Day 0 : Setting up my computer for android programming

Today I set up my computer to develop android application.

First of all i search for different approaches of installing android developing tools . After sometime of googling I  find a easy way of installing  it in my computer.

You may either use Eclipse or android studio. In my case I prefer Eclipse.

Starting Eclipse for android programming

Google has provided a packaged and configured Eclipse IDE based android tools called ADT (Android Developer Tools)

I go to android developer official site  and  download the bundle. The downloaded bundle is portal and doesn't needed to install. You can just copy it and run in any computer.

Webpage to download ADT Bundle. Scroll Down to choose a right version.

 Click here to download the ADT Bundle.

Note: While downloading , we must choose the right OS version .

After downloading the ADT Bundle, i unzip the file   and open the eclipse.

Then i create my  own workspace. Workspace is the place where all your projects are saved .

By default there is only one SDK for one platform. In order to download other latest version of SDKs , i  open SDK manager in eclipse  and choose  the required API version  and download them.

Click on the Icon circled above, then the new window (pointed by arrow head) will open up.

Now I need to create an Android Virtual device(AVD). Even i have got my own android mobile but to make sure my Android SDK installation includes the Android Virtual Devices, I will test it by clicking on the "AVD" button - right next to the above encircled button for "Android SDK Manager". After I click the button, a new window opens up, where I created a new virtual device, which looked as follows.

Creating AVD

AVD Name: The name of the device (eg: MyPhone, Galaxy, etc)
Device: Predefined device (Choose one from the list)
Target: The targeted device which will run your app
Emulation Options:

[Snapshot] is like "Hibernate" feature in computer. If that is enabled, the AVD will start faster in next launches.

After setting up all the above options I clicked on "OK" and a new device was created. I clicked the device I just created, and then on "Start" - on the right, after which a new virtual device started, which looked like this. This is a virtual device to test my application.

This way, I have set up the following in my computer:

1. Downloaded and installed the Android ADT Bundle from Android Developers' website.
2. Opened up eclipse and set up a workspace to store all my project files.
3. Opened SDK Manager and updated my installation to latest versions.
4. Created a new virtual device to test my applications.
5. Played with different options and menus to make myself familiar!

After setting up the ADT-Bundle on my computer , i am ready to start a new project from day 1. I am quite excited right now!