Setting up Android IDE

There are good tutorials to be found for setting up Android IDE:

• http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing.html

Update: there are complete Eclipse+Android packages that you can unzip and use.

Currently the official guide will use Eclipse 3.6, if you want to use Eclipse 3.7 or later you might want to use this guide:

• http://navandroid.blogspot.nl/2012/01/configuring-eclipse-37-workable-on.html

The official guide tells you to use intall sun java (sun-java6-jdk). As I don't have that installed by default I use openjdk (java-6-openjdk) Additional info:

• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10004995/openjdk-in-ubuntu-or-android-eclipse

Some optional pointers to improve performance of Eclipse:

• modify /opt/eclipse/eclipse.ini increase startup memory:

-Xms64m

• modify /opt/eclipse/eclipse.ini increase maximum memory:

-Xmx1024m

• modify /opt/eclipse/eclipse.ini enable use of multiple processors:

-XX:-UseParallelGC
-XX:+AggressiveOpts
-XX:-UseConcMarkSweepGC
-XX:+UseFastAccessorMethods

• Use Oracle sun-Java VM 7:
  • http://www.duinsoft.nl/packages.php?t=en

Tips and tricks

Rotate the Android Virtual Device (AVD)

CTRL+F11/F12

Debug service

Somewhere, early in the code connect with the debugger:

//TODO: wjv: remember to remove this for the final code
Toast toastwjv =  Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), "waitForDebugger", Toast.LENGTH_LONG);
toastwjv.show();
android.os.Debug.waitForDebugger();

Android target version

Set target, like 16=4.1.2, 17=4.2.2, 18=4.3 in:

• modify AndroidManifest.xml
• modify project.properties
• Project - clean

Eclipse hint color, javadoc background

On Ubuntu the Javadoc background is black, links are difficult to read. Changing this in Eclipse: Window>Preferences>General>appearance>Colors and Fonts>Java does not work, it works if we change the hint colors for Ubuntu:

#backup
sudo cp /usr/share/themes/Ambiance/gtk-3.0/settings.ini /usr/share/themes/Ambiance/gtk-3.0/settings.ini.backup
sudo cp /usr/share/themes/Ambiance/gtk-3.0/gtk.css /usr/share/themes/Ambiance/gtk-3.0/gtk.css.backup
sudo cp /usr/share/themes/Ambiance/gtk-2.0/gtkrc /usr/share/themes/Ambiance/gtk-2.0/gtkrc.backup

#foreground white => black
sudo sed -i s/tooltip_fg_color:#ffffff/tooltip_fg_color:#000000/g  /usr/share/themes/Ambiance/gtk-3.0/settings.ini /usr/share/themes/Ambiance/gtk-3.0/gtk.css /usr/share/themes/Ambiance/gtk-2.0/gtkrc

#background black => yellow
sudo sed -i s/tooltip_bg_color:#000000/tooltip_bg_color:#f5f5b5/g  /usr/share/themes/Ambiance/gtk-3.0/settings.ini /usr/share/themes/Ambiance/gtk-3.0/gtk.css /usr/share/themes/Ambiance/gtk-2.0/gtkrc

• logout
• login