Introducing Android Jetpack

Android Jetpack is a set of components, tools and architectural guidance that make it quick and easy to build great Android apps.  Components are individually adoptable but built to work together while taking advantage of Kotlin language features that make you more productive. Jetpack manages tedious activities like background tasks, navigation, and lifecycle management, so you can eliminate boilerplate code and focus on your what makes your app great. Built around modern design practices, Jetpack components enable fewer crashes and less memory leaked with backwards-compatibility baked in.

This video is also subtitled in Chinese, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish

Read more here:
Android Jetpack → https://d.android.com/jetpack
Getting Started with Jetpack → https://goo.gl/bGnL7N

Android Studio 3.0 available on canary release channel

Just in time for Google I/O 2017, Android Studio 3.0 is available to download on  canary release channel.

To accelerate your development flow, Android Studio 3.0 includes three major features: a new suite of app performance profiling tools to quickly diagnose performance issues, support for the Kotlin programming language, and increased Gradle build speeds for large sized app projects. Android Studio 3.0 also tightly integrates with Android platform development with these additional key features: support for Instant App development, inclusion of the Google Play Store in the Android O emulator system images, and new wizards for Android O development. Overall, this first canary release of Android Studio 3.0 has 20+ new features.



Please refer to the announcement blogpost "Android Studio 3.0 Canary 1" for more details.

Create AVD of Android N Preview for Android Emulator, in Android Studio

Android Emulator running Android N Preview

Before create AVD of Android N Preview, update with Android SDK Manager, make sure to include Android N (API 23, N Preview) SDK Platform and System Images.

Create new AVD in Android Studio (version 2.1 Preview 1 in this example), refer to the video below:

Android SDK Platform Android 6.0 revision 2

Install Android Studio 2.0 Preview on Ubuntu Linux, parallel with existing installed Android Studio

Android Studio 2.0 Preview is available to download in Canary Channel now. This video show how to download and run in Ubuntu (Ubuntu-GNOME 15.10 on VirtualBox/Windows 10), in parallel with existing installed Android Studio 1.5.


(reference: Android Developers Blog)

Related:
- Download and run Android Studio 2.0 Preview on Windows 10

Generate device artwork using Device Art Generator

The Device Art Generator enables you to quickly wrap app screenshots in device artwork. This provides better visual context for your app screenshots on your website or in other promotional materials.

Visit Device Art Generator:
Drag a screenshot from your desktop onto a device to generate device art.

Run Visual Studio 2015 solution of Xamarin-Android App on BlueStacks App Player

VS2015 Hello World of Xamarin-Android App run on BlueStacks App Player

This video show how to create Xamarin-Android App with Visual Studio 2015 Community, and run it on BlueStacks App Player.


*REMARK*
When deploy to BlueStacks, Assembly synchronization error reported failed due to an error in FastDev assembly synchronization. MAY BE caused by I install both Visual Studio 2015 Community and Android Studio in the same PC, I don't know why! I still can skip the error and run the app.

Android Studio 1.3.2 is available in the stable channel

A new Android Studio 1.3 is available in the stable channel

SDK for Android M (preview) is available now

Android SDK for Android M (API 22, MNC Preview) is available. It can be installed in Android SDK Manager.

How to fix "Found 2 versions of android-support-v4.jar in the dependency list"

Recently after updated SDK on Android-Eclipse, tried to import my old example, and have the following error reported:

Found 2 versions of android-support-v4.jar in the dependency list,
but not all the versions are identical (check is based on SHA-1 only at this time).
...

My solution is to delete the file android-support-v4.jar in libs folder of my project.

Install ADT (Android Developer Tools) on Eclipse

Android offers a custom plugin for the Eclipse IDE, called Android Development Tools (ADT). This plugin provides 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.

Note: Be aware that Android Studio is now the official IDE for Android, so you should migrate to Android Studio to receive all the latest IDE updates. 

You should install the ADT plugin only if you already have an Eclipse installation that you want to continue using.

~ referenec: http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing/installing-adt.html

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Download Eclipse:
It's very straightforward, visit http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/, download Eclipse IDE for Java Developers (Eclipse 3.7.2 or greater), unpack the downloaded file, and move the unpacked folder to any location you want.


Install ADT (Android Developer Tools) on Eclipse:

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/

   Note: The Android Developer Tools update site requires a secure connection. Make sure the update site URL you enter starts with HTTPS.
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.
   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.

reference: http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing/installing-adt.html

Offline GDG Developer Kit available

GDG Dev Kit Pilot (https://sites.google.com/site/gdgdevkitpilotreadme/) is a pack of 4 DVDs (also available in a limited number of single USB thumb drives) containing useful content for developers who work with Google technologies and APIs.

The developer kit is meant for software developers or students of software development in regions of the world where steady access to the internet is expensive , unreliable or non-existent.

Each pack contains the following :

• These DVDs contain (Also available as USB thumb drives):
• The Google Cloud Platform docs from https://developers.google.com/cloud, including the SDKs (Software Development Kits) for App Engine
• The entire Android Website : http://developer.android.com including Android SDKs and Android Studio installs
• Material Design docs from http://google.com/design
• Web Fundamentals documentation from http://developers.google.com/web
• Videos on Google Cloud Platform development from Google Developers YouTube channel
• Videos on Android development from Google Developers YouTube channel
• The entire I/O Dev Bytes Series
• Full Google Udacity course videos (Android, App Engine, HTML5 games, UX, Mobile Web)
• Google I/O 2014 Design Track videos

This content is current as at August 2014

Read details: https://sites.google.com/site/gdgdevkitpilotreadme/

Download link.

Android 5.0 SDK available now

Android 5.0 (API 21) SDK available now, you can update it with SDK Manager.

Run Systrace in Android-Eclipse

The Systrace tool helps analyze the performance of your application by capturing and displaying execution times of your applications processes and other Android system processes. The tool combines data from the Android kernel such as the CPU scheduler, disk activity, and application threads to generate an HTML report that shows an overall picture of an Android device’s system processes for a given period of time.

The Systrace tool is particularly useful in diagnosing display problems where an application is slow to draw or stutters while displaying motion or animation. For more information on how to use Systrace, see Analyzing Display and Performance.


Keyboard shortcuts that are available while viewing a Systrace trace HTML report.

Setup Android adb for Wifi debug

To enable Android Debug Bridge (adb) debug via WiFi, connect IP address with the command:

$ adb connect <Android device IP>

or

$ adb connect <Android device IP>:<port>

example:
$ adb connect 192.168.1.111
(the default port number is 5555)

remark:
In my own case, i need to run the command adb tcpip (with usb connected) before connect at the first time:
$ adb tcpip 5555


FAQ:
- Android ADB device offline
- unable to connect to <ip address>:<port>

Install and update Android Studio (Beta) on Ubuntu 14.04

Before you set up Android Studio, be sure you have installed JDK 6 or greater (the JRE alone is not sufficient), or Install Oracle JDK 8 on Ubuntu 14.04.

The installation is very straightforward:

• Download Android Studio Beta v0.8.0 with the Android SDK for Linux HERE.
• Unpack the downloaded Tar file, android-studio-bundle-.tgz, into an appropriate location for your applications.
• To launch Android Studio, navigate to the android-studio/bin/ directory in a terminal and execute studio.sh.

reference: http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing/index.html?pkg=studio

---

Update Android Studio:

If you are running Android Studio 0.8.x, simple restart it, or manually check Help > Check for Update...

---

Update Android SDK in Android Studio:

- Click Configure

- Click SDK Manager

Setup 51-android.rules for Android SDK

After Install Android SDK on Ubuntu 14.04, you have to setup 51-android.rules, otherwise you cannot connect, download and run your code on real devices.


Refer to the document http://developer.android.com/tools/device.html#setting-up:

- Make sure enable something like Developer options, USB debugging...on your device.

- As root, create/modify the file /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules in your Ubuntu system.

- Add a line in the file
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="xxxx", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"

where xxxx is the vendor id of your device. You can use the Linux command lsusb to get the vendor id of your device, refer 2:05 of the below video to know how to.

- Run the command to execute it:
$ chmod a+r /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules


After setup /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules, you can download and run your apps on real devices.

Install Android SDK on Ubuntu 14.04

Before install Android SDK on Ubuntu, you have to Install Oracle JDK 8 on Ubuntu 14.04.

Visit http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html, to download Eclipse ADT with the Android SDK for Linux. Simple unzip the downloaded file and move to the folder you want. Simple run the file <installed folder>/eclipse/eclipse to start the Eclipse with Android SDK.

As mentioned in SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS of Android SDK document, JDK 6 is needed. To select Java compiler compliance level:
- click Window in Eclipse menu, -> Preferences.
- Extend Java on left box, and select Compiler.
- Select 1.6 in Compiler compliance level.

Now you can create "Hello World" to verify your setup.



In order to connect your Android SDK to real devices to test your apps, you have to setup 51-android.rules for your devices.

If your Android SDK-Eclipse crash when Content Assist try to provide suggestion, read HERE.

Create AVD for Android Wear

The video show how to create AVD (Android Virtual Device) for Android Wear: