A couple of days ago I finally ditched my old Blackberry Bold for a nice shiny Samsung Galaxy S. This is something I've been thinking about doing for quite some time now and when my wife wanted a new phone to replace her really old W880i we both got the Galaxy. (How "special" ain't that? It feels a bit funny to whip out the same phone as your wife :)
Anyhow - back in the days I did some minor tests of developing a game for the Blackberry, now it's time to start some developing activities for the Android platform. I'm no java guru - but hey! how hard can it be cobble up a decent application in java for the Android? I've been programming for 33 years now, it's just another api and language to master. Same-same but different.
A while ago I've bought a book "Hello, Android" second edition and read whilst getting some rays at the beach. Time to replace the theoretical knowledge with some real hands-on experience;
Downloads
I headed over to http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html and downloaded all the necessary softwares . The android-sdk_r06-windows.zip from android.com, the newest java development kit jdk-6u21-windows-i586 from sun.com and finally the eclipse-SDK-3.5.2-win32 from eclipse.org. I followed their recommendations and avoided the Helios (3.6) version of Eclipse since it apparently got some incompabilites with the Android development kit.
Installation
Install the JDK with full options. Unzip the Eclipse into C:\eclipse, run eclipse.exe and wait for the prompt for where to store your workspaces. I ticked the box for remembering the workspace so I don't have to select again at next start.
I unpacked the android-sdk into C:\eclipse\android in order to keep the entire development platform together in one place.
I installed the ADT package as instructed by the android website. In Eclipse go to Help|Add New Software..., click Add... enter "Android Tools" and the URL as https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/ Tick the box in the list of available softwares andclick Next. (Go and get a cup of coffee now since the dependency calculations takes a long time) Click some more Nexts, Finish, and Yes'es and wait a bit more.
After a restart of Eclipse I went to Windows|Preferences... and told it where I installed the android-sdk. After that I could go into Windows|Android SDK & AVD Manager to download the API's and emulators in the Available Packages-section. Feeling adventurous I got them all inclusive of the USB package. Since I'm currently on Wimax internet with a not so good speed and the full monty had a lot of downloads I decided to go to bed and let the installer work it's magic by itself during the night.
After the installation was done restarted Eclipse and then created a new emulator device named with the old Android 1.6 OS on it. Click the start button and wait a minute or two while the emulator starts up Android for the first time.
Now..... Time to start a new project and do some real work on it.
