- When your download completes, unzip the folder at specific location where you want to install Eclipse IDE and double click on eclipse.exe file. It'll ask you to specify the location of your workspace, where all your projects will be stored. You can also take default suggestions and then click OK.
- Creating Android Application Projects.
- Provide Tools to access Android Emulators and Devices.
- Compile and Debug Android Application.
- Export Android Application into APKs (Android Packages).
- Creation of Digital Certificate for code-signing application APK.
So this is how you can configure ADT Plugin and configure Eclipse for Android Application Development.
DDMS Perspective
At the right corner of your Eclipse IDE, you will find DDMS option, click on it.
It will open a different view for you to debug your android application as image below. So to debug your application you can switch to this view. As displayed, left panel will have list of running emulators or connected devices. In the middle, it will have options like Threads, Heap, Allocation Tracker, Network Statistics, File Explorer, Emulator Control, System Information, Progress etc.
File Explorer will help you to browse through the content of the selected device in the left panel.
Emulator Control provides you the power to Make Test Call, Send Test Message, Control the Phone Location from it. So if your application is built to handle any of these functionalities, you can test it using DDMS.
There are lot of other options also, that you will get to know as you develop applications. To come back to the main JAVA view, click again on >> icon on right corner and select JAVA from the list.
Now you know how to set up Eclipse IDE for Android Application development and start app development with it. In our next lesson, we will learn about Android Studio & its features which is replacement for Eclipse from Google itself.
