This post describes how to
install the Android SDK and set up your development environment for the first
time.
System Requirement:
1.
Supported Operating System:
·
Windows XP
(32-bit), Vista (32- or 64-bit), or Windows 7 (32- or 64-bit)
·
Mac OS X
10.5.8 or later (x86 only)
·
Linux (tested
on Ubuntu Linux, Lucid Lynx)
o GNU C Library (glibc) 2.7 or later is required.
o On Ubuntu Linux, version 8.04 or later is
required.
o 64-bit distributions must be capable of running
32-bit applications.
2.
Supported Development Environment:
·
Eclipse 3.6.2
(Helios) or greater.
·
Eclipse JDT plugin (included in most Eclipse IDE packages).
·
For developing
Android applications, Android Developers recommend one of these packages:
o Eclipse IDE for Java Developers
o Eclipse Classic
o Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers
·
JDK 6 (JRE alone is not sufficient).
·
Android Development Tools
plugin (recommended)
3.
Hardware requirements:
The table
below provides a rough idea of the disk-space requirements to expect, based on
the components that you plan to use.
Component type
|
Approximate size
|
Comments
|
SDK Tools
|
35 MB
|
Required.
|
SDK Platform-tools
|
6 MB
|
Required.
|
Android platform
(each)
|
150 MB
|
At least one
platform is required.
|
SDK Add-on (each)
|
100 MB
|
Optional.
|
USB Driver for
Windows
|
10 MB
|
Optional. For
Windows only.
|
Samples (per
platform)
|
10M
|
Optional.
|
Offline
documentation
|
250 MB
|
Optional.
|
Download
SDK Starter Package:
The SDK starter package is not a full
development environment—it includes only the core SDK Tools, which you can use
to download the rest of the SDK packages (such as the latest Android platform).
If you downloaded a .zip or .tgz package
(instead of the SDK installer), just unpack it. If you downloaded the
Windows installer .exe file, then just run it.
Ø 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.
Install
ADT Plugin for Eclipse:
Android offers a custom plugin for the Eclipse
IDE, called Android Development Tools (ADT) that is designed to give you a
powerful, integrated environment in which to build Android applications.
Developing in Eclipse with ADT is a highly recommended approach and is the
fastest way to get started with Android. Steps to install ADT are as
follows:
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:
4. Click OK
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.
8. When the installation completes, restart Eclipse.
Configure
ADT Plugin for Eclipse:
1.
Select Window > Preferences... to open the Preferences panel (Mac OS X:
Eclipse > Preferences).
2.
Select Android
You may see a
dialog asking whether you want to send usage statistics to Google. If so, make
your choice and click Proceed. You cannot
continue with this procedure until you click Proceed.
3.
For the SDK Location in the main panel, click Browse... and locate your downloaded SDK directory.
4.
Click Apply, and then OK.
If you haven't encountered any problems, then
the installation is complete. Done!
Adding
Platform and Other Packages:
The last step in setting up your SDK is using
the Android SDK Manager (a tool included in the SDK starter package) to
download essential SDK packages into your development environment.
The SDK uses a modular structure that separates
the major parts of the SDK—Android platform versions, add-ons, tools, samples,
and documentation—into a set of separately installable packages. To develop an Android
application, you also need to download at least one Android platform and the
associated platform tools. If you used the Windows installer, when you
complete the installation wizard, it will launch the Android SDK Manager with a
default set of platforms and other packages selected for you to install. Simply
click Install to accept the recommended set of
packages and install them.
You can launch the Android SDK Manager in one
of the following ways:
·
From within
Eclipse, select Window > Android SDK Manager.
·
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
To download packages, use the graphical UI of
the Android SDK Manager to browse the SDK repository and select new or updated
packages (see figure 1). The Android SDK Manager installs the selected packages
in your SDK environment.
1.
Available Packages
By default, there are two repositories of packages for your SDK: Android Repository and Third party Add-ons.
The Android Repository offers these types of packages:
·
SDK Tools — Contains tools
for debugging and testing your application and other utility tools. These tools
are installed with the Android SDK starter package and receive periodic
updates. You can access these tools in the <sdk>/tools/ directory of your SDK. To learn more about them, see http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/tools/index.html#tools-sdk
in the developer guide.
·
SDK
Platform-tools — Contains
platform-dependent tools for developing and debugging your application. These
tools support the latest features of the Android platform and are typically
updated only when a new platform becomes available. You can access these tools
in the <sdk> /platform-tools/ directory. To learn more about them, see http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/tools/index.html#tools-platform in the developer guide.
·
Android
platforms — An SDK platform is available for every production Android platform deployable to Android-powered devices. Each SDK platform package includes a fully compliant Android library, system image, sample code, and emulator skins. To learn more about a specific platform, see the list of platforms that appears under the section "Downloadable SDK Packages" on the left part of this page.
·
USB Driver for Windows (Windows only) —
Contains driver files that you can install on your Windows computer, so that
you can run and debug your applications on an actual device. You do not need the USB driver unless you plan to debug your application on an actual Android-powered device. If you develop on Mac OS X or Linux, you do not need a
special driver to debug your application on an Android-powered device. See http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/device.html for more information about developing on
a real device.
·
Samples — Contains the sample code and apps
available for each Android development platform. If you are just getting
started with Android development, make sure to download the samples to your
SDK.
·
Documentation — Contains a local copy of the latest
multi-version documentation for the Android framework API.
2.
Recommended Packages:
The SDK repository contains a range of packages
that you can download. Use the table below to determine which packages you
need, based on whether you want to set up a basic, recommended, or full
development environment:
Environment
|
SDK Package
|
Basic
|
SDK Tools
|
SDK Platform-tools
|
SDK platform
|
+
|
Recommended
(plus Basic)
|
Documentation
|
Samples
|
USB Driver
|
+
|
Full
(plus Recommended)
|
Google APIs
|
Additional SDK
Platforms
|
Exploring the SDK:
Once you've installed the SDK and downloaded
the platforms, documentation, and add-ons that you need, we suggest that you
open the SDK directory and take a look at what's inside.
The table below describes the full SDK
directory contents, with packages installed.
Name
|
Description
|
add-ons/
|
Contains add-ons to
the Android SDK development environment, which let you develop against
external libraries that are available on some devices.
|
docs/
|
A full set of
documentation in HTML format, including the Developer's Guide, API Reference,
and other information. To read the documentation, load the fileoffline.html in a web browser.
|
platform-tools/
|
Contains
platform-dependent development tools that may be updated with each platform
release. The platform tools include the Android Debug Bridge (adb) as well as other tools that you don't typically use
directly. These tools are separate from the development tools in the tools/ directory because these tools may be updated in order to
support new features in the latest Android platform.
|
platforms/
|
Contains a set of
Android platform versions that you can develop applications against, each in
a separate directory.
|
|
<platform>/
|
Platform version
directory, for example "android-11". All platform version
directories contain a similar set of files and subdirectory structure. Each
platform directory also includes the Android library (android.jar) that is used to compile applications against the platform
version.
|
samples/
|
Sample code and apps
that are specific to platform version.
|
tools/
|
Contains the set of
development and profiling tools that are platform-independent, such as the
emulator, the Android SDK Manager, the AVD Manager, ddms,hierarchyviewer and more. The tools in this directory
may be updated at any time using the Android SDK Manager and are independent
of platform releases.
|
SDK Readme.txt
|
A file that explains
how to perform the initial setup of your SDK, including how to launch the
Android SDK Manager tool on all platforms.
|
SDK Manager.exe
|
Windows SDK only. A
shortcut that launches the Android SDK Manager tool, which you use to add
packages to your SDK.
|
|
|
|
Once you have completed installation, you are
ready to begin developing applications !!!!
We will be back with more tutorials of Android.
