Feeling good to be back at blog . Actually I have been managing GDG Ahmedabad, delivering android talks and managing workshops locally and outside my regions. Last month, I was quite busy in organizing “DevFest” event for the GDG Ahmedabad and then for the preparation of my 2 talks for the GDG Kathmandu DevFest.
I was invited to deliver 2 talks in DevFest organized by GDG Kathmandu. I have already published slides on my Speakerdeck. I am not sure whether you have already checked and learnt from my speaker deck but still give me a chance to write about Introduction to Android studio here.
What is Android Studio?
It’s an Android focused IDE, designed specially for the Android development. It was launched on 16th May 2013, during Google I/O 2013 annual event. Android studio contains all the Android sDK tools to design, test, debug and profile your app. By looking at the development tools and environment, we can its similar to eclispe with the ADT plug-in but as I have mentioned above its android focused IDE, there are many cool features available in Android Studio which can foster and increase your development productivity.
One great thing is that it depends on the IntelliJ Idea IDE which is proved itself a great IDE and has been using by most all the Android engineers.
What is the difference between IntelliJ Idea and Android Studio?
Nothing, in regards to Android.
If you use IntelliJ…
- Keep using it
- IntelliJ 13 will have the same stuff
- EAP of IntelliJ Idea 13 includes all the new stuffs
If Not…
- Give Android Studio a try
You may have some questions in mind regarding IntelliJ and Android Studio, check FAQ section: IntelliJ IDEA and Android Studio FAQ
Let’s download Android Studio
You can download Android Studio from the android developer site: http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing/studio.html
Cool features of Android Studio
As I have mentioned its similar to eclipse with ADT plug-in but Android Studio is having many cool features which can foster and could help you to increase development productivity.
Here are the cool features:
- Powerful code editing (smart editing, code re-factoring)
- Rich layout Editor (As you soon as you drag and drop views on the layout, it shows you preview in all the screens including Nexus 4, Nexus 7, Nexus 10 and many other resolutions. Layout designing can be done much faster way as compared to eclipse.)
- Gradle-based build support
- Maven Support
- Templated based wizards
- Lint tool analysis (The Android lint tool is a static code analysis tool that checks your Android project source files for potential bugs and optimization improvements for correctness, security, performance, usability, accessibility, and internationalization.)
You can experience all the cool features by using Android Studio yourself
Awesome stuffs Inside
Darcula theme
Its actually a black color based theme. While using Android Studio, I enjoy working in Darcula theme environment. BTW Its Darcula theme, not Dracula. I am correcting this just because I have seen many person over stackoverflow and Google+ speaking Dracula.
You can set the dracula theme in Android Studio by: File > Settings > IDE Settings > Appearance > Theme: Darcula.
Preview All the screens
We can consider this is as part of the Rich layout editor feature. With this privilege, user can design layouts and can check layouts by previewing in all the possible screens like Nexus 4, Nexus 7, Nexus and many other devices. It helps actually user to improve layout designs while providing compatibility to various resolutions available.
Device framed screen capture
It provides ability to capture directly generate a screenshot of your application. Yes it was already included in the SDK but Android Studio provides something more:
- Device frame (As frames for many Nexus devices are available, you can capture screenshot in whiever frame you like most)
- Drop shadow
- Screen glare
Color Preview
I like this feature very much and I have found this feature helpful while working on big projects. While using eclipse, we have to have 3rd party color chooser and picker but this feature gives privilege to select color from in-build color chooser and can also have preview in Colors.xml file.
Color Preview – Activity class
While using eclipse, it’s difficult for us to check which color we have used actually, yes we can imaging color by their name but actual preview is much better. This feature is lately introduced in Android studio so you must have latest Android studio installed.
Hard coded Strings
Another feature I like the most and have found useful. Whenever you use any string resources from Strings.xml then it displays actual value instead of variable name. By default, this setting comes by default but still in case you aren’t able to get hard coded strings in your activity class then try any of the below way.
Settings > Editor > Code Folding > Android String References OR Select String and right click on it and then go to Folding > Collapse OR CTRL + Numpad ‘-’
Create layout variation
It provides ability to create layout variation directly, for example: layout for the large screen, layout for Xlarge screen, etc. The great thing is that the created variant layout gets stored in particular folders like layout-xlarge, layout-large-land, etc.
Should I use Android Studio?
You might have explored all the cool features or you are ready to explore right now. But questions might have arised in your mind “Should I use Android Studio?”, “Should we start using Android Studio right now?” or “Should I continue with IntelliJ or Eclipse?”, etc.
My answer is big NO to use Android Studio as main IDE for the Android development because currently its EARLY ACCESS PREVIEW and its getting matured over days. Engineers have been working hard to improve this IDE. So you should wait until BETA comes out.
I agree with Carlos Vega (commented over G+) for the point: “You should at least migrate to Intellij Idea 12 so that you get familiar with the IDE’s workflow and keyboard shortcuts. That way when Android Studio reach a more stable level, you can switch without a major learning curve.” Thanks Carlos Vega for the input.
BTW, here is the presentation which I had delivered at GDG Kathmandu DevFest, check either Android Studio on speakerdeck or the given below:
Nice article! Just wanting to point out that you mispelled darcula at some point, just after saying to be careful about the spelling : “You can set the dracula theme in Android Studio by:” :)
I agree to A. Gasfire Nice article, but lots of spelling error like foster in the 1st paragraph of the introduction.