Android Development

I myself just started setting up a development environment for Android. This will be a great place to share the knowledge. Thanks Jennifer.

As you may know I've received a Nexus One device in April, I've installed the complete toolchain and adapted my eclipse environment to the Google SDK during the collaboration summit days. After the common "hello world" program I've had a lot of troubles dealing with tons of different java objects / classes in the early days due to my lack of knowledge.
Now after 7-8 months spent on it I'm quite happy of the environment, personal knowledge and java basic classes.
You need to understand deeply their java classes, you can solve the same problem using different classes and use different solutions.
The key point of Android OS is basically the developing environment from my point of view. You can literally redesign the user interface by subclassing Google basic classes, redesign the home menu, items, telephone app, contacts and so on.

You need to understand their structure and APIs and when you design an embedded app for your phone/pda/... application performances and speed are really impressive (even if Snapdragon CPUs are crunching beasts compared to others...), you can design your app with an embedded browser, map, high level objects and so on. It takes a while to learn everything but when you've read few books and understand basic concepts (from forums for example) it's easy to develop for it.
Now I've some experience on the OS and the Java environment, I'm really happy to discuss some advanced topics with you if possible, even write articles or blogs if this is an interesting topic

Ben

I use Eclipse for everything I've related to development (C++, Java, C with AVR GCC, Python, Php, JS, ...) so my opinion could may be a little bit influenced from the experience.
Google suggest you to use Eclipse and most of their documentation is related to it.

I personally don't install Eclipse from distribution repository (rpm -ivh ... Fedora, apt-get install ... debian, emerge ... gentoo) 'cause Eclipse is a "different beast" and has its own updates, even on heavily updated distro (Fedora or Ubuntu for example) you don't have the same features or updates from original Eclipse repository. So I've always installed Eclipse on its own from their website.

Never had a trouble with an underlying JVM but I personally don't use Fedora; mainly Gentoo, Slack, Debian and Ubuntu.

I'm glad to find someone else using droid tools from this site, I'll look forward for exchanging experiences on it.

Cheers
Ben

Have you tried the steps listed on http://kokoko.fluxionary.net/set-up-a-eclipse-free-environment-for-android-application-development ?

I also suggest this one (http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/eclipse-adt.html)

When I usually develop something with a tool I search something from the web as an alternative to manufacturer/producer source documentation; believe me or not Google did an impressive job with their docs, you can find a lot of different sources but official documentation is really clear and verbose, take a look at it.

To answer your question here's what I'm using in my Ubuntu laptop:

ben@andrea:/$ aptitude search jdk
p default-jdk - Standard Java or Java compatible Developme
v default-jdk-builddep -
p default-jdk-doc - Standard Java or Java compatible Developme
p gcj-4.4-jdk - gcj and classpath development tools for Ja
p gcj-4.5-jdk - gcj and classpath development tools for Ja
p gcj-jdk - gcj and classpath development tools for Ja
p openjdk-6-dbg - Java runtime based on OpenJDK (debugging s
p openjdk-6-demo - Java runtime based on OpenJDK (demos and e
p openjdk-6-doc - OpenJDK Development Kit (JDK) documentatio
p openjdk-6-jdk - OpenJDK Development Kit (JDK)
i A openjdk-6-jre - OpenJDK Java runtime, using Hotspot JIT
i A openjdk-6-jre-headless - OpenJDK Java runtime, using Hotspot JIT (h
i A openjdk-6-jre-lib - OpenJDK Java runtime (architecture indepen
v openjdk-6-jre-shark -
p openjdk-6-jre-zero - Alternative JVM for OpenJDK, using Zero/Sh
p openjdk-6-source - OpenJDK Development Kit (JDK) source files

As you can see I'm using openjdk, I've installed it directly from repository but I've manually downloaded Eclipse from eclipse.org site, no Ubuntu/Debian repository involved with it. I'm using Eclipse for 5/6 years and I've always avoided to install it from any distribution repository, that's because I'd like to update it manually from eclipse site and have more features/modules available.
Let me know about your tests if you need help with it

Cheers
Ben

@Goineasy9
Are you able to compile your first hello world program now ?

Me and my friend had an awesome phone app idea at the weekend, I thought I'd try my hand at developing an Android application this week.



I want to give a quick overview of my preliminary thoughts on getting started on this endeavour. 



Background: I've got more than 10 years Java experience, but any UI for the applications I've worked on was always a web UI.  I am completely new to mobile app develop.

I spent maybe a day and a half watching the excellent Android development tutorials and attempting to hack out a quick 'droid app.

I remember the disaster of trying to get my first JDK working on my 486 - what a nightmare!  And getting Tomcat 3 installed and running?  Forget it.  I also remember the last time I made a serious stab at a learning a new technology.  I tried develop a Grails/Groovy application in Eclipse.  The IS guys had to rescue my laptop from me during that enterprise before I could do it any serious damage.



Installing the SDK on my mac was surprisingly simple, especially bearing in mind I'm new both to OSX and to mobile development.  I don't know if it's because Android development has been well thought out and well supported, or if it's a function of both the industry's maturity and my own experience.

The integration with IntelliJ was much slicker than I expected, especially since I'm using the freebie Community edition.  I don't remember the exact steps to tell it I wanted to create an Android project, but it must have been ridiculously easy otherwise I would remember the trauma.  I do remember a little confusion around installing the Android platform - I hadn't understood the difference between installing the SDK and then installing a specific API for it. And then when I clicked the "run" button in IntelliJ, hey presto!  The emulator appeared and there was my app!