Android Configuration

Posted on August 7, 2012

First Install Android SDK from Google

The SDK tools are installed with the SDK starter package and are periodically updated. The
SDK tools are required if you are developing Android applications. The most important SDK
tools include the Android SDK Manager (android sdk), the AVD Manager (android avd) the
emulator (emulator), and the Dalvik Debug Monitor Server (ddms).

After Install SDK download Eclipse Classic. If you Installed Java Development Kit 64 Bit then
download Eclipse 32 Bit.

The Android SDK separates tools, platforms, and other components into packages you can
download using the Android SDK Manager. The original SDK package you’ve downloaded
includes only the SDK Tools. To develop an Android app, you also need to download at least
one Android platform and the latest SDK Platform-tools.

When you open the Android SDK Manager, it automatically selects a set of recommended
packages. Simply click Install to install the recommended packages.

Installing the SDK

You should have already downloaded the Android SDK. Now you need to set up your
development environment.

The SDK you've downloaded is not the complete SDK environment. It includes only the core
SDK tools, which you can use to download the rest of the SDK packages (such as the latest
system image).

Getting started on Windows

Your download package is an executable file that starts an installer. The installer checks your
machine for required tools, such as the proper Java SE Development Kit (JDK) and installs it if
necessary. The installer then saves the Android SDK Tools into a default location (or you can
specify the location).

Make a note of the name and location of the SDK directory on your system—you will need to
refer to the SDK directory later, when setting up the ADT plugin and when using the SDK tools
from the command line.
Once the tools are installed, the installer offers to start the Android SDK Manager. Start it and
continue with the installation guide by clicking the Next link on the right.

Adding Platforms and Packages

The Android SDK separates tools, platforms, and other components into packages you can
download using the Android SDK Manager. The original SDK package you've downloaded
includes only the SDK Tools. To develop an Android app, you also need to download at least
one Android platform and the latest SDK Platform-tools.

You can update and install SDK packages at any time using the Android SDK Manager.

If you've used the Windows installer to install the SDK tools, you should already have the
Android SDK Manager open. Otherwise, you can launch the Android SDK Manager in one of
the following ways:

 On Windows, double-click the SDK Manager.exe file at the root of the Android SDK
directory.
 On Mac or Linux, open a terminal and navigate to the tools/ directory in the Android
SDK, then execute android sdk.

When you open the Android SDK Manager, it automatically selects a set of recommended
packages. Simply click Install to install the recommended packages. The Android SDK Manager
installs the selected packages into your Android SDK environment. The following sections
describe some of the available SDK packages and more about which ones we recommend you
install.

Once you have installed your packages, continue to the next page.
Figure 1. The Android SDK Manager shows the SDK packages that are available, already
installed, or for which an update is available.

Recommended Packages

Here's an outlines of the packages required and those we recommend you use:

SDK Tools
Required. Your new SDK installation already has the latest version. Make sure you keep
this up to date.
SDK Platform-tools
Required. You must install this package when you install the SDK for the first time.
SDK Platform
Required.You must download at least one platform into your environment so you're able
to compile your application. In order to provide the best user experience on the latest
devices, we recommend that you use the latest platform version as your build target.
You'll still be able to run your app on older versions, but you must build against the latest
version in order to use new features when running on devices with the latest version of
Android.

To get started, download the latest Android version, plus the lowest version you plan to
support (we recommend Android 2.2 for your lowest version).
System Image
Recommended. Although you might have one or more Android-powered devices on
which to test your app, it's unlikely you have a device for every version of Android your
app supports. It's a good practice to download system images for all versions of Android
your app supports and test your app running on them with the Android emulator.
Android Support
Recommended. Includes a static library that allows you to use some of the latest Android
APIs (such as fragments, plus others not included in the framework at all) on devices
running a platform version as old as Android 1.6. All of the activity templates available
when creating a new project with the ADT Plugin require this. For more information,
read Support Library.
SDK Samples
Recommended. The samples give you source code that you can use to learn about
Android, load as a project and run, or reuse in your own app. Note that multiple samples
packages are available — one for each Android platform version. When you are choosing
a samples package to download, select the one whose API Level matches the API Level
of the Android platform that you plan to use.

Tip: For easy access to the SDK tools from a command line, add the location of the SDK's
tools/ and platform-tools to your PATH environment variable.

Download the ADT Plugin:

1. Start Eclipse, then select Help > Install New Software….
2. Click Add, in the top-right corner.
3. In the Add Repository dialog that appears, enter “ADT Plugin” for the Name and the
following URL for the Location:

https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/

4. Click OK
5. In the Available Software dialog, select the checkbox next to Developer Tools and
click Next.
6. When the installation completes, restart Eclipse.

Configure the ADT Plugin:

After you’ve installed ADT and restarted Eclipse, you must specify the location of your Android
SDK directory:
Installing the Eclipse Plugin
Android offers a custom plugin for the Eclipse IDE, called Android Development Tools (ADT).
This plugin is designed to give you a powerful, integrated environment in which to develop
Android apps. It extends the capabilities of Eclipse to let you quickly set up new Android
projects, build an app UI, debug your app, and export signed (or unsigned) app packages (APKs)
for distribution.

If you will be developing in Eclipse with the ADT Plugin, first make sure that you have a
suitable version of Eclipse installed on your computer as described by the system requirements.

If you need to install Eclipse, you can download it from http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/. We

recommend the "Eclipse Classic" version. Otherwise, you should use a Java or RCP version of
Eclipse.

Note: If you prefer to work in a different IDE, you do not need to install Eclipse or ADT.
Instead, you can directly use the SDK tools to build and debug your application. So if you're not
using Eclipse, continue to the next page by clicking the Next link on the right.

Download the ADT Plugin

1. Start Eclipse, then select Help > Install New Software.

2. Click Add, in the top-right corner.
3. In the Add Repository dialog that appears, enter "ADT Plugin" for the Name and the following
URL for the Location:

https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/

4. Click OK.

If you have trouble acquiring the plugin, try using "http" in the Location URL, instead of
"https" (https is preferred for security reasons).

5. In the Available Software dialog, select the checkbox next to Developer Tools and click Next.
6. In the next window, you'll see a list of the tools to be downloaded. Click Next.
7. Read and accept the license agreements, then click Finish.

If you get a security warning saying that the authenticity or validity of the software can't
be established, click OK.

8. When the installation completes, restart Eclipse.

Configure the ADT Plugin

After you've installed ADT and restarted Eclipse, you must specify the location of your Android
SDK directory:

1. Select Window > Preferences... to open the Preferences panel (on Mac OS X, select Eclipse >
Preferences).
2. Select Android from the left panel.

You may see a dialog asking whether you want to send usage statistics to Google. If so,
make your choice and click Proceed.

3. For the SDK Location in the main panel, click Browse... and locate your downloaded Android SDK
directory (such as android-sdk-windows).
4. Click Apply, then OK.

If you haven't encountered any errors, you're done setting up ADT and can continue to the next
step of the SDK installation.

Updating the ADT Plugin

From time to time, a new revision of the ADT Plugin becomes available, with new features and
bug fixes. Generally, when a new revision of ADT is available, you should update to it as soon
as convenient.

In some cases, a new revision of ADT will have a dependency on a specific revision of the
Android SDK Tools. If such dependencies exist, you will need to update the SDK Tools package
of the SDK after installing the new revision of ADT. To update the SDK Tools package, use the
Android SDK Manager, as described in Exploring the SDK.

To learn about new features of each ADT revision and also any dependencies on the SDK Tools,
see the listings in the Revisions section. To determine the version currently installed, open the
Eclipse Installed Software window using Help > Software Updates and refer to the version
listed for "Android Development Tools".

Follow the steps below to check whether an update is available and, if so, to install it.

1. Select Help > Check for Updates.

If there are no updates available, a dialog will say so and you're done.

2. If there are updates available, select Android DDMS, Android Development Tools, and Android
Hierarchy Viewer, then click Next.
3. In the Update Details dialog, click Next.
4. Read and accept the license agreement and then click Finish. This will download and install the
latest version of Android DDMS and Android Development Tools.
5. Restart Eclipse.
If you encounter problems during the update, remove the existing ADT plugin from Eclipse, then
perform a fresh installation, using the instructions for Installing the ADT Plugin.

Troubleshooting

If you are having trouble downloading the ADT plugin after following the steps above, here are
some suggestions:

 If Eclipse can not find the remote update site containing the ADT plugin, try changing the remote
site URL to use http, rather than https. That is, set the Location for the remote site to:

http://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/

 If you are behind a firewall (such as a corporate firewall), make sure that you have properly
configured your proxy settings in Eclipse. In Eclipse, you can configure proxy information from
the main Eclipse menu in Window (on Mac OS X, Eclipse) > Preferences > General > Network
Connections.

If you are still unable to use Eclipse to download the ADT plugin as a remote update site, you
can download the ADT zip file to your local machine and manually install it:

1. Download the ADT Plugin zip file (do not unpack it):

Package Size MD5 Checksum

ADT-20.0.3.zip 12390954 bytes 869a536b1c56d0cd920ed9ae259ae619

2. Start Eclipse, then select Help > Install New Software.

3. Click Add, in the top-right corner.
4. In the Add Repository dialog, click Archive.
5. Select the downloaded ADT-20.0.3.zip file and click OK.
6. Enter "ADT Plugin" for the name and click OK.
7. In the Available Software dialog, select the checkbox next to Developer Tools and click Next.
8. In the next window, you'll see a list of the tools to be downloaded. Click Next.
9. Read and accept the license agreements, then click Finish.

If you get a security warning saying that the authenticity or validity of the software can't
be established, click OK.

10. When the installation completes, restart Eclipse.

To update your plugin once you've installed using the zip file, you will have to follow these steps
again instead of the default update instructions.
Other install errors

Note that there are features of ADT that require some optional Eclipse packages (for example,
WST). If you encounter an error when installing ADT, your Eclipse installion might not include
these packages. For information about how to quickly add the necessary packages to your
Eclipse installation, see the troubleshooting topic ADT Installation Error: "requires plug-in
org.eclipse.wst.sse.ui".

For Linux users

If you encounter this error when installing the ADT Plugin for Eclipse:

An error occurred during provisioning.

Cannot connect to keystore.
JKS

...then your development machine lacks a suitable Java VM. Installing Sun Java 6 will resolve
this issue and you can then reinstall the ADT Plugin.

1. Select Window > Preferences… to open the Preferences panel (on Mac OS X,

select Eclipse > Preferences).
2. Select Android from the left panel.

You may see a dialog asking whether you want to send usage statistics to Google. If so, make
your choice and click Proceed.

1. For the SDK Location in the main panel, click Browse… and locate your downloaded
Android SDK directory (such asandroid-sdk-windows).
2. Click Apply, then OK.

Next Steps
Now that you've installed the Android SDK, here are are a few ways to learn Android and start
developing:

Start coding

 Follow the training class for Building Your First App.

This class is an essential first step for new Android developers.

 It gives you step by step instructions for building a simple app. You’ll learn how to create
an Android project and run a debuggable version of the app. You'll also learn some
fundamentals of Android app design, including how to build a simple user interface and
handle user input.

Learn how to design your app

 Learn the best practices for Android design and user experience by reading the Android Design
guidelines.

Read up on the API framework

 Start reading about fundamental framework topics in the collection of API Guides.
 Browse the API specifications in the Reference.

Explore the development tools

 Learn about developing an app with the Android Developer Tools plugin for Eclipse and other
tools from the Workflow.

Explore some code

 Browse the sample apps available from the Android SDK Manager. You'll find them in
<sdk>/samples/<platform-version>/.