The official android webpage suggests that Eclipse is the best tool for developing. I tried really hard to set it up, but after 2 days, 6 IRC channels and many different config switches tested I gave up. PermGen out of memory error finally won with my patience. Looks like my problems were caused by java virtual machine I tried to use, but it makes no difference at all – Eclipse was unusable. I decided to got the CLI way and I’m not disappointed.
A few words of explanation: I’ll show how to create a simple “Hello World” app using just one console (or terminal window), but it’s much more convinent to use 2 or 3 of them to avoid changing directory all the time.
Three steps to my first application
1. Go to “tools” directory in android-sdk:przemo@pldmachine ~$ cd ~/android/sdk/tools/
and type (in one line): ./android create project
–target android-8
–name Test
–path /home/users/przemo/workspace/Test
–activity TestActivity
–package com.android.testprzemo@pldmachine$ ./android create project --target android-8 --name Test --path /home/users/przemo/workspace/Test --activity TestActivity --package com.android.test
Created project directory: /home/users/przemo/workspace/Test
Created directory /home/users/przemo/workspace/Test/src/com/android/test
Added file /home/users/przemo/workspace/Test/src/com/android/test/TestActivity.java
Created directory /home/users/przemo/workspace/Test/res
Created directory /home/users/przemo/workspace/Test/bin
Created directory /home/users/przemo/workspace/Test/libs
Created directory /home/users/przemo/workspace/Test/res/values
Added file /home/users/przemo/workspace/Test/res/values/strings.xml
Created directory /home/users/przemo/workspace/Test/res/layout
Added file /home/users/przemo/workspace/Test/res/layout/main.xml
Created directory /home/users/przemo/workspace/Test/res/drawable-hdpi
Created directory /home/users/przemo/workspace/Test/res/drawable-mdpi
Created directory /home/users/przemo/workspace/Test/res/drawable-ldpi
Added file /home/users/przemo/workspace/Test/AndroidManifest.xml
Added file /home/users/przemo/workspace/Test/build.xml
Added file /home/users/przemo/workspace/Test/proguard.cfg
As you can see “android” did all the boring job of creating app skeleton for us.
2. Go to the application directory and compile it.przemo@pldmachine$ cd ~/workspace/Test/
przemo@pldmachine$ ant debug
[removed compile output].. debug:
echo Running zip align on final apk...
echo Debug Package: /home/users/przemo/workspace/Test/bin/Test-debug.apk
BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 4 seconds
przemo@pldmachine ~/workspace/Test$
Those are only last few lines of a sucessful build. Now we’re ready to install the app 3. Go to “platform-tools” and upload the app to phone:
przemo@pldmachine$ cd ~/android/sdk/platform-tools/
przemo@pldmachine$ ./adb -d install /home/users/przemo/workspace/Test/bin/Test-debug.apk
*daemon not running. starting it now on port 5037 *
*daemon started successfully *
233 KB/s (13223 bytes in 0.055s) pkg: /data/local/tmp/Test-debug.apk Success
przemo@pldmachine$
Now you should see a new application named TestActivity in your phone. It doesn’t do anything useful, but that’s my first android app!