Android Studio First Look

On 15th May 2013 Google announced a new development environment at its I/O summit 2013. Google calls it Android Studio. After listening to this I got a feeling that Google intends to build a platform just as Apple’s Xcode for iPhone app development. This may be a good thing for developers as Google claims it has many new features in it like, Gradle based support, Android specific refactoring, ProGaurd and app signing capabilities, lint tools performance improvements, template based wizards for designes, referral tracking and many more.

Since I am an Android fanatic at Truiton, I had to set it up on my machine. The setup can be downloaded from here. After downloading the setup make sure JAVA_HOME and JDK_HOME environment variables are set up. If not please follow the steps below:

Step 1. Find JDK Installation Directory

If you already know the installation path for the Java Development Kit, go to Step 2 below. Otherwise, find the installation path by following these instructions:

1. If you didn’t change the installation path for the Java Develpoment Kit during installation, it will be in a directory under C:\Program Files\Java. Using Explorer, open the directory C:\Program Files\Java.
2. Inside that path will be one or more subdirectories such as C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_11.

Step 2. Set the JDK_HOME Variable

Once you have identified the JDK installation path:

1. Right-click the My Computer icon on your desktop and select Properties.
2. Click the Advanced tab.
3. Click the Environment Variables button.
4. Under System Variables, click New.
5. Enter the variable name as JDK_HOME.
6. Enter the variable value as the installation path for the Java Development Kit.
7. Click OK.
8. Click Apply Changes.

If JAVA_HOME variable is also not set on your machine use the above steps to set one up, but with different path obviously. With these variables set up your installation must be running.

After I installed my copy of Android Studio, I thought of developing an app to test the new IDE. Although Google has stated that this version is just a developer preview and needs many improvements, I find it very easy to use. The only flaw in Android Studio as per me is, that its kinda slow. Its draining my machine’s processing power, but still its not delivering fast output. This maybe due to its whole new Gradle base build support. As per wikipedea page for Gradle it states “Gradle was designed for multi-project builds which can grow to be quite large, and as such, it supports incremental builds by intelligently determining which parts of the build tree are up-to-date, so that any task dependent upon those parts will not need to be re-executed.” . But since this Android Studio is in developer preview as of now, I am sure in near future this would replace Eclipse for android development. Here are some screen shots of my version:

To make this even more cool Google has developed themes for it, in these screen shots, I have been using Dracula theme, it adds an Android touch to it. With this I conclude Android Studio First Look. If you like this, share it and connect with us on Google+ and Facebook.

Mohit Gupt

Born in New Delhi, India. A software engineer by profession, an android enthusiast and an evangelist. My motive here is to create a group of skilled developers, who can develop something new and good. Reason being programming is my passion, and also it feels good to make a device do something you want. In a very short span of time professionally I have worked with many tech firms. As of now too, I am employed as a senior engineer in a leading tech company. In total I may have worked on more than 20 projects professionally, and whenever I get spare time I share my thoughts here at Truiton.