Tutorial: Getting Started with Android Plateform

Google has recently released the Android platform for developing Mobile applications. The language used for developing Android programs, is Java. But, it is not j2me. 

No wireless application developer can ignore Android. Google is the best known brand name, among the users of the web and Android comes from Google.. 

I am presenting this hands-on tutorial, as a sequel to my j2me series. Adequate knowledge of core-java , especially, Event-handling , Swing and inner-classes is assumed. Though Android does not make use of Swing, it uses similar ideas.

We can develop Android lessons and applications in Eclipse environment. Google have provided an Eclipse-plugin for Android. This is the popular method. Google have not given direct support to Netbeans. But, some Netbeans users have developed a method for running Android in Netbeans .It is available at http://undroid.nolimit.cz/. You can find more screenshots and guidance in:

http://eppleton.com/blog/.

But, we can develop Android lessons without using either Eclipse or Netbeans. The necessary command-line tools have been provided by Google. I found that using these command-line tools is easier than either Eclipse or Netbeans method. So, I am basing all the following lessons on these tools. I think, most readers will agree with my view, after they try this method as well as Eclipse method. The Android site at 'code.google.com/android' has already given step-by-step instructions about Android in Eclipse. You can also get more details with screen shots from a wonderful website

at www.tanguay.info/web/welcome.php" 

titled 'Edward's Web Developer site'. He gives excellent guidance with plenty of screen shots But, the Android site lacks clarity, about the command-line method. Hence, I think I am adding something useful by writing on command-line method instead of simply repeating the material ,in Android site.

Let us begin from the beginning. The first step is downloading the Android SDK from code.google.com/android/download

(version m5-rc14, Feb-12, 2008). Android was released in November, 2007 . It has been revised in the Feb-2008 version.Some of the earlier examples may not work in the newer version.

I am working in Windows-2000 and so I downloaded the windows version. The supported platform in Windows is either Windows-XP or Vista.( Mac OS 10 & Ubuntu Linux are the other platforms mentioned). However, it works well in my Win-2000. It is advisable to have atleast 512MB memory. The android SDK is a zip file. I unzipped it to C:\unzipped\android and later, I copied that folder to d:\android. If you want, you can simply copy it to another drive like g:\android also. In the following lessons

d:\android. is used.

If you want to develop using Eclipse, you must have installed either Eclipse3.2 or Eclipse3.3(Europa). I have tested with Eclipse3.2. No problem.It works. But, we require ADT (ie) Android Development Tools plugin for Eclipse, if you are using Eclipse.You can get this plugin from code.google.com/android/adt_download.You have to be careful about the ADT version number.It is ADT-0.3.3.

As my present focus is on command-line method, let me begin straight away and give a simple demo.

The procedure given here is common for all our experiments and so I will not be repeating it in each demo. So, please note it down carefully.

In my first demo, I will have a customary button and textbox ( called EditField in Android). When I click the button, I want the message "SUCCESS!" to be displayed in textbox. Just as an exercise, I am using two buttons and two textboxes.

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Courtesy:- Geeth.ganesan.googlepages.com/