Android Studio is a new Android development environment based on IntelliJ IDEA. Similar to Eclipse with the ADT Plugin, Android Studio provides integrated Android developer tools for development and debugging. On top of the capabilities you expect from IntelliJ, Android Studio offers:
- Gradle-based build support.
- Android-specific refactoring and quick fixes.
- Lint tools to catch performance, usability, version compatibility and other problems.
- ProGuard and app-signing capabilities.
- Template-based wizards to create common Android designs and components.
- A rich layout editor that allows you to drag-and-drop UI components, preview layouts on multiple screen configurations, and much more.
Caution: Android Studio is currently available as an early access preview. Several features are either incomplete or not yet implemented and you may encounter bugs. If you are not comfortable using an unfinished product, you may want to instead download (or continue to use) the ADT Bundle (Eclipse with the ADT Plugin).
Installing Android Studio
- Download the Android Studio package from here.
- Install Android Studio and the SDK tools:
Windows:
- Launch the downloaded EXE file, android-studio-bundle-.exe.
- Follow the setup wizard to install Android Studio.
Mac OS X:
- Open the downloaded DMG file, android-studio-bundle-.dmg.
- Drag and drop Android Studio into the Applications folder.
Linux:
- Unpack the downloaded Tar file, android-studio-bundle-.tgz, into an appropriate location for your applications.
- To launch Android Studio, navigate to the android-studio/bin/ directory in a terminal and execute studio.sh. You may want to add android-studio/bin/ to your PATH environmental variable so that you can start Android Studio from any directory.
That’s it! You’re ready to start developing apps with Android Studio.
Note: On Windows and Mac, the individual tools and other SDK packages are saved within the Android Studio application directory. To access the tools directly, use a terminal to navigate into the application and locate the sdk/ directory. For example:
Windows: \Users\\AppData\Local\Android\android-studio\sdk\
Mac: /Applications/Android\ Studio.app/sdk/
Starting a Project
When you launch Android Studio for the first time, you’ll see a Welcome screen that offers several ways to get started:
- To start building a new app, click New Project. This starts the New Project wizard, which helps you set up a project using an app template.
- To import an existing Android app project, click Import Project.
Note: If you previously developed your Android project with Eclipse, you should first use the new export feature in the ADT plugin to prepare your project with the new Gradle build system. For more information, read Migrating from Eclipse. For additional help using Android Studio, read Tips and Tricks. As you continue developing apps, you may need to install additional versions of Android for the emulator and other packages such as the Android Support Library. To install more packages, use the SDK Manager, which you can open from Android Studio by clicking SDK Manager
in the toolbar.
