Installing Android

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I will be talking about the Android framework on Thursday. If you have an interest in running the examples that I will present or if you are thinking of doing a semester project using the Android framework, then you need to get a version of Android installed on one of your computers.

Below, I outline the basic steps you need to follow.

  1. 1. Verify that you have the JDK installed. I have:

    														java version "1.7.0_05"
														Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_05-b05)
														Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 23.1-b03, mixed mode)

    but these tools should be able to work on a range of JDK versions.

    To verify that you hava Java installed, open up a command-line terminal on your machine and enter the following command:

    java -version

    If you do not have Java installed, go to <http://www.java.com/en/download/index.jsp> to download it and follow the instructions to get it installed.

  2. 2. Download the Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers at <http://www.eclipse.org/downloads>.

    On Mac, double click the .tar.gz file and then move the resulting eclipse folder into your Applications folder. You can then drag the icon for the Eclipse environment to the Dock. On other platforms, follow the instructions provided by the Eclipse Foundation.

  3. 3. Download the Android SDK at <http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html>. You will need to download the file appropriate to the platform that you have access to. Unpack the archive that you downloaded and move it to a location in your home directory. I will now refer to that location as $ANDROID.

  4. 4. Download a version of the Android platform. To do this, from the command line, execute the following command:

    $ANDROID/tools/android

    This will launch the Android SDK Manager. In the resulting window, select the packages you want to download. At a minimum, you should select the Android SDK Platform-tools option and one Android SDK. Due to an issue I experienced with the Android emulator running on the latest Retina Macbook Pro, I needed to download Android version 4.0.3. You can download Android 4.1 if you want.

  5. 5. Install the Android plug-in for Eclipse by following the instructions at <http://developer.android.com/sdk/eclipse-adt.html>.

  6. 6. Configure the Android plug-in using the instructions labelled “Configuring the ADT Plugin” on the page listed above in step 5.
  7. 7. There is no step 7.

Let me know if you have any questions.

In addition, here are some pointers to additional resources that you may find useful in helping you get up the learning curve on Android.


© Ken Anderson 2012