From the past few years it’s apparently very clear that Android OS and its Apps are dominating the mobile market. This Java based technology has occupied most of the Mobile OS landscape with its user friendliness, flexibility & accessibility. With this increasing Android user base android Apps are also in its peak demand. Here comes the Android Studio platform for developers to produce high end Android Apps and surely it’s the first preference for the developers’ community for developing their Android Apps. Android Studio is an open source SDK with pugins and extensions for developer. Android Studio is mainly base on open source IntelliJ. Google released it under Apache 2 license which is open source also. For many developers Android Studio is the most accepted platform for developing Android App. For advanced and high end App development it’s the most useful tool. Its interface & plugins are much advance than the others. For high end Gaming App also it’s used with Unity SDK.

Here are some steps to set up IntelliJ for developing with Android Studio SDK:

Some Prerequisites:

•  Java 6 JDK installation
•  IntelliJ IDEA installation
• Android SDK Tools installation
•  Genymotion installation

1. First of all download the IJ community latest edition.
2. Adding JDK: Project Structure – SDK’s – Add new JDK with the exact name “IDEA jdk”. (Note that this SDK should be a standard JDK, NOT an “IntelliJ Platform Plug-in SDK”)                                                                              a.Use JDK 1.6, since we are still supporting the IDE version running on Java 6.
3. You need to also add tools.jar from your JDKto the “IDEA jdk” classpath. (Located in <JDK Path>/lib/tools.jar).
4. You need to have the UI Designer and the Groovy plugins enabled. They should be present by default; otherwise it might give compilation errors.

Source Code & building within Java IntelliJ IDEA:

You can have the android plugin source code in tools/adt/idea and the IntelliJ IDE in tools/idea/; also you can find many shared libraries in tools/base/.

Open the Android Studio Project from ‘Open Project’ in IntelliJ and select the folder- ‘tools/idea/’. Now your project is ready for debugging & compilation.

Unit Test:

While running unit tests in the IDE if you get a “File access outside allowed roots” exception failure, then you need to set the below property in your unit test run configuration. You can set this in the default unit test configuration.

Below is the property to set:

NO_FS_ROOTS_ACCESS_CHECK=true

Some technical issues & tips:

• You must add tools.jar to the “IDEA jdk” configuration or you will get an error commenting: “java: package com.sun.source.tree does not exist- Make sure to add tools.jar to the IDEA JDK “.  You can fix the above issue by: File > Project Structure > SDKs > “IDEA jdk” > classpath > + > select C:\Program Files\Java\(jdk_version)\lib\tools.jar.

• You might get an error “java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError” while trying to run the IDE project with Cygwin on Windows platform. Error is stated as “C:\cygwin64\home\…\tools\idea\bin\win\jumplistbridge64.dll: Access is denied” exception. To overcome & fix this exception, you must open the various .exe and .dll files in the tools/bin/win folder and grant the execute permissions.

Instructions:

1. Open the folder in Windows Explorer.
2. Select one of the executable files and right click on it to open the Properties dialog. Click on the ‘Security’ tab.
3. Click on the ‘Edit’ button and grant execute permission. Hit OK.
4. Repeat steps for all the necessary .dll files.

• You can do it also from the command prompt. Open the command prompt as Administrator and run the below command:

      icacls C:\cygwin64\home\Android\aosp\tools\idea\bin\win\* /grant Everyone:(RX)

Android Studio System Requirements:

Version 2.x

	Windows	OS X/macOS	Linux
OS version	Microsoft Windows 10/8/7 (32- or 64-bit)	Mac OS X 10.9.5 or higher, up to 10.11.6 (El Capitan) or 10.12.1 (Sierra)	GNOME or KDE desktop
RAM	3 GB RAM minimum, 8 GB RAM recommended
Disk space	500 MB disk space for Android Studio, at least 1.5 GB for Android SDK, emulator system images, and caches
Java version	Java Development Kit (JDK) 8
Screen resolution	1280×800 minimum screen resolution

 

Android Studio General Features:

• Android Studio is Google’s officially supported IDE for developing Android Apps.
• Let’s have a look into some features of it.
• This programming environment is compatible for all Android devices app development.
• Support for developing Android TV, Android Smart Wear and devices.
• Good for high end app interface designing.
• Rich layout editor with latest plugin libraries.
• Refactoring & quick fix capabilities.
• Gradle based build support.
• Version compatible, high performance, unified environment.
• Fast emulator with high end features.
• ProGuard integration.
• Instead of building a new APK it has the instant run feature which can push changes immediately to the running app.
• Built-in support & features for Google Cloud, Google Cloud Messaging, Google API & Google App Engine integration.
• Latest Plug-in supports.

Some of Android Studio Tech Features:

• Autosave feature: Codes & programs are autosaved in this IDE.
• Preview layout XMLs: Developer can preview their Xml while at the same time making some changes in it
• File explorer option. Files & sub files: File exploring option & directory listing feature.
• Smart autocompletion: Autocompletion & suggestion feature.
• Typo check for variables & methods: Suggestions & typo check for variables & methods.
• Integrated command line in IDE: Can run Gradle command on other stuffs in directory.
• Helpful VCS Integration & Version control features: The VCS integrated with the Android studio has some good Version Control features.
• Color picker tool: You can manage colors and add them from color picker tool or you can use palette.
• Drag & Drop option: Designing interface with Drag & Drop option which is much more easier for the developers for layout designing.

With the moderate knowledge in Java Programming and Web Service implementations, developing with Android Studio is definitely the best option for Android App development.