I have always used ADT to develop Android applications, but have moved to a new machine which does not have ADT installed. Google does not seem to support using ADT any more anyway, saying "you should migrate your app development projects to Android Studio as soon as possible". But Android Studio apparently uses Gradle which requires an Internet connection to compile, which won't work for me when I'm on the road, when I can download stuff to install if needed, but don't have an Internet connection when I'm actually working.
So as a work-around I am exploring the idea of not using an IDE at all and just manually compiling everything. (This also seems more future proof against the next time Google decides everyone needs to switch to a whole set of new tools.) I assume that to do this I need a few command line tools, for instance, something like "javac" to compile Java files into class files and next something to create dex file(s) and finally something to package everything together into an apk and sign it. However, when I search for instructions on manual builds I still find constant references to a build system such as Ant or Gradle. I don't want to use any build system!
From scratch, what is the minimum I need in terms of tools I need to download and figure out the command line invocation to turn a simple (let's say "Hello World" simple) java file (and a few support files like a layout XML file and manifest) into a working APK? (Note that I need to build an APK that will work on APIs as old as API level 10.)
Update: Ok, so far I have installed the standalone SDK tools, and have used the SDK Manager to install the SDKs that I need. But now I'm unsure of what commands I need to run: I'm familiar with javac and I see that, but I know there are other commands too. Again, I have seen several SO questions asking about how to build and it refers to things like the ant or android command, which are NOT in the stand-along SDK tools and which shouldn't be necessary if I just knew which commands to invoke manually.
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am not new to java programming. I recently downloaded the android SDK to begin practice android programming.
my eclipse Ide hasn't really been friendly with me because, at first it refused to install the adt plugin I donwloaded. till I installed it from google. and now it find it difficult to run even the helloworld program. it gives me several errors.
something about */user/***/res/value/*.xml not found or dark theme something not found, appcompat.v7 no resoirse found .
and also do I really to install all the items in the android SDK before I can compile anything. because the file size of my android-SDK-windows file is way over 10gb. and it looks odd plus my data bundle has been exhausted.
thanks..
Welcome to android Platform
Question1: "my eclipse Ide hasn't really been friendly with me"
Practice makes you perfect. Eclipse is a good tool once you get to know it
Question2: "Do I really to install all the items in the android SDK before I can compile anything"
No, you just need any once of the API ex: API-14 install it
Question3: "It find it difficult to run even the helloworld program"
Download a sample project online import into your eclipse and run it if you are new to android
Happy Coding !!
when using eclipse for android development it will always gives you errors its a nightmare that ull get used to. first of all make sure that the theme is fit for the sdk version that you mentioned in the manifest and two make sure that you have downloaded all the required items in the SDK. and try and refresh the project few times or even restart eclipse.
I tried to look though the documentation but nothing explained why some android java apps are compiled with 'ant' vs. the normal way to to compile an app in eclipse?
In basic words you can use ant to compile your Android project and get several apks as output, lets say for different companies. Like build machine. In ant you write all dependences and its easy to manage compilation process.
From my experience I used ant to bind Android NDK with SDK but Eclipse can do that pretty well.
So If you are not familiar with ant, use Eclipse for Android. It will be enough.
Some link to start from
I'm writing an Android application and there's some Java code in it that's somewhat sophisticated and therefore hard to verify the correctness of in the Android environment. I would like to run this code in a desktop environment where I have more tools with which to examine the output of this code while still using it in my Android application.
My attempted solution is to have three different projects in Eclipse. My Android project and two plain (non-Android) Java projects. One Java project has the sophisticated code that I want to use in Android and the other is a test program that verifies the correctness of the former project. The latter project has already been useful in debugging the former.
However, so far, my attempts to use the Java project in my Android project appears to work in the IDE but when I actually run the Android application, the NoClassDefFoundError exception is thrown whenever I try to access any of the classes. Obviously, that code is not being recompiled into the .dex file but why not?
I could go into detail about what I've done so far but I can't help but think that what I'm doing is a pretty standard and simple thing and there's a plain way of doing it, even though I can't find anyone doing quite what I'm trying. Can someone describe to me how this is done?
Luckily, I found the answer to my own question and I thought I'd share it here to help others in the same situation. It turned out to be very simple...
What I was already doing would have normally worked, which should have been a big clue to me since I have actually done this before, successfully. All you have to do is, under your Android project's Properties > Java Build Path > Projects, add the plain Java project to your "Required projects on the build path" and then under Properties > Java Build Path > Order and Export, check the checkbox of that same project in the "Build class path order and exported entries" list and everything should just work.
From within Eclipse, there's nothing else you need to do to get this setup to work. It's only when you're compiling from the command line that you need to build Java Jars and import them as libraries but I'm not doing that (yet).
Finally, this wasn't working for me because I just happened to be compiling my plain Java project under JDK 1.7 compliance, while my Android project was compiled under JDK 1.6. This is verified by the output on the Console pane, reporting "Dx bad class file magic (cafebabe) or version." This error message goes away when both projects are compiled under the same compliance level and, not coincidentally, the Android program runs properly.
Thank you to everyone who tried to help and I hope this answer is helpful to someone out there!
Would it not work if you made your other plain java project into an Android project and use it to monitor the output on the device?
Hi i've been trying to install the library on Thinking in Java book 4th edition and i hit a very thick brick wall. I've done everything that the guide from the website told me to do and i still can't get the library to work. From what i've read it seems that the problem is from the build.xml files. having no xml knowledge I am clueless about how I have to modify it in order for it to work. In both cmd and eclipse I am getting these error
c:\TIJ4\code\build.xml
Build Failed
c:\TIJ4\code\build.xml:59:J2SE5 required
Can anyone tell me what I should do ?
I am using eclipse if there is a simpler solution by using eclipse rather than ant please help me out. It's been a week now and I still can't make it work.
The important thing to do is to realize that your ant file has a specific java requirement.
Something to try that might fix this very easily : I believe you can remove any references to a specific JDK, and if you have a reasonably up to date JDK, the build will succeed.
The definete fix : Look into the exact (line 59) of your build file, and try to satisfy the java version that line requires. Java is generally backwords compatible -- something designed to run in J2SE5 should run in the latest JDK. Its not terribly difficult to update your JDK (just google for instructions on your OS).
The most common mistake I see is that people who have the java run time installed believe they also have the Java SDK as well.
Does this "install the library" means you want to look at the code and run them in your eclipse? If so I can share my experience with you.
First run the Eclipse.py script; this will add package info to the source code
Create a new Java project in Eclipse, and then just copy all the source code folders to the src source folder in eclipse, these folders will then be recognized as Java packages.
You should be able to run the classes with a main function.
You can also configure which java version to use for this project in Eclipse build path. 1.5 or higher will work.
I downloaded the most recent version of Android for Linux (android-sdk_r05-linux_86.tgz). I was trying to use the the Android Ant task(s) for packaging, building, and deploying my code. I should mention that I'm running AMD64, but I have the 32-bit libraries installed. The Android Ant tasks are all broken.
First, the start-emulator task never gets the emulator running. It does get past starting adb, but then it just sits there.
Second, the SDK is missing the AAPT binary in the tools directory. So, the example notepad sample application will not even package correctly.
java.lang.IllegalStateException: Can't find aapt inside the sdk at /home/user/bin/android-sdk-linux_86
at com.googlecode.autoandroid.lib.AndroidTools.locateTool(AndroidTools.java:116)
at com.googlecode.autoandroid.lib.AndroidTools.startTool(AndroidTools.java:103)
at com.googlecode.autoandroid.lib.AndroidTools.startTool(AndroidTools.java:91)
at com.googlecode.autoandroid.lib.UnixAndroidTools.aapt(UnixAndroidTools.java:9)
I have all the dependencies configured for Android. I can run it from the command line just fine.
I assume the Ant code is out of sync with the recent SDK updates. Can anyone shed some light on this problem? At this point, I'm considering writing my own Python scripts to interact with the Android SDK. Ugh.
For anyone running into this recently, aapt moved again. It's now in $ANDROID_SDK/build-tools/17.0.0.
I have written three books all using the Android Ant build scripts. Trust me, they work.
First, the start-emulator task never
gets the emulator running. It does get
past starting adb, but then just sits
there.
Run the android command and launch the emulator from AVD Manager window that appears. AFAIK, there is no start-emulator task in Ant -- in fact, I'm not aware that there ever has been one.
Second, the SDK is missing the aapt
binary in the tools directory.
If you are looking in $ANDROID_HOME/tools/ (where $ANDROID_HOME is where you unpacked the SDK), you aren't supposed to find aapt there. That directory is for tools that directly support all API levels. API-level-specific tools, like aapt, will reside in $ANDROID_HOME/platforms/$SDK/tools/ (where $SDK is the name of some Android version, like android-2.1).
If you do not have anything in $ANDROID_HOME/platforms/, please follow step 4 of the installation instructions.