Android Development Environment (SDK and Eclipse)

This page describes how to install the Android SDK and set up your development environment for the first time.
If you encounter any problems during installation, see the Troubleshooting section at the bottom of this page.

Updating?

If you already have an Android SDK, use the Android SDK and AVD Manager tool to install updated tools and new Android platforms into your existing environment. For information about how to do that, see Adding SDK Components

Step 1. Preparing Your Development Computer

Before getting started with the Android SDK, take a moment to confirm that your development computer meets the System Requirements. In particular, you might need to install the JDK, if you don't have it already.
If you will be developing in Eclipse with the Android Development Tools (ADT) Plugin—the recommended path if you are new to Android—make sure that you have a suitable version of Eclipse installed on your computer as described in the System Requirements document. If you need to install Eclipse, you can download it from this location:
http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/
The "Eclipse Classic" version is recommended. Otherwise, a Java or RCP version of Eclipse is recommended.

Step 2. Downloading the SDK Starter Package

The SDK starter package is not a full development environment—it includes only the core SDK Tools, which you can use to download the rest of the SDK components (such as the latest Android platform).
If you haven't already, get the latest version of the SDK starter package from the SDK download page.
If you downloaded a .zip or .tgz package (instead of the SDK installer), unpack it to a safe location on your machine. By default, the SDK files are unpacked into a directory named android-sdk-<machine-platform>.
If you downloaded the Windows installer (.exe file), run it now and it will check whether the proper Java SE Development Kit (JDK) is installed (installing it, if necessary), then install the SDK Tools into a default location (which you can modify).
Make a note of the name and location of the SDK directory on your system—you will need to refer to the SDK directory later, when setting up the ADT plugin and when using the SDK tools from command line.

Step 3. Installing the ADT Plugin for Eclipse

Android offers a custom plugin for the Eclipse IDE, called Android Development Tools (ADT), that is designed to give you a powerful, integrated environment in which to build Android applications. It extends the capabilites of Eclipse to let you quickly set up new Android projects, create an application UI, debug your applications using the Android SDK tools, and even export signed (or unsigned) APKs in order to distribute your application. In general, developing in Eclipse with ADT is a highly recommended approach and is the fastest way to get started with Android.
If you'd like to use ADT for developing Android applications, install it now.

Downloading the ADT Plugin

Use the Update Manager feature of your Eclipse installation to install the latest revision of ADT on your development computer.
Assuming that you have a compatible version of the Eclipse IDE installed, as described in Preparing for Installation, above, follow these steps to download the ADT plugin and install it in your Eclipse environment.

1. Start Eclipse, then select Help > Install New Software....
2. Click Add, in the top-right corner.
3. In the Add Repository dialog that appears, enter "ADT Plugin" for the Name and the following URL for the Location:

   https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/

   Note: If you have trouble acquiring the plugin, try using "http" in the Location URL, instead of "https" (https is preferred for security reasons).
   
4. Click OK.
   
5. In the Available Software dialog, select the checkbox next to Developer Tools and click Next.
6. In the next window, you'll see a list of the tools to be downloaded. Click Next.
7. Read and accept the license agreements, then click Finish.
8. When the installation completes, restart Eclipse.

Configuring the ADT Plugin 

Once you've successfully downloaded ADT as described above, the next step is to modify your ADT preferences in Eclipse to point to the Android SDK directory:

1. Select Window > Preferences... to open the Preferences panel (Mac OS X: Eclipse > Preferences).
2. Select Android from the left panel.
3. For the SDK Location in the main panel, click Browse... and locate your downloaded SDK directory.
4. Click Apply, then OK.

Done! If you haven't encountered any problems, then the installation is complete. If you're installing the Android SDK for the first time, return to Installing the SDK to complete your setup.

If you prefer to work in a different IDE, you do not need to install Eclipse or ADT, instead, you can directly use the SDK tools to build and debug your application. The Overview section of the developer guide outlines the major steps that you need to complete when developing in Eclipse or other IDEs.

Step 4. Adding Platforms and Other Components

The last step in setting up your SDK is using the Android SDK and AVD Manager (a tool included in the SDK starter package) to download essential SDK components into your development environment.

The SDK uses a modular structure that separates the major parts of the SDK—Android platform versions, add-ons, tools, samples, and documentation—into a set of separately installable components. The SDK starter package, which you've already downloaded, includes only a single component: the latest version of the SDK Tools. To develop an Android application, you also need to download at least one Android platform and the SDK Platform-tools (tools that the latest platform depend upon). However, downloading additional components is highly recommended.

If you used the Windows installer, when you complete the installation wizard, it will launch the Android SDK and AVD Manager with a default set of platforms and other components selected for you to install. Simply click Install to accept the recommended set of components and install them. You can then skip to Step 5, but we recommend you first read the section about the Available Components to better understand the components available from the Android SDK and AVD Manager.

You can launch the Android SDK and AVD Manager in one of the following ways:

• From within Eclipse, select Window > Android SDK and AVD Manager.
• On Windows, double-click the SDK Manager.exe file at the root of the Android SDK directory.
• On Mac or Linux, open a terminal and navigate to the tools/ directory in the Android SDK, then execute:
  
  

  android

To download components, use the graphical UI of the Android SDK and AVD Manager, shown in Figure 1, to browse the SDK repository and select new or updated components. The Android SDK and AVD Manager will install the selected components in your SDK environment. For information about which components you should download, see the following section about Recommended Components.





Figure 1. The Android SDK and AVD Manager's Available Packages panel, which shows the SDK components that are available for you to download into your environment.

Available Components

By default, there are two repositories of components for your SDK: Android Repository and Third party Add-ons.

The Android Repository offers these types of components:

• SDK Tools (pre-installed in the Android SDK starter package) — Contains tools for debugging and testing your application and other utility tools. You can access these in the <sdk>/tools/ directory of your SDK and read more about them in the Tools section of the developer guide.
• SDK Platform-tools — Contains tools that are required to develop and debug your application, but which are developed alongside the Android platform in order to support the latest features. These tools are typically updated only when a new platform becomes available. You can access these in the <sdk>/platform-tools/ directory. Read more about them in the Tools section of the developer guide.
• Android platforms — An SDK platform is available for every production Android platform deployable to Android-powered devices. Each platform component includes a fully compliant Android library and system image, sample code, emulator skins, and any version specific tools. For detailed information about each platform, see the overview documents available under the section "Downloadable SDK Components," at left.
• USB Driver for Windows (Windows only) — Contains driver files that you can install on your Windows computer, so that you can run and debug your applications on an actual device. You do not need the USB driver unless you plan to debug your application on an actual Android-powered device. If you develop on Mac OS X or Linux, you do not need a special driver to debug your application on an Android-powered device. (See Developing on a Device for more information about developing on a real device.)
• Samples — Contains the sample code and apps available for each Android development platform. If you are just getting started with Android development, make sure to download the samples to your SDK.
• Documentation — Contains a local copy of the latest multiversion documentation for the Android framework API.

The Third party Add-ons provide components that allow you to create a development environment using a specific Android external library (such as the Google Maps library) or a customized (but fully compliant) Android system image. You can add additional Add-on repositories, by clicking Add Add-on Site.

Recommended Components

The SDK repository contains a range of components that you can download. Use the table below to determine which components you need, based on whether you want to set up a basic, recommended, or full development environment:











Once you've installed at least the basic configuration of SDK components, you're ready to start developing Android apps. The next section describes the contents of the Android SDK to familiarize you with the components you've just installed.

For more information about using the Android SDK and AVD Manager, see the Adding SDK Components document.

Step 5. Exploring the SDK (Optional)

Once you've installed the SDK and downloaded the platforms, documentation, and add-ons that you need, we suggest that you open the SDK directory and take a look at what's inside.

The table below describes the full SDK directory contents, with components installed.

add-ons/
Contains add-ons to the Android SDK development environment, which let you develop against external libraries that are available on some devices.


docs/
A full set of documentation in HTML format, including the Developer's Guide, API Reference, and other information. To read the documentation, load the file offline.html in a web browser.


platform-tools/
Contains development tools that may be updated with each platform release (from the Android SDK Platform-tools component). Tools in here include adb, dexdump, and others others that you don't typically use directly. These tools are separate from the generic development tools in the tools/ directory, because these tools may be updated in order to support new features in the latest Android platform, whereas the other tools have no dependencies on the platform version.


platforms/
Contains a set of Android platform versions that you can develop applications against, each in a separate directory.


<platform>/
Platform version directory, for example "android-1.6". All platform version directories contain a similar set of files and subdirectory structure.


data/
Storage area for default fonts and resource definitions.


images/
Storage area for default disk images, including the Android system image, the default userdata image, the default ramdisk image, and more. The images are used in emulator sessions.


skins/
A set of emulator skins available for the platform version. Each skin is designed for a specific screen resolution.


templates/
Storage area for file templates used by the SDK development tools.


tools/
This directory is used only by SDK Tools r7 and below for development tools that are specific to this platform version—it's not used by SDK Tools r8 and above.


android.jar
The Android library used when compiling applications against this platform version.


samples/
Sample code and apps that are specific to platform version.


tools/
Contains the set of development and profiling tools that are platform-independent, such as the emulator, the AVD and SDK Manager, ddms, hierarchyviewer and more. The tools in this directory may be updated at any time (from the Android SDK Tools component), independent of platform releases, whereas the tools in platform-tools/ may be updated based on the latest platform release.


SDK Readme.txt
A file that explains how to perform the initial setup of your SDK, including how to launch the Android SDK and AVD Manager tool on all platforms


SDK Manager.exe
Windows SDK only. A shortcut that launches the Android SDK and AVD Manager tool, which you use to add components to your SDK.


Optionally, you might want to add the location of the SDK's tools/ and platform-tools to your PATH environment variable, to provide easy access to the tools.


How to update your PATH

Next Steps

Once you have completed installation, you are ready to begin developing applications. Here are a few ways you can get started:

Set up the Hello World application

• If you have just installed the SDK for the first time, go to the Hello World tutorial. The tutorial takes you step-by-step through the process of setting up your first Android project, including setting up an Android Virtual Device (AVD) on which to run the application.

Following the Hello World tutorial is an essential first step in getting started with Android development.

Learn about Android

• Take a look at the Dev Guide and the types of information it provides
• Read an introduction to Android as a platform in What is Android?
• Learn about the Android framework and how applications run on it in Application Fundamentals
• Take a look at the Android framework API specification in the Reference tab

Explore the development tools

• Get an overview of the development tools that are available to you
• Read the Overview for how to develop an Android application.
• Read Developing on a Device to set up an Android-powered device to run and test your application.

Follow the Notepad tutorial

• The Notepad Tutorial shows you how to build a full Android application and provides helpful commentary on the Android system and API. The Notepad tutorial helps you bring together the important design and architectural concepts in a moderately complex application.

Following the Notepad tutorial is an excellent second step in getting started with Android development.

Explore some code

• The Android SDK includes sample code and applications for each platform version. You can browse the samples in the Resources tab or download them into your SDK using the Android SDK and AVD Manager. Once you've downloaded the samples, you'll find them in <sdk>/samples/<platform>/.

Visit the Android developer groups

• Take a look at the Community pages to see a list of Android developers groups. In particular, you might want to look at the Android Developers group to get a sense for what the Android developer community is like.

Troubleshooting

Ubuntu Linux Notes

• If you need help installing and configuring Java on your development machine, you might find these resources helpful:
  
  • https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Java
  • https://help.ubuntu.com/community/JavaInstallation
  
  
• Here are the steps to install Java and Eclipse, prior to installing the Android SDK and ADT Plugin.
  
  1. If you are running a 64-bit distribution on your development machine, you need to install the ia32-libs package using apt-get::
     
     

     apt-get install ia32-libs

     
     
  2. Next, install Java:
     

     apt-get install sun-java6-jdk

     
     
  3. The Ubuntu package manager does not currently offer an Eclipse 3.3 version for download, so we recommend that you download Eclipse from eclipse.org (http://www.eclipse.org/ downloads/). A Java or RCP version of Eclipse is recommended.
  4. Follow the steps given in previous sections to install the SDK and the ADT plugin.

Other Linux Notes

• If JDK is already installed on your development computer, please take a moment to make sure that it meets the version requirements listed in the System Requirements. In particular, note that some Linux distributions may include JDK 1.4 or Gnu Compiler for Java, both of which are not supported for Android development.

Based On: http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing.html

Sync Your Phone With Thunderbird - Funambol

Cooking with Linux - Linux, Thunderbird and the BlackBerry—a Love Story

July 1st, 2009 by Marcel Gagné in

• HOWTOs

Keeping various devices in sync with our Linux systems can be the source of nightmares for many. After all, asking for an open-source solution that can keep millions of smartphones, cell phones, e-mail clients, contact databases and calendars on the same planet, never mind the same page, seems akin to asking for the moon—to which Chez Marcel would like to ask, “Would you

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to Chez Marcel, where excellent Linux and open-source software finds its match with exquisite wines. Please, sit and make yourselves comfortable, mes amis. François was just getting ready to make his way to the cellar to get tonight's wine. Hurry, mon ami, and bring back the 2005 Vina Requingua Puerto Viejo Merlot from Chile that we were sampling, er, submitting to quality control earlier today. Vite, mon ami!

While we wait for his return, let me tell you about François' dilemma. He has multiple portable devices, including a BlackBerry, an Android phone and a Motorola RAZR, all of which he wants to synchronize with Evolution on his Linux notebook. On the store workstation, he uses Thunderbird instead, and at home, something else. Getting those contact lists, calendars and so on synchronized is easier than it sounds, and it all can be done with Linux and open-source software.

All this is possible, and easy, with a great little package from a company called Funambol. The software itself also is called Funambol, and it is freely distributed and open source. Essentially, it's a program that lets you perform over-the-air (also known as OTA) synchronization of your contacts, calendars and so on, using your cell phone or smartphone, desktop contact management software (Evolution, Thunderbird, Outlook and so forth) and other hardware. Part of the magic behind all of it is SyncML (Synchronization Markup Language), which also is known as Open Mobile Alliance Data Synchronization (OMA DS). SyncML is an open standard for synchronizing information, such as calendars and contacts, that is platform-independent. Several mobile phone manufacturers, such as Motorola, Nokia and Sony Ericsson, already include SyncML in their devices. SyncML also supports e-mail, which is handy for those needing (or just plain wanting) an alternative to proprietary products, like the BlackBerry.

Funambol consists of a server component and a client for your device or application. Start by getting your copy of Funambol server from funambol.org, and save it somewhere on your system. The package file, with a .bin extension, needs to be made executable before you execute it:

chmod +x funambol-7.1.bin ./funambol-7.1.bin 

The whole thing takes only a few seconds. The steps that follow are extremely simple. Type yes at the “agree to the above terms” prompt (it's the GPL version 3). You'll be prompted for an installation directory which, by default, is /opt. It's best to accept the default unless you have a very good reason to do otherwise. The resulting folder will be /opt/Funambol. Once the product has been extracted, you'll be asked whether you want to start the server. Type yesand continue on. To make sure things are working properly, point your browser to http://localhost:8080/funambol/ds, and you should get status information back from the Funambol data synchronization server (Figure 1).

Figure 1. A Quick Test to Make Sure the Server Is Up and Running

Of course, if you aren't running this test directly on the server, you'll want to change localhost to the hostname or IP address of the server.

Funambol also comes with a simple Web app to test the contact as well as calendar creation and update before you turn it over to your mobile device. Point your browser to http://localhost:8080/funambol to bring up the demo page. You won't be able to do a great deal at this point, other than read the terms and conditions and test a very limited Web client. That demonstration will allow you to log in as guest with a password of guest and create contacts (Figure 2) or a calendar entry. Once you have done so, update a record or two, and make sure the changes are being saved.

Figure 2. The Web client demo lets you create calendars and contacts, making it a better test.

Now that you know it works, you still can't do a great deal with Funambol in this form. In order to do more interesting things, you need to do a little system configuration. On the server side, there is a graphical administration tool. You can start it from the command line like this:

cd /opt/Funambol admin/bin/funamboladmin 

A couple seconds later, you'll see the Funambol administration tool appear (Figure 3). To use the administration tool, you first need to log in. If you don't see the login window up front, click File on the menu bar, and select Login. By default, the admin password, sa, already is set (you always can change it later), but for now, simply click Login.

Figure 3. Funambol Administration Tool and Login Screen

The Funambol administration tool is divided into three panes: a navigator pane fills the top left half, an admin tool pane is at the top right, and a status pane is located along the bottom (Figure 4). Take a look at the navigator window, and you will see your system's domain name at the top. To expand the system tree, click the switch icon next to the domain name. You'll then see Server Settings (which expands into its own subtree), Users, Devices, Principals and Modules. That last one also expands into several other branches. To see how this all works and how you can configure and change things, let's deal with that admin password right now.

Figure 4. On the left, you can see the Funambol administration tool's system navigator with several expanded properties.

Double-click on Users and look at the admin tool window (Figure 5). The Search Users tool appears. You can search by user name, first name, last name and e-mail address. Enter admin in the search box beside Username, and click the Search button (notice that you can search by a part of the name as well as position of the text by clicking the drop-down box beside the label). Only one admin name should show up, so it naturally will be highlighted. If you did this by searching for part of a name, and you had multiple names, you would, of course, need to select the correct name.

Figure 5. Using the Tool to Change the Admin Password

Click the Edit button, change the password, and then save your changes. That takes care of controlling access to the tool. Your next step is to define access to the system. As it stands, your Funambol implementation allows connections only from localhost and then only to a limited set of users. You need to change that. Double-click on Server Settings in the navigator window. Now, look to the left and locate the Server URI field in the settings window (Figure 6).

Figure 6. As a final first step, you need to configure the URI to the Funambol service on your server.

Enter the hostname (or the IP address) of your server, then click Save. You should see a confirmation message in the status window below. It should look something like this:

http://yourdomain.com:8080/funambol/ds 

Believe it or not, that's pretty much it on the server end. Now, let's take a break, have François refill everyone's glass, and then let's see what we need to do on the BlackBerry end of things.

The first step is to install the BlackBerry client, which you can find at https://www.forge.funambol.org/download/downloads-bb.html. You will see an e-mail client in addition to the sync client, but, for the sake of this article, let's just concentrate on the sync client. Make sure you get the right client for your particular BlackBerry OS version.

Note:

In this article, I concentrate on BlackBerry synchronization with a Linux system, but remember that Funambol offers sync clients for many different mobile devices and smartphones. Simply point your browser to www.forge.funambol.org/download to find the right client for your mobile device. You even can sync your Android phone.

Once installed, you will see the Funambol BlackBerry sync icon in your list of applications on the BlackBerry screen (Figure 7).

Figure 7. The Funambol Client Icon as It Appears on My BlackBerry

Click the icon, and you should see a status screen showing Contacts, Calendar, Tasks and Notes, all with Not Synchronized below the labels. To perform a sync, you need to configure the client. Press the menu key on your BlackBerry, and select Settings (Figure 8).

Figure 8. Press the menu key to configure the client settings.

When the Funambol client configuration screen appears (Figure 9), enter the URI for your machine's Funambol server. This is the same address that you entered when you configured the server. You also must enter your user name and password—that's your Linux server user name and password. A little farther down that screen, there are check boxes beside labels to Sync Contacts, Sync Calendar, Sync Tasks and Sync Notes. These are all checked by default, but you may decide you don't want to sync all those resources, so change it here if you like. You also can configure a scheduled sync and have the client update your information every 30 minutes (the default) or whatever period makes sense to you. That feature is not turned on unless you specify otherwise.

Figure 9. Funambol BlackBerry Client's Configuration Screen

When you're done, save your settings (on my BlackBerry, I just press the trackball or the back arrow). You'll find yourself back at the status screen, and now you're ready to synchronize for the first time. Press the menu key, and select Sync All from the menu. The Funambol client will connect with your server and start transferring the information on your BlackBerry. Underneath the labels for Contacts (and Calendar and so on), the client will show how many records are being transferred. Once complete, the status screen lists the last successful sync for each resource (Figure 10).

Figure 10. During synchronization, the status screen shows you the number of records transferred. Once complete, you can see the latest sync at a glance.

This is all wonderful, because the Funambol server effectively is keeping an over-the-air backup of your data—handy if you ever need to reload it. But, what if you use another client on your Linux desktop for e-mail, contacts and appointments, such as Evolution or Thunderbird? Funambol provides download clients for these and others as well. Figure 11 shows a screenshot of a pretty desolate-looking address book in Thunderbird.

Figure 11. My Thunderbird Address Book, without Any Contacts

The plugin you need for Thunderbird is available from the Funambol community download page. Download it, and save it to a local directory. Once that's done, click Tools on the Thunderbird menu bar and select Add-ons. When the Add-ons window appears, click the Install button, and navigate to the folder where you stored the file, then click on it and install it. Once finished, Thunderbird needs to restart to load the new extension. After Thunderbird restarts, you must configure the Funambol client to connect to your server. Click Tools from the menu bar, and select Funambol plugin. When the Funambol PIM Plugin window appears, click the Options button, and you'll see a screen that, although shinier than the one on the BlackBerry, is similar as it asks for the same information, namely the server URL, user name and password (Figure 12). Enter the information, then click Close.

Figure 12. Configuring the Funambol Thunderbird Plugin

That's it. To synchronize Thunderbird with the contacts from my BlackBerry, all I do is click the Synchronize button and wait while my contacts are transferred (Figure 13). How long this takes depends, of course, on how much information is being synchronized and how fast your connection is.

Figure 13. The Thunderbird Sync Plugin Happily Doing What It Is Built to Do

In this way, I can keep my desktop client in sync with my BlackBerry and the server itself. As an added bonus, I get over-the-air backup with my own server without having to shell out the dollars for a BES server. Funambol, Linux and my BlackBerry—it's a match made in open-source heaven.

With the help of Funambol, a great open-source application, you (and François), can keep all that personal information in sync without having to resort to entering the information manually or paying huge sums of money for a special server running proprietary code. Well, mes amis, the time is finally upon us. That old clock on the wall says closing time has arrived yet again. François will be happy to refill your glasses a final time while we say our goodbyes to one another. Please, mes amis, raise your glasses, and let us all drink to one another's health. A votre santé! Bon appétit!

Resources

Funambol: funambol.org

Funambol Downloads Page: https://www.forge.funambol.org/download

Funambol Community Projects: https://www.forge.funambol.org/participate/projects.html

Mozilla Thunderbird: www.mozilla.com/thunderbird

Open Mobile Alliance (the Home of SyncML): www.openmobilealliance.org

Marcel's Web Site: marcelgagne.com

Cooking with Linux: cookingwithlinux.com

WFTL Bytes!: wftlbytes.com

Marcel Gagné is an award-winning writer living in Waterloo, Ontario. He is the author of the Moving to Linux series of books from Addison-Wesley. Marcel is also a pilot, a past Top-40 disc jockey, writes science fiction and fantasy, and folds a mean Origami T-Rex. He can be reached via e-mail atmarcel@marcelgagne.com. You can discover lots of other things (including great Wine links) from his Web sites at marcelgagne.com andcookingwithlinux.com.

Taken From: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/10486

Extract Cab Files From EXE - Pocket PC

Hi there,

I recently bougth a HTC Diamond, which unfortunately is not linux based.

I started to download some aplications and noticed that many off them were exe files for Windows XP or Vista, so i had to use Windows XP or Vista via Active Sync to install them, and that some were cab which i could copy to my PDA via Windows or Linux if when i pluged in the usb cable i select the disk option an not active sync, which made my PDA apear as a USB Pen Drive.

Later on e noticed that the Windows XP or Vista exe, only copied a cab file and executed.
So i tried to find were did the cab was and found that the cab file was temporaly in:

Windows\AppMgr\Install

so i thougth that i could catch the cab rigth before installing it, and i succeded.


Basicly what i did was to execute the exe in Windows Xp, them PDA asked if i wanted to install the cab that the exe on Windows XP tranfered i said yes, and that's when you reach the below screen




Now i hit the home button on the PDA to select the file explorer in order to copy the cab, that is temporarily at Windows\AppMgr\Install to another location on PDA, so that you can store it on your PC so that when you want to install it i can do it from linux.

So i selected the explorer as shown bellow.





And went to Windows\AppMgr\Install where the cab was temporarily and copied it to another location on my PDA and canceled the install process in the first picture, but if you wan you can install.

I have tried to copy the cab before the screen on the first picture when it asks if you want to install, but it keep disapering, and the instalation being canceled.

And thats it! Happy Cab Hunt!