Android App Development

7/12/2014

Open Android emulator and install apk in command line on a mac:

- Start avd manager:
In /Developer/Applications/Android/android-sdk-macosx/tools, type
android avd

- To install an apk
with the emulator running, go into ../platform-tools, type:
./adb install ~/Downloads/myapp.apk


7/3/2014

Now put the Birthday Calculator project on repository, and created the first release.

The App is built with the setting of Android SDK min version 11 and target version 19. In other words, to install this App, you should have Android 3.0 (Honeycomb, see Wiki: Android version history) or above to be safely compatible.


6/26/2014

- After 3 weeks, at the same time I read Nick Harris's Beginning iOS Programming and finished a Bands App on my iPhone. In comparison the "Android Essentials" book did not impress me. It is hard to read and too crude to make much sense. Anyway, it was published back in 2008, so let's don't push too much expectation on it. The only thing "good" is that it's a thin book. Actually, there are tutorials on line. Once got through several prototype examples, one will understand the basic building blocks and underlying framework, then pick a better book becomes easy.

6/13/2014

- Was able to run example projects, and create empty Android project.
- downloaded book code from http://www.apress.com/9781430210641
  for book Android Essentials, by Chris Haseman. QA76.76 A65 J37 2008
- Android emulator runs too slow. Follow this to make it faster:
  http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1554099/why-is-the-android-emulator-so-slow
  - save this html page as "performance - Why is the Android emulator so slow.pdf"
  Basically:
  Use 2000 MiB for SD Card. Enable Snapshot. Use 1024 for device ram size.
  In AVD manager, Start.. -> check Launch from snapshot and Save to snapshot
  This seems faster but not good enough. So try the next: HAMX acceleration.
- My CPU: Intel Xeon CPU W3530. Support vt, from
  http://ark.intel.com/Products/VirtualizationTechnology
  Tried the one using HAMX acceleration. It's much faster now!
  -> The HAEM.exe is at D:\Android\android-sdk\extras\intel\Hardware_Accelerated_Execution_Manager
- Also found that, once the emulator is on, open new Android app
  does not need to restart the emulator.
- Another online tutorial:
  https://developer.android.com/training/basics/firstapp/index.html
  - this provide info on doing this from command line, v.s. using IDE such as eclipse.
- Same installation procedures work on both Windows and Mac.
  Environment set up on both Windows and Mac.
    

6/12/2014

- Install Eclipse from eclipse.org/downloads/. Use JEE version.
  - 32-bit version does not work.
  - 64-bit version works.
  - tried to create the Hello World application and works.

- Install Android SDK
  - from https://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html
  - run it. Install to D:\Android\android-sdk

- Install Eclipse Plug-In of Android. ADT: Android Developer Tools.
  - From https://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html
    Choose: USE AN EXISTING IDE. It is on page:
    https://developer.android.com/sdk/installing/index.html


6/11/2014

- Borrowed book "Android Essentials" by Chris Haseman from library. It's on web at here.


References:
[1] Develop Apps | Android Developers Homepage
[2] Android ActionBar完全解析，使用官方推荐的最佳导航栏