Build app with android sdk

What Is the Android SDK and How to Start Using It

Android SDK is a software development kit developed by Google for the Android platform. The Android SDK allows you to create Android apps, and you don’t need to be an expert to use it. In this tutorial, I’ll explain what the Android SDK is and how to get started with it.

Android SDK comes bundled with Android Studio, Google’s official integrated development environment (IDE) for the Android operating system. You can learn about Android Studio and the Android App Development Kit in another of my articles.

In this post, we’ll look at:

• What is the Android SDK?
• How to install the Android SDK
• What is the Android SDK Manager?
• What are the components of the Android SDK?

What Is the Android SDK?

The Android SDK is a collection of software development tools and libraries required to develop Android applications. Every time Google releases a new version of Android or an update, a corresponding SDK is also released which developers must download and install. It is worth noting that you can also download and use the Android SDK independently of Android Studio, but typically you’ll be working through Android Studio for any Android development.

The Android SDK comprises all the tools necessary to code programs from scratch and even test them. These tools provide a smooth flow of the development process from developing and debugging, through to packaging.

The Android SDK is compatible with Windows, macOS, and Linux, so you can develop on any of those platforms.

How to Install the Android SDK

The Android SDK is optimized for Android Studio, and hence to effectively reap its benefits, you will need to install Android Studio. Having the Android SDK managed from within Android Studio is easier since support for languages like Java, Kotlin, and C++ is handled automatically. Not only that, but updates to the Android SDK are handled automatically by Android Studio.

To install the Android SDK from within Android Studio, first start Android Studio.

• From the Android Studio start page, select Configure > SDK Manager.

• If you already have Android Studio open, the SDK Manager icon is found on the top right corner, as shown below.

Install the required Android SDK platform packages and developer tools. A good start is to install:

• Android SDK Build-Tools
• Android Emulator
• Android SDK Platform-Tools
• Android SDK Tools
• Documentation for Android SDK

Click Apply, and Android Studio will install the selected tools and packages.

What Is the SDK Manager?

The Android SDK is composed of modular packages that you can download, install, and update separately using the Android SDK Manager. The SDK Manager helps to update new SDK releases and updates whenever a new Android platform is released. The SDK manager can be found in the top-right corner of the Android Studio screen, as shown below.

All that is required to follow the instructions provided, and the updates will be immediately downloaded to your environment.

What Are the Components of the Android SDK?

The Android SDK consists of an emulator, development tools, sample projects with source code, and the required libraries to build Android applications. Let’s look at the key components one by one.

Android SDK Tools

Android SDK Tools is a component of the Android SDK. It includes a complete set of development and debugging tools for Android, and is included with Android Studio. The SDK Tools also consist of testing tools and other utilities required to develop an app.

SDK Build Tools

Build tools are required for building components for building the actual binaries for your Android app. Always ensure your build tools component is up to date by downloading the latest version in the Android SDK Manager.

SDK Platform-Tools

Android Platform-Tools are used to support the features for the current Android platform and are necessary for Android app development. These tools interface with the Android platform on the device you use for testing. They include:

• Android Debug Bridge (adb): This is a handy command-line tool that lets you communicate with a device. The adb command allows you to perform device actions, such as installing and debugging apps. It also provides access to a Unix shell that you can use to run a variety of commands on a device.
• fastboot: This lets you flash a device with a new system image.
• systrace: This tool helps collect and inspect timing information across all processes running on your device at the system level. It’s crucial for debugging app performance.

SDK Platform-Tools are backward compatible, so you need only one version of the SDK Platform-Tools.

SDK Platform

For each version of Android, there’s one SDK Platform available. These are numbered according to the Android version (e.g. Android 7 Nougat) and an API version (e.g. API Level 24). Before you build an Android app, you must specify an SDK Platform as your build target. Newer SDK Platform versions have more features for developers, but older devices may not be compatible with the newer platform versions.

Google APIs

Google provides a number of exclusive Google APIs to make developing your app easier. They also offer a system image for the emulator so you can test your app using the Google APIs.

Android Emulator

The Android Emulator is a QEMU-based device-emulation tool that simulates Android devices on your computer, allowing developers to test applications on different devices and Android API levels, without needing to have physical devices for each. The emulator comes with configurations for various Android phones, tablets, Wear OS, and Android TV devices.

The Android emulator provides almost all of the capabilities of a real Android device. You can perform the following activities:

• simulate phone calls and text messages
• simulate different network speeds
• specify the location of the device
• simulate hardware sensors such as rotation
• access Google Play Store and much more

Often it is faster and easier to test your app with an emulator instead of using a physical device.

Conclusion

In this post, we looked at some of the basics of the Android SDK. The Android SDK is the only way to develop for Android devices. Fortunately, it contains extensive documentation, tutorials, samples, best practice guidance, and an array of tools for many different development tasks.

Premium Android App Templates From CodeCanyon

Android Studio comes with some default templates to help start an app, but these are very basic and provide minimal, generic functionality.

CodeCanyon is an online marketplace that has hundreds of additional templates, which are way more feature-rich and domain-specific too. You can save days, even months, of effort by using one of them.

An Android app template is a great way to jump-start your app project or to learn some new skills by exploring the source code of a professionally made app.

Take a look at some of our roundups of the best Android app templates:

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How to make Android apps without IDE from command line

Nov 26, 2017 · 5 min read

A HelloWorld without Android Studio

Update: I’ve made a new course that explain how you can avoid Android Studio and Gradle, but still use IntelliJ iDE:

How to do Android development faster without Gradle

IntelliJ IDE, but not Gradle

In this tutorial, I will show you how you can build/compile an APK (an A n droid app) from your java code using terminal (on Linux) without IDE or in other words without Android Studio. At the end, I will also show you a script to automate the process. In this example, I will use Android API 19 (4.4 Kitkat) to make a simple HelloWorld. I want to say that I will do this tutorial without android command which is deprecated.

1. Install Java

First, you need to install java, in my case, I install the headless version because I don’t use graphics (only command line):

2. Install all SDK tools

Then download the last SDK tools of Android which you can find here:

Download Android Studio and SDK Tools | Android Studio

Download the official Android IDE and developer tools to build apps for Android phones, tablets, wearables, TVs, and…

I recommend to unzip it in the /opt directory inside another directory that we will call “android-sdk”:

Now, we have to install platform tools (which contain ADB), an Android API and build tools.

In fact, if you are on Debian, you can avoid installing platform-tools package and only install ADB like that:

3. Code the application

In this example, I want to compile a simple HelloWorld. So, first, we need to make a project directory:

Then we have to make the files tree:

If you use exernal libraries (.jar files), also make a folder for them:

You have an example here:

How to use JavaMail on Android (without Gradle)

Hello guys!

Make the file src/com/example/helloandroid/MainActivity.java and put that inside:

Make the strings.xml file in the res/values folder. It contains all the text that your application uses:

The activity_main.xml is a layout file which have to be in res/layout:

You also have to add the file AndroidManifest.xml at the root:

4. Build the code

Now, I recommend to store the project path in a variable:

First, we need generate the R.java file which is necessary for our code:

• -m instructs aapt to create directories under the location specified by -J
• -J specifies where the output goes. Saying -J src will create a file like src/com/example/helloandroid/R.java
• -S specifies where is the res directory with the drawables, layouts, etc.
• -I tells aapt where the android.jar is. You can find yours in a location like android-sdk/platforms/android-/android.jar

Now, we have to compile the .java files:

If you have use an external, add it the classpath:

The compiled .class files are in obj folder, but Android can’t read them. We have to translate them in a file called “classes.dex” which will be read by the dalvik Android runtime:

But if you use external libraries, do rather:

If you have the error UNEXPECTED TOP-LEVEL EXCEPTION , it can be because you use old build tools and DX try to translate java 1.7 rather than 1.8. To solve the problem, you have to specify 1.7 java version in the previous javac command:

The -source option specify the java version of your source files. Note that we can use previous versions of Java even we use OpenJDK 8 (or 1.8).

We can now put everything in an APK:

Be aware: until now, we used three AAPT commands, the first and the second one are similar but they don’t do the same. You have to copy the classes.dex file at the root of project like above! Otherwise, AAPT won’t put this file at right place in the APK archive (because an APK is like a .zip file).

The generated package can’t be installed by Android because it’s unaligned and unsigned.

If you want, you can check the content of the package like this:

5. Sign the package

To do so, we firstly create a new keystore with the command keytool given by Java:

Just answer the questions and put a password.

You can sign an APK like this:

Note that apksigner only exist since Build Tools 24.0.3.

6. Align the package

It’s as simple as that:

Alignment increase the performance of the application and may reduce memory use.

7. Test the application

To test the application, connect your smartphone with a USB cable and use ADB:

But before run this command, I recommend to run this one:

If there is an error during installation or running, you see it with that command.

Voila! Here’s the result:

8. Make a script

If you don’t want to run all these steps every time you would like to compile your app, make a script! Here’s mine:

Notes

• You can remove “test” if you just want to compile without testing.
• This script only compile and run the app on the phone. But I can also make a script to automatically generate a new project like this one. I think I have a good idea to do so, but I need to know if you are interested. If it’s the case, please leave a comment or send me an e-mail.
• I can also complete the script for external libraries. Likewise, let me know if you want this.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask them below or by e-mail ;-)! EDIT: Well I’m very busy actually…

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