May 31st, 2010 | nubae
How to go about creating android apps
Your best bet is to rely on the ever so popular and admittedly reliable Eclipse development environment. With a couple of steps, you can be up and running developing, though the steps can allude the average individual (like myself),which is why I've decided to document the steps I took for getting Eclipse ready for Android application development.
To be honest, there are probably hundreds of sites that will give you "some" method of getting things up and running, but what I found is that it really only requires 2-3 steps to be on your way.
1. Before setting up Eclipse to use the Android SDK, its advisable to install that first, so go ahead and download that from: http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html
Then go ahead and est it up (u may need to use the force option to install [I had to at least], and then try and remember where you installed it, as you will need to point eclipse to it later on.
2. Install the latest version of Eclipse for your operating system (I am using windows 7, though the environment should be indentical no matter the OS.) At the time of writing the latest version of Eclipse was 3.5 (Galilleo.) In order to enable Android plugins, you have to click on the help option on the top bar, then select Help -> Install new software. There, the easiest way to enable your android plugins is by using the add option, call it something useful like: "Android plugins", and then add the following url [replacing the https for http if it causes problems]:
https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/
Clicking Add should take you to the "available software" viewscreen, where you must click on the new addition, and then enable the checkbox next to developer Tools. Click next, various times, accepting the license agreements, until Eclipse asks you to retart. Do so, and now you should have the android plugins available to you in Eclipse.
3. Making the Android SDK available to Eclipse is relatively simple. Point it to the location you downloaded the Android SDK folder (usuallly a subfolder of the main download, for example mine was: "C:\Users\nubae\Downloads\android-sdk_r06-windows\android-sdk-windows"
Then click appply, and ok.
Ok, if everything has gone as planned so far, then you are on to the final steps. I am going to paste a url rather than repeat the already well written instructions:
http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing.html#components
Well, the above link should really just be an overview of components installed to allow you to create android apps. In other words, you are now ready to go forth and develop. A I begin my own development, be sure, to read my progress here. Good luck, and so on....
