asking this is in a more generic Android/App Dev forum.
This forum is DX specific (and quite frankly, a lot of people have left the DX platform for newer phones).
Try here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=524

[IDE] Using IntelliJ IDEA for Android development

When starting with Android development most people start so by using Eclipse, so did I. Unfortunately for me this was a quite frustrating experience no matter if I developed on Windows or Linux. I often had troubles launching projects after some changes and was forced to rebuild the whole workspace (which takes a while esp. if you included a couple library projects). So after a while I decided to switch to IDEA which is a lot more satisfying. I never had any issues with broken projects and everything just builds so much faster.
One big difference (and it seems many people have troubles with it) is IDEA's handling of library projects. Unfortunately I think this is done in a very logical way, as each "project" is handled as a model. Means you create a project ("My app"), add a module for your main app project, and add new modules for each library project you would add. For each modules you can set the dependencies and say on which modules it depends.
In the newest version (12) Jetbrains also added an Android UI designer, which was one of the features not available before.
If you are curious you can download and install IDEA from their website, or when you are using Ubuntu you can simply download it from Software center.
http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/
And here's a nice article given a quick introduction:
http://www.itwriting.com/blog/7083-intellij-idea-the-best-ide-for-programming-android.html
IDEA rocks, +1. It makes my little Arch box work like a real PC at times
i use idea too,just feel good
Sent from my Nexus 4
What about the on-the-fly analysis performed by IDEA during development? Does it detect many bugs?
Have you never used this functionality?
Nobody uses this feature of IDEA?
I've only had a brief play with it so far - updated the Android SDK and loaded 1 project from GitHub, but it compiles like lightning compared to Eclipse. Thanks for letting us know about this - it's much appreciated
So how does it handle multi-module projects? The advantage of Eclipse/Qt Creator is you can keep multiple projects open at once plus the plugin integration with Maven and Git.
I briefly tried out IntelliJ a couple months back and immediately stepped away when it failed multi-module requirement for me.
More speed than molasses Eclipse would be nice, though the Windows version runs tolerably on fast i5 and SSD.
If it supports .webp on the UI designer (unlike Eclipse), then I'll be all over it!
IntelliJ IDEA has no workspace concept like Eclipse, but its project can have multiple modules: http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/documentation/migration_faq.html .
I'm a total noob/beginner when it comes to programming - never really been into it. That said, I've recently been giving it a go using Eclipse - creating my own Android app. I've just installed IDEA and find it far better to use then Eclipse. Really loving it actually.
I never got into Eclipse. The only Eclipse project I tried using was IBM's Lotus version of OpenOffice. The thing was huge, bloated with Eclipse libraries.
Netbeans is my preferred IDE (also good for C++ and others) but it, unfortunately, falls short for Android.
Intellij worked first try. Glad to see a forum for this on XDA!
Really happy this gets some attention, I've switched from Eclipse to IDEA a while ago and I can't go back.
IDEA is just so smart and works so nice!
I think the best part of IntelliJ is that when you are programming you do it in one environment, from IntelliJ I can see Jira stories, commit svn/git and everything else I do while programming, without switching to 5 different applications
I hope more and more people will switch to IntelliJ, thanks for this thread!
Isn't anyone here bothered by the slow compile times compared to Eclipse? I'm working on a relatively large project, and each time anything is modified it seems to rebuild from scratch. Eclipse in comparision is able to launch the app with the new changes almost instantly.
I love IntelliJ when it comes to it's editor and project management, but in the end it takes about 20s to get my changes on the screen. I'm probably saving some time not having to bother with corrupted workspaces and such though.
I have been using it for more than a year now, haven't looked back at eclipse again.
One thing that bugs me about all of these options is that they don't work on Android itself. Not a big deal for me yet, but I see it becoming more important as we start to see Android devices with bigger screens and keyboards.
I know that AIDE is a decent IDE that runs on Android, but it only runs on Android and it doesn't compare with Eclipse or IntelliJ (yet).
I heard that the current version of Eclipse (4.2) enables some degree of GUI independence, and the next version (due in June) enforces that. That would be a good step forward, but still mostly a theoretical one.
If JetBrain were to undertake the rather large task of making IntelliJ work on Android, as well as existing desktop platforms, they would certainly get my $.
I wonder - is the new Gradle based build system compatible with Android itself?
I found the new-ish GAE Endpoints service to be quite interesting in that part of the build process (code generation) happens on the server as a service. This strikes me as very Googly and I wonder whether Google will provide Android build as a service sometime in the near to medium future. That would certainly help move us towards a platform independent future, though I guess AIDE has shown that it is not the build system, but the IDE, that is holding us back from developing on Android.
I've been using IntelliJ since just after I started Android development (2+ years ago). I had tried Eclipse before that, and besides the excellent feature set, always found the editor to be lacking in many ways (still no virtual space). So when starting with Android development I just hated it because I had to do it in Eclipse. No offense to the people who use and love it, I'm sure that it is a great IDE, it just does not suit me at all.
When I discovered IntellJ, I immediately felt comfortable within the IDE. This made me enjoy the coding that much more which, to me, beats out any feature that an IDE can ever have. IntelliJ has some shortcomings, but overall I find it an exceptional IDE for Android development. It can be a tad sluggish in large projects, but not to the point of annoyance. It is also insanely stable, and I have NEVER in 2 years of working with it had a single crash - just brilliant.
Also, having been using it over an extended period, I can safely say that they excellent developers at JetBrains have constantly been improving on the Android support within the IDE. Feature wise, I think that IntellJ is definitely almost on par with Eclipse, and they have done this without any official support from Google (as far as I know). If Google would take notice of IntelliJ and provide support (I'm thinking ADT) that would just make it even better - here's hoping.
I would highly recommend anyone attempting android development to give IntellJ a go - the Community Edition is free. Especially developers coming from Visual Studio
Thanks, tried it, but I prefer Eclipse.
I'm a new programmer (now learning), and it seems better for me now.
DubelBoom said:
Thanks, tried it, but I prefer Eclipse.
I'm a new programmer (now learning), and it seems better for me now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think this is an important point. Try all the options available, and make a choice based on what you prefer.
I'm just glad that at this point Android has at least two very capable IDEs to provide that choice.
I really cant figure out how to get IDEA to see my install of the android SDK. It looks like their setup tutorial assumes default locations for jdk and android-sdk on windows. How do you setup paths if android-sdk is somewhere else? (using a mac)
Also, second link on the first post seems to be dead right now.
truehybridx said:
I really cant figure out how to get IDEA to see my install of the android SDK. It looks like their setup tutorial assumes default locations for jdk and android-sdk on windows. How do you setup paths if android-sdk is somewhere else? (using a mac)
Also, second link on the first post seems to be dead right now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Check my answer here: http://stackoverflow.com/a/16485929/104891 .
I am on my second attempt at using IDEA for Android dev and I am stuck at the same point as last time, and its the only thing that Eclipse has going for it: I want to create a new Android app, min SDK 8, target SDK 17 (or whatever). This is fairly easy in Eclipse and I can go though the wizard for a new project, choose my settings, even the app icon and end up with the bare outline of my app that has the ICS style (ie an ActionBar & Holo theme)... can I hell do this is IDEA. I know that there is something I am/am not doing that is causing this but I have followed tutorials for adding support libs and even had a go at ActionBarSherlock.
I think this is where a lot of users are scared off of IDEA - I think its interface and usability is better than Eclipse, hell, the GUI editor for the layout XML files is better in IDEA than in Eclipse! (Eclipse freaked out on me several times trying to put static, non moving buttons at the bottom of the screen with a vertical scrollview above them, IDEA, sure, no problem!).
If they could sort the basics out, like getting the wizards included and even if they could allow you to add in various other frameworks (ABS, ViewPager etc) then they would have a winner.
On that matter, anyone got a tutorial on setting up a new project in IDEA the same as Eclipse with Holo theme?
Thanks

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